But there’s no need for Carlsbad High School students to sign up, officials said, because the district already offers a virtual high school.

Kelly Barta, Carlsbad Municipal Schools director of secondary instruction, said the school district implemented its virtual high school as a pilot program this year and opened it to a handful of students. The 2012-13 school year will allow more students to participate.

Unlike Carlsbad’s virtual school, the N.M. Virtual Academy will offer individualized programs to students in grades six through 11 next year. The school will expand to offer 12th grade the following year.

“Our virtual education program allows our students to walk across the stage with the graduating class to receive their diploma. They will continue to be Carlsbad High School students,” Barta said.

“Farmington is using the K-12 online program. Our virtual program is the E20-20, an online curriculum that coincides and goes along with our classroom teachers’ instruction. We did not fully implement the virtual high school this year because we wanted to try it out and see how it goes.”

Barta said the pilot program was implemented by the school district to keep students

in school and increase the district’s graduation rate.
“We want to become a 21st century school system to educate and support our 21st century students,” Barta said.

For the rest of the article, go to  ’Virtual’ high school part of CHS curriculum

That’s what SODA’s Principal Michael Ogas stresses most about Valencia County’s only state authorized charter school in Los Lunas.

The school, which is home to 15 teachers, 280 students and six computer labs, utilizes a cutting-edge software, or “courseware” program, called Education2020, which provides students with a virtual classroom setting on their computers that teaches them their core classes at their own pace.

The courseware creates a one-on-one experience for students, and since work is completed at a student’s own pace, a student is able to advance to the next grade level if they are able, as well as work on their assignments at home.

And of course, in addition to E2020, each class has a teacher to instruct and help students in person. The courseware is not only aligned to state standards, but national standards as well, meaning SODA students are being educated at a national academic level.

For the rest of the article, go to School of Dreams teaches students more than the basics

Throw in school choice, rigor, competition, technology (online schooling) and an admirable reminder that we focus on the needs of the children and the battle is joined. This would be a good time for you to consult the Sun-News (or pay 50 cents for access to my files) and read both columns before comes the definitive word.

You’re a pretty sharp bunch. You have to decipher the lot of us assailing you from the pages of the Sun-News, but there are still a few of you to whom I feel an obligation to clarify things regarding education. That would be those afflicted by Bill O’Reilly and his ilk, who translate a brief, personal experience in the classroom into a much broader expertise.

For the rest of the article, go to Their View: Fixing our schools and the money to do it

Idaho, for example, has offered virtual classes for years because that instructional approach gives kids in its many rural communities greater access to courses. Still, the state has never made such courses mandatory, prior to the present proposal. Only Tennessee, Michigan, and Alabama require students to either take an online course or have an “online experience” in a class to graduate. In New Mexico, students must either take an honors, dual-credit or distance-learning class. That’s still a far cry from requiring kids to take 20 percent of their courses online, which is what is being proposed in Idaho.

For the rest of the article, go to Cash-strapped states consider virtual classes, despite lack of research

As technology changes and evolves, the world of education and teaching will undoubtedly change. Teachers across the country must stay ahead of the curve.

Although some teachers and the unions see school choice as foreboding for the public school outlook, school choice encompasses empowerment for the parent to choose an environment that employs teachers in all arenas. A new era has been ushered in for education. Once limited to rigid traditional school terms and schedules, teachers are employed in traditional public schools, charters, private schools, religious schools, and online schools just to name a few. Educators will in turn have choices themselves when deciding when, where and how to teach kids.

For the rest of the article, go to School Choice Offers Opportunity for the Teaching Profession

Come take a look!

But, there is no reason why government has to actually run the schools. Government could simply provide a regulatory framework for the schools and allow them to be managed privately to serve diverse student needs. Unfortunately, government, for too long has locked us into a costly, one-size-fits-all educational model that was created more than 100 years ago.

For the rest of the article, go to Their View: Correcting misperceptions of limited government

However, he doesn’t know if the program will accept new students. He plans to keep e2020 around and use it to provide remedial and online or dual-credit courses to traditional students.

Portales High School Principal Melvin Nusser said the school staff was working on Graduate New Mexico’s goals even without the initiative.

For the rest of the article, go to State initiative trying to reach high school dropouts

In the one area involving education that has generated noticeable friction between the candidates Martinez also has said she supports giving students and their families the opportunity of ‘school choice.’ Martinez has defined that as giving families the opportunity to choose whether to attend their neighborhood public school or a charter school, vocational school, or a virtual classroom.

The Denish campaign had another word for Martinez’s position — vouchers, a controversial idea in educational circles.

For the rest of the article, go to Denish, Martinez debate will highlight education challenges in NM