Here’s how to transform education

Like Amazon.com revolutionized the retail industry and iTunes modernized the music industry, technology has the potential to transform education in America.

The Internet has the ability to overcome the primary obstacles to student achievement — access to quality educational content customized to meet the unique needs and interests of an individual student. Moreover, technology may be the only way to provide a high-quality education to each and every one of the nation’s 50 million students.

Virtual education allows students to access courses beyond those offered at their brick-and-mortar school. Students aren’t limited by what is offered at their particular school. With the click of a mouse, students could take Chinese at one virtual academy, geometry at another and 18th-century poetry at another without ever leaving their desks.

Economically feasible, a national online technology platform could enable educators to provide a customized education for each student by tailoring lessons and teaching techniques to complement different learning styles. This child-centered approach allows students to learn at their own pace, whether it is faster or slower than their peers. Success could be measured by the mastery of skills rather than time in seats.

An online learning environment could ultimately drive innovation in how educational material is developed and provided. Knowledge would not need to be bound between the pages of a textbook. What are now chapters in a textbook could be offered separately. Like iTunes, which allows music lovers to purchase a favorite song without buying the whole album, school districts and schools could compile the very best quality content from each provider to create their own high-quality “e-textbook.”

Here in Florida, we are ahead of the curve. A recent nationwide study conducted by the Center for Digital Education ranked the Sunshine State first in the country for policies, programs and strategies implemented to advance online learning. Since it was founded as the nation’s first statewide, internet-based public high school, the award-winning Florida Virtual School has provided more than half a million courses to students in all 67 counties. Connections Academy and K-12.com have also enjoyed success in increasing access to online courses. Despite these tremendous accomplishments, Florida — and the rest of the country — is nowhere close to reaching maximum potential in the area of virtual education.

As part of the $787 billion spending package authorized this spring, Education Secretary Arne Duncan gets $5 billion to spend on projects that will transform America’s education system. Called the ”Race to the Top Fund,” the money is meant to pay for innovations that improve student achievement and ultimately revolutionize our economy and workforce for the 21st century.

These federal dollars may provide the path for jump-starting dramatic change in the way education is delivered. As Clay Christensen and Michael Horn, authors of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, recently suggested, let’s leverage these funds wisely by bolstering innovation in schools, increasing access to online learning environments and investing in bandwidth as school infrastructure.

The success of this bold reform will require the support of many different stakeholders with diverse and often competing interests that have a vested interest in the status quo, including content providers, textbook publishers and teachers’ unions.

For technology to truly take hold in public school classrooms across the country, state and local leaders must address issues today that could prevent this revolution of our educational system in the future. School funding formulas must be modernized from seat-time to outcome-based models. Antiquated rules, such as certain certification requirements that effectively bar high-quality teachers from educating in virtual classrooms, must be revised. Most important, all students — public, charter, private and home school — must be eligible to access quality virtual content.

Technology shouldn’t be merely a resource used periodically in classrooms, but the primary mechanism of transforming our education system into a 21st century model of student-centered learning. From access to customization to superior content, technology may be the key to helping us keep the promise of a quality education for every American student, but transformation must commence now — starting with the “Race to the Top Fund.”

What about you? If you had $5 billion to transform education in America, how would you choose to spend it? Tell us today at www.ExcelinEd.org.