Contacting Policy Makers -- Will it Make a Difference?

 I've been having a discussion with some colleagues about what it will take to get some changes in both the way we prepare folks to run our k-12 schools and how we get them to understand more about online learning. 

We've seen, over the past year and a half, that educational leaders in general, don't have a good idea of what high-quality online learning looks like, or what it takes to make it happen.  Our past experience with emergency remote instruction (sometimes called virtual education) was generally not the best experience.  

(I do try to mention, when I have the opportunity, that not all on-campus learning experiences are wonderful.)

What is clear, there's been little preparation in teacher preservice education or in educational leadership programs that helped to prepare the education community for a totally virtual experience.

One colleague suggested that the state legislative education committees might be a way to influence policy.  Hmmm.  So, this week I sent a message to every member of both the Texas Senate and House education committees.  But since I'm not in any of their districts it will be interesting to see if there's even an acknowledgment.

Here's the message:

Distance learning, correspondence course, virtual learning, online learning, emergency remote learning, Zoom school. Do those terms each bring to mind a different image of education? In 1960 a computer-based instruction, called Plato began. In 1995 I was part of the team that created the first virtual high school in the United States.  Virtual instruction has been well researched and has refined and improved in quality over the past two-plus decades. There are quality standards for virtual education.

Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic forced schools to abandon what they knew best how to do, and rushed into emergency remote learning, often with little though and planning. Students and teachers were asked to do things they were totally unfamiliar with. It is not surprising then that emergency remote learning was not as successful as on-campus instruction. 

But, emergency remote learning was not and will not be the same as virtual schooling. There are many different approaches to virtual education, some are synchronous, the longer established are more often asynchronous. There are studies of virtual education programs that report no significant difference in student learning between online and on-campus learning. There has been little research that evaluates the issues with emergency remote learning. Like with virtual education, there are many flavors of emergency remote learning and trying to paint them all with the same brush does a disservice to the field.

My purpose in writing is point out that policies that use the term virtual or online education as a catch-all, are mixing the good, long-established, and studied programs with the hurriedly put together emergency remote instruction.

Language is important. Quality is important. Experience contributes to high quality online learning. Not all online learning is of high quality. Not all on-campus learning is of high quality. But there are wonderful, high-quality examples of learning in both approaches. Please don’t prevent schools from replicating or creating high quality online learning programs. The students will benefit.