Tacoma-FWay Internet partnership makes sense
THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: May 29th, 2007 01:00 AM
For some teenagers, the idea of sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher’s lecture is as painful as, well, fingernails on a blackboard. They’d much rather be sitting at their computers for hours on end.
Now they can – and still be going to school.
Online classes are a good alternative for those students who have trouble learning in conventional settings, need flexibility because they work, require supplemental coursework for home-schooling or have other issues interfering with attending a bricks-and-mortar school.
Now the Tacoma School District is considering a way to greatly expand online opportunities for those students. The district will soon decide whether to enter into a partnership with Federal Way’s Internet Academy that would make 450 online class slots available to Tacoma students who could either enroll full time or take selected courses online. It would be the first such partnership between public school districts in the state.
The idea – which must yet be approved by both the Tacoma and Federal Way school boards – makes a lot of sense.
Tacoma would keep its state funding for online students and hire three teachers for the Internet Academy — which is already providing course work for about 20 Tacoma students. Tacoma would get the benefit of the Federal Way district’s 11 years of experience in providing online education, while the Internet Academy would expand by almost 25 percent, making it more competitive with for-profit online programs.
With the growing trend toward distance learning, public schools – and teachers unions – have a stake in seeing that the expanding market isn’t dominated by profit-making enterprises. And with dropout rates alarmingly high, it’s vital that schools find creative ways to keep more kids taking classes – and lure back ones who have left.
If that means they’re parked in front of a computer instead of sitting in a classroom, that’s OK. It’s the end result – a good education – that is important.
Learn more
Visit the Federal Way School District’s Internet Academy Web site at www.iacademy.org.
