Special Ed

Factory-like schooling may soon be a thing of the past.

Britton Manasco from the July 1996 issue

(Page 2 of 3)

One idea, advocated by David Barulich, a Los Angeles-based education policy consultant, would provide "performance grants" directly to parents. The grants, which would be linked to annual examinations and available to any family whose child or children did not attend public school, would allow the family to actively choose the learning services it finds most suitable. Those might include traditional private schooling, specialized tutoring, on-line services, community college classes, or any other combination of formal and informal education. Lewis Perelman, author of School's Out, also argues that families should be directly funded and supports what he calls "microvouchers," based on family income, that can be used to buy educational services. Still another plan, conceived by Sharlene Holt of Middletown, Pennsylvania-based ESANet, champions "educational savings accounts." Like the medical savings accounts now bandied about in Congress, ESAs would provide a series of tax incentives that would enable parents to deduct money from their total tax liability for each child who does not attend a public school.

Such efforts have never been more crucial or, given new technologies, more possible. We are entering a new economic era that stresses entrepreneurship at all levels and places a premium on the ability to continuously upgrade knowledge and skills. If individuals are to prosper in this turbulent era, they must, first and foremost, learn how to learn--how to actively acquire new skills as their existing ones lose value. The new economy rewards passion, agility, creativity, initiative, and independent thinking--qualities that today's schools and classrooms often discourage.

On the surface such sentiments jibe exceedingly well with the proclamations of "reformers" in the educational establishment. The Clinton administration advocates "lifelong learning" and has devoted a great deal of energy to wiring schools to telecommunications networks. The president has vowed to connect every classroom and library in the country to the "information superhighway" by the year 2000, allowing him to pose as an agent of change even as he leaves the fundamental educational structure in place. But experience suggests no reason to assume government schools will adopt more- flexible learning arrangements or implement new technologies any time soon, much less integrate them successfully into the learning process. "It took 30 years to get the overhead projector out of the bowling alley and into the classroom," says Roger Schank, director of the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. "Schools don't change."

While Schank believes it is important to set clear goals and objectives for teachers and students alike, he thinks schools leave too little room for "exploratory" learning. Rather, teachers are urged to "cover" a vast amount of material, and keep the entire class moving in lockstep. Children, as Schank sees it, are on "an intellectual chain gang," sentenced to dull, monotonous labor that does little to encourage enthusiasm for education.

Schank doesn't think most parents are up to the demands of home schooling and, in fact, he believes the government should create and fund a national K-12 curriculum. But he embraces technological advances that allow for highly individualized learning. He is, for instance, particularly keen on software programs that allow children to create and explore simulated worlds.

Harvard's Gardner similarly stresses the limitations of traditional notions of education. Because schools tend to treat all students in a uniform manner, they are largely incapable of supporting and enhancing the particular skills, abilities, and talents of individuals. In groundbreaking cognitive research over the past two decades, Gardner posits a theory of "multiple human intelligences": linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial representation, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, the understanding of other individuals, and the understanding of ourselves. He explains that the central educational implication of his theory is that "different styles and profiles of intelligence" cannot be addressed without individualizing the learning process. "This is a new, indeed revolutionary, idea for most persons," he says.

Gardner sees an ally in new technologies. "Technology makes it possible to individualize education," he says. "If we know that someone is strong in language skills or weak in spatial abilities, we can deliver information to them in appropriate ways and also give them viable means of responding. This is the genius of the new flexible, interactive technologies."

The classroom, strictly speaking, is itself a technology. As currently used, however, it is ill-suited to the needs of the individual student. For the most part, personal tutoring is simply not economically or logistically feasible. New information technologies, however, make it possible for students to learn at their own pace and in their own way, with the teacher serving as a mentor and an intellectual coach--guiding, supporting, and questioning individual learners.

Such opportunities can be expected to proliferate as communication costs fall and network capacity expands. Within the coming decade, desktop videoconferencing technologies will enable students to see and speak with experts all over the country rather than rely on a single teacher. And the volume and quality of resources that are accessible online will continue to grow. Such technologies allow students to venture far beyond the confines of a classroom, escaping the boundaries of geography. They decentralize learning, no longer tying it to the physical infrastructure and administrative overhead of schools. Already, telephone companies, cable operators, satellite communications providers, and other innovative companies are investing heavily to create high-performance communication links throughout the nation and globe.

Even that traditional tool of individualized instruction, the book, is becoming cheaper, more compact, and enhanced by new technologies. Software companies such as Microsoft, Grolier, and Compton's are squeezing voluminous multimedia encyclopedias onto a single disc. Another software firm, Corel, has developed a "classic books" program that incorporates more than 3,500 unabridged literary works, detailed profiles of their authors, video clips, and hundreds of illustrations. Inventive math, science, reading, arts, and foreign language programs are also on the market. Multimedia programs are now available that explore everything from human anatomy to global geography to Renaissance art in compelling detail. Users click on icons to hear stories, view clips, and discover interrelated facts. Many programs are linked to sites on the World Wide Web, which is also proving to be a dynamic medium for new learning resources.

At the same time, the continuing evolution of the Internet has made it possible to offer a range of courses and learning services online. Despite the limitations of the medium, instructors are able to address the individual learning needs of the child in a way that is not possible in classrooms. Clonlara School, a privately run learning program based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, provides support, resources, and evaluation services for more than 5,000 students throughout the United States, Canada, and a few other countries.

Marketed as an alternative to public schools, Clonlara helps parents receive any necessary approvals from local school authorities for home schooling. It also runs a "campus school" for about 50 students in the Ann Arbor area. Founded in 1967, Clonlara went online in 1994 and has recently introduced a program called "adults graduating," designed for people over 20 years old who never graduated high school. The school charges annual tuition of $475 per family (textbooks and supplies are extra), offers a curriculum list that individuals tailor to their needs, and provides report cards, transcripts, and diplomas "where desired and appropriate." Clonlara "mentors" facilitate ongoing discussions and guide students to available materials for K-12 courses in algebra, physics, science, geography, government, and other subjects. The secondary school curriculum requires 300 hours of volunteer community service, and Clonlara boasts graduates who have gone on to "four year universities, community and junior colleges, computer schools, trade schools, apprenticeships," and the Armed Forces.

Another on-line learning service, Scholars' Online Academy, was recently launched from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Instructors and students, however, are located all over the country. Scholars' Online stresses college prep and offers a core curriculum similar to that of a traditional private school. The course of study is designed to meet the general education prerequisites of Louisiana State University.

Students interact through e-mail, newsgroups, list servers, and chat sessions (instructors hold on-line "office hours," too). Annual tuition is based on the number of courses per family, ranging from $250 for one course to $1,120 for eight courses. Students, says informational material, "are free to integrate our courses with those of other curriculum providers," or take courses to prepare for advanced placement tests. Instructors record grades and expect timely completion of assignments, but much of the course preparation and achievement depends on the self-paced study of the individual student (and much of the actual learning takes place offline). Scholars' Online offers extracurricular activities such as Hereditas, a journal designed to give students experience in writing and desktop publishing. It also encourages participation in the Junior Classical League, a worldwide youth group that arranges competition in categories ranging from ancient Greek and Latin to photography and doll making.

Just as new technologies have enhanced the productivity of work, they appear to be doing the same for home schooling. "Learning technologies have made home schooling a lot easier and a lot more fun," says Mary Pride, publisher of Practical Homeschooling and Homeschool PC magazines. She home schools her nine children (ages 2 to 16) using a mix of high-tech resources, programs, and services.