DURANGO, Colo., Oct. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Course choice policies, which allow students to choose a course and have their public education funding flow to the course provider, are attracting increased attention. Several states have passed new course choice policies in the last couple of years, but do these policies and program achieve their goals? A new study released today by the Digital Learning Collaborative, a membership group made up of school districts, education agencies, non-profit organizations, and companies, analyzes the latest data from more than a dozen states to address this question.
Course Choice: A Review of Policy and Practice, provides an overview of characteristics that define course choice, explores course choice policies and implementation in states that have adopted course choice rules and presents analysis of course choice landscape.
Course choice is one policy strategy to fill a critical need for students who do not have access to a wide range of courses— or access to a specific course they are seeking—within their school.
The report presents the wide variety of experiences in states that have some sort of course choice (or equivalent) policy in place, and suggests that any findings across states must be generalized and will have exceptions. However, some observations appear to hold true.
- Course choice policies supported by a state program attract higher levels of enrollments.
- Often a single entity, or a small number of organizations, has an outsize effect on supplemental course enrollments in a state.
- Data availability varies widely between states but is mostly lacking.
Findings from the Course Choice: A Review of Policy and Practice report will be presented and discussed at the Digital Learning Annual Conference (DLAC) February 24-26 in Austin, Texas. Additional conference sessions and conversations surrounding course choice are planned as part of this unique digital learning conference. For more information contact us at [email protected] or call 616-340-8066.
About the Digital Learning Collaborative (DLC)
The Digital Learning Collaborative (DLC) is a membership group dedicated to exploring, producing, and disseminating data, information, news, and best practices in digital learning. Our current members include school districts, intermediate units, public agencies, non-profit organizations, and companies. The Collaborative activities are supported financially by annual membership fees paid by providers, depending on the type and size of the member organization. The Evergreen Education Group manages the Collaborative. DLC members determine the topics that we explore, via monthly web meetings and individual discussions.
About the Digital Learning Annual Conference (DLAC)
The Digital Learning Annual Conference (DLAC) celebrates K-12 digital learning practitioners, researchers, and policymakers; learn from each other; and share best practices in this new and innovative conference. This is not a "sit and get" conference. You will have opportunities to share your experiences, learn from collaborators, catch up with colleagues, and meet new friends in both facilitated sessions and informal settings. This DLAC 2019 highlight video will give you a flavor of the conference format. So much of the value of a conference comes from the "hallway conversations" outside the sessions. DLAC maximizes those opportunities while maintaining the benefits of more traditional conference programming. DLAC brings together practitioners working on real change and is designed for a wide range of attendees.
Contact us at [email protected] for more information.
About the Evergreen Education Group
Evergreen Education Group is a digital learning research and advisory company and has been widely recognized as a leading authority for market and policy intelligence in the K-12 digital learning field. We deliver digital learning-related insight to the industry and are the publishers of the annual report Keeping Pace with K-12 Digital Learning, national reports on the digital learning landscape, and state-level reports for states such as Missouri and Maryland. Evergreen is a valuable partner to legislators, state boards of education, state education agencies, non-profit organizations, publishers and many companies serving the K-12 education industry. Evergreen was founded in 2000 and is based in Colorado.
SOURCE The Digital Learning Collaborative
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