Free Press – February 14, 2008

Internet Schools (Pt.2), Supreme Court Poll, Paul Clymer

Dear Friends,

Good morning. When I looked at a Free Press story about the Quakertown school district becoming part of the “Virtual High School” (VHS), I thought of a New York Times article about online schooling.

“For kids yearning to learn anything from Mandarin Chinese, Animal Behavior to a whole slew of engineering courses worth college credit, Quakertown is planning on becoming the place to be this fall,” Kyle Gargan and David Anderson wrote (Jan. 31). “And instead of using the old approach and bringing in a team of highly trained Chinese Zoologists, the Quakertown Community School District is taking advantage of online learning and becoming part of the Virtual High School.”

A Quakertown teacher will use the Internet to instruct 25 students from any school that supports VHS and in return, Quakertown will have the opportunity to have 25 of its students take courses around the world that can’t or aren’t being offered here. It’s a fabulous concept.

Bravo Quakertown schools!

Here’s another style of online schooling and why teachers unions and school boards may not be enthusiastic about its implementation.

“Weekday mornings, three of Tracie Weldie’s children eat breakfast, make beds and trudge off to public school- in their case, downstairs to their basement in a Milwaukee suburb, where their mother leads them through math and other lessons outlined by an Internet- based charter school,” the New York Times lead paragraph on page one read (Feb. 1).

“Half a million American children take classes online, with a significant group, like the Weldies, getting all their schooling from virtual public schools. The rapid growth of these schools has provoked debates in courtrooms and legislatures over money, as the schools compete with local districts for millions in public dollars, and over issues like whether online learning is appropriate for young children.”

Here’s the paragraph, which has public schools and the teachers unions worried.

“The Wisconsin Virtual Academy has 20 certified, unionized teachers, and 800 students who communicate with one another over the Internet,” the NYT continued. That’s the equivalent of one teacher per 40 students.

Teachers’ unions and administrators insist that smaller classrooms…with 20 to 25 kids…are the key to improving public education. But we also know that Asian schools have 40 students in a typical classroom.

By my arithmetic, the difference between the Internet classroom with a teacher and 40 students, versus our public schools with 25 students in a classroom computes to less teachers needed.

If the Quakertown school district has about 5,500 students and the ideal classroom size is 25, you’d expect 220 teachers. But if the Internet classroom could handle 40 students instead of 25, you’d need only 138 teachers…or 82 fewer teachers. Let’s assume that the average teacher with benefits costs $60,000. If I’m correct, that could be an annual savings of $4.2 million! What would that do to your school tax, annually?

Look at the key NYT paragraph. “In 2004, the teachers’ union filed a lawsuit against the [Milwaukee] school, challenging the expansive role given to parents, who must spend four to five hours daily leading their children through lesson plans and overseeing their work. Teachers monitor student progress and answer questions in a couple of half-hour telephone conferences per month and in interactive online classes using conferencing software held several times monthly.”

A Wisconsin state court dismissed the suit.

Would the Quakertown school district consider teaching children in their homes via the Internet? Think of the classrooms we wouldn’t have to build…the teachers we wouldn’t have to hire.

The idea is so intriguing, I must be wrong. Stay tuned.

Item.

One of my rowing friends is a retired lawyer. We belong to a book club, which meets five times a year. The book, which I’ve selected for discussion this month, is “The Nine” (inside the secret world of the U. S. Supreme Court) by Jeffrey Toobin. To keep us focused, Francis Ballard produced a poll in advance. Would you faithful readers participate in the poll?

Francis identified three cases, which await a Supreme Court ruling this year. He asked us to predict their outcome: 1. Will the three-stage chemical “cocktail” used by Kentucky and 28 other states in the execution of criminals be held unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment? 2. Is the Indiana statute requiring voters to produce government- issued photo identification at the polls an unconstitutional burden? And 3. Is the District of Columbia ordinance banning handguns a violation of the Second Amendment?

Please send an email, post card or telephone call with your answers.

Final item.

State Representative Paul Clymer (R-145^th District) may be facing serious competition in November. Tom Peterson, a 59 year-old teacher from Milford Township, is challenging Clymer who has represented Upper Bucks for nearly 30 years.

Clymer is very popular and usually breezes to victory. On several occasions, no Democrat ran against him. But the November election promises to be different. Peterson is the type who’ll knock on doors. If his message falls upon sympathetic ears, Clymer could be in trouble.

Stay tuned.

Sincerely,

Charles Meredith