Indiana Virtual School Partners with EdisonLearning for Online Education Options

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., May 24, 2017 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Indiana Virtual School announces that it will be partnering with international education services provider – EdisonLearning – to expand and enhance the delivery of online courses to students and school corporations across the State of Indiana.

The new partnership will continue to focus on offering online courses to those students who, because of changing life circumstances, find a virtual educational experience more aligned with their current needs. 

In addition to the new EdisonLearning eCourses, Indiana Virtual will continue to deliver online courses developed and provided by PLATO and Florida Virtual. With this addition, Indiana Virtual will offer more online course offerings than any other virtual school in the State of Indiana.

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Virtual school offers alternatives

Field trips, commencement, even dances—all aspects of a traditional school experience that might fall by the wayside in a digital learning environment.

But North Carolina Connections Academy has found a way to blend the two concepts, using virtual classrooms, enrichment and student engagement to bring students and families an alternative education system right in their own living rooms.

“We are a charter school; we are our own local education agency,” Connections Academy Superintendent Nathan Currie said. “Next April, we’ll be having prom, and the year after that we’ll be having graduation.”

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Test scores are not enough to measure school choice success

A report from the Education Department’s Institute of Education Science made waves last week as it found the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (D.C. OSP) — the nation’s only federal private school choice program – negatively impacted student test scores in the first year of participation.

Indeed, there is more work to do to ensure all students who benefit from school choice can excel beginning on day one.

But the IES findings shouldn’t cast doubt on the efficacy of private school choice, which has proved, time and again, to be a game-changer for students.

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True grit: Missing 120 days of school to becoming co-valedictorian

Sarah Penney, 19, a senior at Maine Virtual Academy, is about to graduate in June. The South Thomaston teenager wasn't sure she'd ever get to this day. "It sounds like a cliché but it feels like a dream come true," she said.

Up until the past two years, Penney has suffered from flu-like symptoms, and the very occasional headache, which caused her to miss a tremendous amount of school.

"I had vertigo and light sensitivity," she said. "I was constantly nauseous and couldn't keep anything down. It generally just made me feel like I had severe stomach flu symptoms mixed with the after effects of a particularly nightmarish teacup ride."

For 10 years, doctors misdiagnosed her symptoms as a sinus infection combined with allergies, due to how her symptoms appeared seasonal. All of the medications and antibiotics she was prescribed only made the symptoms worse.

Penney said she didn't get an accurate diagnosis until her sophomore year in high school, 2014.

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Most Californians now support school choice: study

Most Californians (60%), and especially parents of children in public schools (66%), are now in favor of school choice.  This is one of several findings in a report issued last week by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) based on a statewide survey conducted by the nonpartisan research organization.

The survey asked the question, “Do you favor or oppose providing parents with tax-funded vouchers to send their children to any public, private, or parochial school they choose?”  When responses were disaggregated for ethnicity, it was found that African Americans (73%) and Latinos (69%) were more likely than other racial/ethnic groups to be in favor.

While the finding was seen by some as shocking, according to Dr. Lamont Francies, pastor of Antioch’s Delta Bay Church of Christ, it should not have come as a surprise.

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Online K-12 school with statewide reach forms early college aimed at getting students associate degree, diploma

An online charter school that educates children from all over Louisiana is joining a small fraternity of public schools in the state that provides eligible students a pathway to earning an associate degree while they are still in high school.

University View Academy, formerly Louisiana Connections Academy, is launching its Early College High School in the fall and will include as many as 100 of its more than 250 ninth-graders. 

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Opinion: Offer more school choice to African-American students

David Mitchell is founder, CEO and president of Better Outcomes for Our Kids or BOOK. An Atlanta-based nonprofit, BOOK promotes school choice options, including traditional public schools, public charters, virtual schools and home schools to the African-American community.

In this piece, Mitchell discusses why choice is critical to raising the academic performance of African-American students.

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Charter school advocates cheer big win in Florida education budget

School choice proponents celebrated a major victory Monday after Florida lawmakers approved a far-reaching education budget that will allocate more than $400 million to charter schools and teacher bonuses.

Senate Democrats, as well as three Republicans, opposed the bill, losing in a narrow 20-18 vote. But the legislation received widespread support in the House, where it passed 73-36.

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Sisters use Massachusetts online school so they can take the stage

Getting a shot to perform for a national Broadway tour can take dozens of auditions and callbacks for most, but for two Franklin sisters, one audition — on a whim — was all they needed to get a spot in the production of “Annie The Musical” that arrives in Boston next week.

Even though it was their first Broadway tour audition, Katie and Amanda Wylie are no newcomers to the theater — 9-year-old Katie and 11-year-old Amanda have been training at summer camps and Franklin School for the Performing Arts for years now. The countless hours they’ve spent practicing singing, dancing, and acting has turned them into what their mom, Kristen Wylie, and the theater world call triple threats.

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Letter: Online school inspired education

In 2013, I graduated from Ohio Connections Academy. I enrolled in the online charter school before my junior year because I had a very difficult experience in my previous school. I had grown to hate everything about school (especially my math courses) and I didn’t care if I finished high school.

College wasn’t even a consideration. Once I started at OCA, I discovered I could learn at my own pace and my teachers motivated me to dive deeper into subjects that interested me. Along the way, I started to love studying and learning and I even found that I actually liked science. Four years later I’m graduating from the University of Alabama with degrees in physics and mathematics and minors in German and Russian.

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