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Maryland to Offer Accredited Online High School Courses for Free
Maryland residents who haven't succeeded in the classroom are getting help from state educators. The Maryland Department of Education is planning am online classroom allowing hospital patients, parolees, home schoolers who are having difficulties with lessons, and other housebound residents statewide to complete free, "virtual" courses and apply them to a high school degree.
Educators plan to deliver standard courses via an Internet portal that will not only help students complete their secondary education, but also offer teachers online certification and professional development courses, the Washington Post reports.
The Maryland Board of Education approved the plan and will pay for the free service -- expected to cost from $200 to $400 per student -- with a variety of state funds and other grants.
The program is so new that education officials haven't worked out details of how local and state agencies will split the program's costs, how it will train teachers, or what standards will be set for the courses. Once the details are ironed out, Maryland will join a small number of states that offer such online, statewide programs.
Other states include Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Kansas and Oregon, the Post reports.
Some members of the Maryland board expressed concern that the program places more emphasis on technology applications than on personal instruction, and minority and poor students' lack of Internet access may exclude them. The state plan, however, would provide access for those students in libraries and schools,
among other options, the newspaper reports.
"The classroom has for too long established the boundaries of learning," said Nancy Grasmick, Maryland's superintendent of schools. "The Internet is removing many of those boundaries and opening new opportunities for students and teachers."
Source: PNN Online, October 2000
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