Utah Connections Academy Student: Online School Helps Me Succeed

Sophia Perkins writes in the Deseret News:

I attend online school at Utah Connections Academy. There are many reasons as to why I am thankful for this school option: I am able to move at my own pace, I have done so much better than I did in traditional school, and it helps with my schedule. When I attended traditional high school, I wasn’t able to move at my own pace; sometimes I needed to go slower and other times I wanted to go faster. In online school I can take my time, and even if I fall behind I don’t feel pressured to constantly get caught up — this helps especially in math.

Online school, honestly, helped me become more successful in my academic career. I have a very time-dependent schedule. I am a teen parent, which I am proud of, and I am also working on getting a part-time job. Attending UCA helps me because I can work around my own schedule and at my own pace. The main reason I am thankful for UCA is the teachers and all their help. They always respond to every webmail I send, call me when I need them to, and help in live lessons. No matter how many times I ask, they are always very helpful.

Sophia Perkins

West Valley City

Charter Schools Are Working for Kids and Parents. Here’s How We Can Tell That Story

There are various views about public school choice coming out of the 2016 election. Some choice advocates view the Trump administration as more committed to school choice in all its forms than the Obama administration’s “pro-charter, anti-voucher” posture.

A less sunny view is based on elections results in “blue” Massachusetts and “red” Georgia, where voters in both states soundly rejected pro-school choice ballot initiatives. National surveys showing strong support for choice may be masking ambivalence or outright hostility at the state or local level.

Read more here.

Oregon girl shines under Broadway's bright lights and attends virtual school

Washington County resident Bobbi Mackenzie Chambers remembers what renowned composer Andrew Lloyd Webber told her when they met for the first time. 

The pint-sized tween walked into a room with a giant piano and began to sing “If Only You Would Listen,” her final audition song for a role in Lloyd Webber’s latest Broadway musical. 

“The last two lines he said to me were, ‘You always wanted to be on Broadway? Well, welcome to Broadway,’” remembers Bobbi, 11. 

Last year, she and her father moved from their home in Tigard to New York City to pursue that career dream.

Keep reading here.

Education options in the UP: Online School

HANCOCK, Mich. (WLUC) - Like the internet that makes it possible, online learning has many applications. Types of courses vary, as well as the extent that students study online. Some do it full-time, but many use it as a supplement to traditional school. For example, high school senior Libby Rogan at Dollar Bay High School takes Spanish II online.

“I'm taking it because my school only offers one year of foreign language, and the colleges I'm applying to require at least two years,” she said.

Proponents, like Finlandia University officials, say online learning spreads resources across the country and world. The school runs several online classes designed for high school students who don't live near a university. They can dual-enroll in the courses for college credit.

Continue reading this article here.

School choice saves taxpayers money

An important element of this conversation, however, is the fact that not only do school choice programs empower parents and change students’ lives for the better, but they also save taxpayers money.

In our new report, The Tax-Credit Scholarship Audit, we looked at 10 tax-credit scholarship programs in seven states between 1997 and 2014. These programs serve 93 percent of all students participating nationwide. Tax-credit scholarships allow individuals and sometimes businesses to reduce their state tax liability by making a private donation to a nonprofit organization that in turn provides scholarships for children to attend private schools of their choice.

Read more here. 

Virtual high school classes on the rise

Little over two years ago, a couple of San Diego teenagers earned high school diplomas after taking every class since kindergarten via computers through an online charter school.

Their stories were considered a novelty at the time. Since then, the concept of computers as classrooms has moved closer to the mainstream.

More and more students have turned to computers for a chance to quickly re-take failed courses needed to graduate high school, while others enroll in classes for the first time — including Advanced Placement courses not offered on their campuses.

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JEDI Program Provides Options for Lake Mills High School Students

While students at Lake Mills High School have a wide variety of “in-house” courses to choose from, there are several additional courses that can be taken virtually through the JEDI Program.

The Jefferson Eastern Dane Initiative (JEDI) has existed in some form at Lake Mills High School for more than a decade now.

The program, which is used by 10 districts across the Jefferson, Dane, Rock, Juneau, Green and Walworth Country areas, allows students the opportunity to take online classes not being offered through their school districts.

Keep reading here.

A virtual school science whiz kid is heading to the world’s biggest high school science fair

A Riverside student who traveled to Washington, D.C., for a national science competition will now compete on a worldwide scale in May.

James Fagan, 10, a seventh-grader at Riverside's Educational Options Center, which includes a virtual school, created a wind tunnel to test the effectiveness of different wing designs.

His placement at a four-county science fair led him to a national competition known as BroadcomMASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars).

Read more about James when you click here.

Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to introduce the modern concept of school choice

Wisconsin has several school-choice programs; figures released by the State Department of Education show that all of the programs saw ample growth in attendance. Matt Frendewey with the American Federation for Children spoke with OneNewsNow.

"The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program ... started in 1990 with just 337 students in the program," he notes. "And now, 26 years later, there are over 28,000 students in the program."

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, which is considered the nation's first modern private school-choice program, offers private school vouchers to low-income students in the Milwaukee district.

Frendewey doesn't anticipate the demand from parents for more choice will dwindle.

Keep reading here. 

Michigan sees spike in K-12 online school enrollment

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — More and more parents in Michigan are choosing online schools versus the traditional brick and mortar education.

When the state began allowing online schooling in 2010, there were around 400 students enrolled.

This year, more than 1,700 kids are enrolled at Michigan Connections Academy (MICA), which is a K-12 virtual school.

Continue reading here.