<p>This idea is so stupid I can’t believe it can be honestly debated. What next, online Guidance Counselors? online Bosses?</p>
<p>A computer is a tool, that’s all … responding in a pre-programmed manner. I do think it has an important place in math and science coursework, but only as a starting point.</p>
<p>That is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard.</p>
<p>If I were a student there I would organize a walkout and call attention to it in the national media immediately. I would forge a personal vendetta against Mr.Graden… I wonder if he’s gotten hate mail.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’m getting incredibly worked up about it and I don’t live anywhere close to Michigan. That is such a load of BS. Do they WANT to ruin lives? </p>
<p>I think you should honestly organize a letter writing campaign to nationwide newspapers. You could skewer this man. Ruin his career, he deserves it.</p>
<p>Okay, I know this is unpopular, but why not? Studies have shown that online instruction, if done properly, can be quite effective. Many accelerated students take online math courses because the school offered math moves too slowly or the course is simply not offered. Online courses often provide more actual student/teacher contact than a typical student gets in a regular classroom, and some programs offer adaptive intelligent tutoring that matches each learners problem solving approach. Learners can get truly individualized instruction and quality practice tailored to their specific needs.</p>
<p>Well that would solve the problem of “overpaid teachers” now wouldn’t it? Not a fan, but I think it would make more sense than the so-called “online PE classes.”</p>
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<p>It’s Michigan, nothing is done properly. Everything in education here is done half-way and therefore would be ineffective.</p>
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<p>That is a small fraction of very bright and motivated children- most students are not that self-driven. </p>
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<p>For MOST students, nothing can replace that actual one-on-one human contact way to learn math. A machine just cannot, and SHOULD NOT, replace a teacher.</p>
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<p>There is absolutely no guarantee of that. Plus, there is no way to ensure that students would actually do the work- since it is online, some students see it as a sort of game than an actual class. And, again, nothing can replace a teacher talking to you face to face and watching a student’s reactions to know whether or not they really understand what he/she is saying. </p>
<p>There can be more computer integration, but it should NEVER, EVER take the place of a human teacher.</p>
<p>I can see where integrating online courses could be used to pare down costs by addressing some issues such as the need to hire an extra teacher to hold down class size or to offer advanced courses where there tends to be low enrollment. For example, if there are typically only 10 students each year in a school who opt to take BC Calculus, and 45 kids taking AB Calculus, then maybe rather than having 3 separate classes, it makes sense to have one AB Calc class, and one combined class with both levels where computer is used in conjunction with the teacher’s availability to supervise and provide help as neede.</p>
<p>My daughter had something like that in high school with her advanced level Russian. There were 10 students who were in 4th year/ AP Russian and that wasn’t enough for a class, so they shared a class with first year Russian students. It wasn’t an optimum situation at all – my d. would have much preferred a class consisting only of advanced level students – but they did have computers and I don’t see how they would have managed without them. And certainly it was preferable than the alternative of not having the advanced level course at all. </p>
<p>I don’t know what the state law or teacher’s contracts mandate, but adding computers can also make it possible to increase the number of students per class without unduly burdening the teacher – and that also can help avoid the need to hire additional teachers. The computers mean that all the students in the class do not need to physically be there. My d. also did “independent study” in one class because of an overcrowding concern. She had made arrangements with her honors English teacher to work independently during her fall semester while she did a foreign exchange. It worked well -she had a good reading list and essays could be turned in and returned by email. When she got back, the teacher was happy to have her join the class, but his classroom was filled to capacity – he didn’t know where he could seat her. After a few classes, she and he agreed to return to the independent study arrangement. (That wasn’t an online course - but the principal is the same – the computer made it workable). But the bottom line is that there was a teacher involved at some level.</p>
<p>I don’t think most high school students are going to do too well with online courses unless there is an adult monitoring progress. A few will… but the majority need more support…</p>
<p>I work on an educational foundation that fundraises for our local schools (we cannot pay for things in the school budget, only extras). We initiated an online program at our high school two years ago, that is hugely successful. The kids love it. </p>
<p>Our public high school is very small, and having the online courses provides enrichment, specialized courses and even AP courses that our school could not possibly afford, and also provides classes that kids can’t fit in their schedules at the school (small schools have these scheduling problems because there tends to be only one section of, say, AP physics, and those taking AP English may not be able to take AP physics in the classroom because they are the same period).</p>
<p>Some kids who previously hated school, have told us that the online courses have “change their lives” and they “woudn’t trade the experience for anything.” These are actual quotes.</p>
<p>That said, this threat to eliminate the math department in the school in Michigan is just hot air. I would bet the superintendent leaked the possibility himself. In our town, the school committee and superintendent threaten to elminate sports and bus service: those are the things that get people riled up.</p>
<p>This is just a political tool: publicizing a dire worst case scenario to scare people into supporting or voting for a budget increase (override here in MA). Parental apathy often sabotages school budgets, and getting them to care enough to come out to meetings and vote is crucial to the schools’ success in getting more funds from towns and cities.</p>
<p>Teachers salaries go up in two different ways, every year, at a net rate of about 5%. Most schools’ budget problems come from salaries, plus the inevitable rise in health insurance costs and, some years, things like fuel. Plus special education under the ADA and IDEA are high and unpredictable. And it is now rare for a school not to have full-time kindergarten, even preschool, which was not true ten years ago (Here, the state funded the pilot and then withdrew funding once everyone got used to having it!)</p>
<p>The feds and states have even more mandates than ever before, with the No Child Left Behind Act in particular, but where is the funding?</p>
<p>It has occurred to me that some schools may try to replace teachers with online courses. In fact, when we started to fund an online program in our town, I expected teachers to fight it. It is interesting that the letter of intent makes it legal to fire the department if needed. I would have thought the contract with teachers would make this kind of action impossible.</p>
<p>I have sent a copy of this article to our superintendent, School Committee chair, and principals. Maybe this will get parents to meetings: not a single soul attends our School Committee meetings, but crowds line the fields at sports games and at the school prom. But cutting math won’t upset the folks here: it is going to have to be buses and sports again.</p>
<p>“I can see where integrating online courses could be used to pare down costs by addressing some issues such as the need to hire an extra teacher to hold down class size or to offer advanced courses where there tends to be low enrollment. For example, if there are typically only 10 students each year in a school who opt to take BC Calculus, and 45 kids taking AB Calculus, then maybe rather than having 3 separate classes, it makes sense to have one AB Calc class, and one combined class with both levels where computer is used in conjunction with the teacher’s availability to supervise and provide help as needed.”</p>
<p>Schools in Ann Arbor (which is the next town over from the town being talked about) usually send kids to UMich or WCC or EMU to take classes if they are college level. I imagine schools in Saline could do the same too (though transportation might be more of a pain). For high school level classes that aren’t offered at the school (for instance, my school didn’t offer any Econ class at all), there is already a system in place for the state of Michigan for those students to take them online. Though that system is generally for kids with the initiative and desire to take a class they don’t have to, and wouldn’t work for the masses being forced to take a Geometry and Algebra. </p>
<p>Saline High School is one I’m sure has enough for a BC class though.</p>
<p>They are announcing this to incite the public outcry you are seeing here as opposed to seriously considering this move. Its politics at its worst. You have to threaten to cut something people care about to get the public to notice. I can’t believe it would even be legal to cut all the teachers. If it is why stop at Math? Why not move entire system to online courses?</p>
<p>My best 2 years of math were the middle 2 in High School, when we had independent study math. I loved it. I am not an auditory learner; class time spent listening to a teacher is not very productive for me. I take notes, then go back and learn the material from the book. So class time spent reading the book and doing math problems, rather than watching someone do them or talk about them, was time very well spent. In this sense, online math could be perfect for SOME kids. Maybe strapped districts should offer online classes as an option, with the ‘self-paced’ carrot dangled for kids with unpredictable schedules (like sports, arts kids).</p>
<p>People have been looking at computers as the ‘great poobah’ that is going to make our schools miraculously work, that computer based teaching is going to make it all right. Since the advent of the pc, ‘experts’ have been saying that computers are going to revolutionize teaching… and as a result, there was a massive gold rush, there became hysteria (much like the hysteria that if someone makes the least bit mistake or doesn’t get into an ivy league school, they are toast, which is crapola), every school district rushed to ‘update their technology’ for fear of ‘falling behind’, schools proudly boasted of having “a computer for every kid” in well off areas…and what happened? Mysteriously, they found out that a computer is only a tool, and they also found the dark side, that the cost of IT support for those computers turned out to be expensive…and in the end, didn’t prove out to be the magic teacher everyone thought (this was pre internet days). Today with net technology you can deliver a lot over the net, it is true, but there is also a cost to doing so (and I am not computer phobic, nor am I necessarily a fan of the way schools operate or someone who thinks teachers are the only way to go, etc…none of the above. I am a computer professional, been one for a lot of years, so I know the strengths and weaknesses).</p>
<p>What bothers me is the idea that online courses would be the way to go, that it is the magic bullet in a really bad economic situation. There is no doubt schools are expensive, teachers (unlike people in the private sector) tend to have things better then many other people (in NJ, I believe teachers still don’t pay into their medical insurance, they have a pension system that basically doesn’t exist in the ‘real world’ out there, they have rules that allow padding pension by loading up on extra responsibilities towards the end of their career, etc), and there are real issues with work rules and the like…but the real issue comes down to how important schools are and how we pay for them. In many places, local governments pay for schools, with a patchwork of state and federal support, and living in a state with the highest property taxes in the country, schools are the primary villain. Yet when someone proposes that education happen at the state level, with the cost of it done through broad based taxes rather then property taxes done locally, people scream about local control (even though it would relieve a major tax burden, probably cost them less overall then what they do today with property taxes+ incomes taxes). Then, too, state and federal governments come up with mandates, for special ed, NCLB, etc, and then don’t fund them. </p>
<p>A complex problem like that doesn’t lend itself to easy solutions, as Mencken said, to every problem there is a simple, straightforward answer…and dead wrong.</p>
<p>As far as online courses go, yes, they can work. My son is homeschooled (a necessity with his track into music), and he is doing an online high school program that from what I can tell teaches well and is fully accredited, and he doesn’t seem to be lacking anything. The downside is the idea of ‘dumping’ kids into online programs like that, because those programs work only as well as the students taking them. You need to be motivated, as others point out, to do this, and there could be a lot of kids who take these courses who have trouble outside the structure of a teacher classroom. It also takes out the interaction in a classroom (online classes with online chat are there, but from my experience few use them), and it also is in effect a one size fits all, which only works for some.</p>
<p>I wish I could say that this is an abheration, but I suspect more school districts are going to do this, or attempt to, to try and patch together their finances. One thing I object to is the idea that school is the 3rs, that basic teaching is all kids need, in this day and age of global competition and such, school districts who teach to the basics are going to find their students having real problems. They already do it when they cut programs like art and music, which despite the comments on here, give as much benefit as straight academics do, in ways not as tangible (then again, want to see outrage? School districts will cut arts and music programs, but try and cut sports programs (which i think are equally valuable) and suddenly the hills become alive)…the real issue is finding effective ways to deliver education and more importantly pay for it. There are plenty of places in the US that brag about how ‘cost effective they are’, and when you look at the results of the students they put out, it often comes at a harsh price…unfortunately, schools are a classic example of something everyone agrees is important, but when it comes to the nuts and bolts is something that few people can agree on, because how it is important seems to be more contentious then the fact that schools are important.</p>
<p>My gut tells me that this school has had some serious problems getting math teachers who can actually teach math concepts. It’s not enough to KNOW math, a teacher needs to be able to explain the concepts to students.</p>
<p>I certainly agree with the various points of view presented above. It’s true that some students can learn effectively in self-directed environments (I’m one), that some students aren’t effective auditory learners (again, I’m one), that some math teachers aren’t very good (I’ve had a few), that computer-learning can be an effective classroom supplement (yes, I believe this is true), etcetera. And some schools operate without sports and art and other ECs, even though I agree all of these better kids educations. But a school without teachers? Without so much as a one-year trial run with just a single class to see if it works? If this proposal showed up on your desk for signature approval, what would your reaction be?</p>