By Dr. Lisa Duty, Director of External Affairs at KnowledgeWorks Ohio, and Terry Ryan vice-president for Ohio programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

One could argue that 2011 was the year of “digital learning” in Ohio and across the nation. In September, the White House announced its “Digital Promise” campaign, while a number of states have been embracing initiatives and campaigns in this realm, aided and encouraged by national groups like the Digital Learning Council and the Foundation for Excellence in Education. Ohio’s biennial budget signed by Governor Kasich in late June launched the Ohio Digital Learning Task Force and charged it with ensuring that the state’s “legislative environment is conducive to and supportive of the educators and digital innovators at the heart of this transformation.”

Our two organizations – KnowledgeWorks and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute – are committed to seeing Ohio become a leader in the implementation of digital learning opportunities for the state’s 1.8 million students. Ohio now stands at an important crossroads and 2012 could be a pivotal year on whether we move forward in the digital learning environment.

Our state has been a path-breaker when it comes to availability of full-time e-school options that leverage technology in learning. In fact, if all 33,000 children currently enrolled in Ohio e-schools were in one school district it would make up the state’s third largest district just after Columbus and Cleveland. Despite such numbers, Ohio has yet to harness fully the potential of digital learning for all students. And, given that digital learning can yield improvements in student achievement and offer solutions for more efficient spending, Ohio can’t afford to wait.

In 2011 Keeping Pace, a national review of policy and practices in digital learning, Ohio received the highest rating possible for its availability of full-time online learning opportunities for students due to the state’s 27 virtual charter/community schools.  Ohio e-school enrollment of 33,000 students is up 15 percent since 2008. But digital learning can and should take many different forms—from the full-time online options of e-schools to individual students seeking supplemental coursework to meet needs not met by their brick and mortar schools.

New blended learning options like Rocketship in California have shown significant academic gains for traditionally under-served students, while Carpe Diem in Arizona improve the student experience because they allow for customization and personalization of learning in a way that is both “high-tech” (through the seamless integration of appropriate technologies with teaching practices) and “high-touch” (through meaningful and relevant learning experiences with in-person teachers to complement online instruction).

There are districts, schools and teachers in Ohio that are starting to show the way as well. The Dayton Regional STEM school, for example, teaches its students Mandarin Chinese through an online course, while the Clermont County Educational Service Center has partnered with area districts to create a Virtual Talented and Gifted program at a time when traditional programs are being scaled back or otherwise eliminated.  But, to maximize digital learning opportunities for all its children Ohio has to develop systems for learning that are radically different to what was crafted long ago for a place-bound, 180-day school year where children sat in rows of desks from morning to early afternoon.

To move Ohio from its industrial model of education to one better suited for education in the digital age we propose the following policies for 2012.

Remove barriers to digital learning
•    Remove teacher-student ratios and class size limits created for a traditional classroom.

•    Establish competency-based learning models that allow students to advance upon demonstrating mastery of knowledge or skills, not seat time.

•    Educate students and parents about their right to choose high-quality online courses and make available credible information about which digital courses or programs work best under what conditions as well as the costs of those courses or programs.

Encourage innovation
•    Provide all students in all grades access to a robust offering of high-quality courses from multiple high-quality providers in a competitive, data-driven marketplace.

•    Define in law blended brick-and-mortar schools so as to encourage new designs, generate pilots, and attract proven models while ensuring their funding.

•    Guarantee that funding follows the child to the individual course provider of their choice, evaluate providers based on student performance, and pay them in installments that incentivize completion and achievement.

•    Unbundle, define and enable new educator roles and challenge universities, the private sector and others to prepare adults to serve in new capacities.

Promote equity
•    Weight the funds for low-income and/or hard to serve students so as to control for the unintended consequences of digital providers selectively serving only students who are likely to demonstrate competency.

•    Power up all regions of Ohio by aggregating purchase request data and leveraging bulk discount pricing to support connectivity and device acquisition for all.

Create accountability for a new era of learning
•    End the archaic practice of funding seat-time, and fund course providers based on student performance instead of attendance.

•    Require student performance and student and family satisfaction data are published as indicators of quality of course providers.

High-quality customizable learning options should be the rule rather than the exception.  To more fully realize this goal in 2012 and beyond, Ohio lawmakers and policy makers need to embrace policies in education that encourage and support schools to innovate with digital learning technologies and opportunities, while ensuring all innovations are held accountable for performance and funded fairly and equitably.

Dr. Lisa Duty is Director of External Affairs at KnowledgeWorks, a social enterprise that incubates and scales up innovative schools and education initiatives.

Terry Ryan is vice-president for Ohio programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and is a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

Former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, a passionate champion for digital learning, often says, “The U.S. education system currently operates as an eight-track tape in an iPod world.”

Today, February 1, marks the first ever Digital Learning Day, a nationwide celebration of innovative teaching and learning through digital media and technology that engages students and provides them with a rich, personalized educational experience. More than 30 states, hundreds of school districts, thousands of teachers, and more than a million students will encourage the innovative use of technology by trying something new, showcasing success, kicking off project-based learning, or focusing on how digital tools can help improve student outcomes.

KnowledgeWorks, is a national sponsor of Digital Learning Day along with the Alliance for Excellent Education (headed by Wise), Google, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Intel and others.

At KnowledgeWorks, we’re cuing that iPod today with a robust set of opinions from our team of thought leaders who are sharing perspectives on digital learning:

Jeanne Bernish, Social Media Manager, KnowledgeWorks
Digital Learning Day – Ohio

Lillian Pace, KnowledgeWorks Director of National Policy:
Technology advances beginning to change education landscape
Arguing over the merits of digital learning
ESEA Waivers: The one missing piece

Lydia Dobyns, President, New Tech Network, writing in the Huffington Post
Students are all right — it’s the parents who need to learn to communicate

Jillian Darwish, Ph.D., Vice President, Organizational Learning and Innovation, KnowledgeWorks
Model teacher in a digital world isn’t John Henry or Watson

Jesse Moyer, Manager, Organizational Learning and Innovation
A student idea: Promoting digital learning by using tablets

Lisa Duty, Director of External Affairs, Knowledgeworks
2011: The year that online and blended learning went digital

Mark your calendars America. In addition to Black History Month, Valentine’s Day, and President’s Day to name a few, February brings a new day for celebration – Digital Learning Day. On February 1st we pay homage to the flurry of gadgets that have transformed nearly every aspect of our lives. Without these innovations, we would still find ourselves beholden to the Dewey Decimal System, the overhead projector, and the dreaded folding maps that pose a danger to everyone on the road.

As we celebrate our favorite technological breakthroughs, I can’t help but anticipate the wave of digital innovations coming to America’s classrooms. After a quick review of abstracts for Round 2 of the U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) competition, I find it both compelling and encouraging that more than half of the 23 awardees included a strong digital component in their proposals. There is no question that digital learning has become synonymous with innovation.
Here are highlights from a few of the winning applications. Visit the Department’s webpage to view all of the abstracts and full applications.

• Texas Tech University, Lubbock ISD, Teachscape and Texas Instruments will implement and test a competency-based model of educator preparation and school intervention that uses innovative technology to constantly observe & shape teachers’ classroom competencies.
• The New York Hall of Science will develop, implement, and evaluate a new system of technologies, SciGames, designed to bridge formal classroom and informal playground science learning environments in hopes of increasing the number of individuals from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM.
• Baltimore City Public Schools will provide additional out of school time focused on mathematics instruction and VEX Robotics through its Middle School STEM Summer Learning Program to help students increase their mathematics grade-level, develop interest in technology and STEM, and encounter a college-going culture.
• Old Dominion University Research Foundation will establish an innovative, high-quality, multi-tiered approach to professional development that employs school based math coaching, an on-line platform, and teacher-made videos of their own practices in a multi-tiered community of learners design. The use of technology will help provide professional development to rural and urban areas in a cost-effective way.
• The College Board will develop, pilot, and evaluate new technology-enabled student- and classroom-level feedback reports that build on a system of formative and interim assessments and professional development, with the ultimate goal of producing measurable increases in the rates at which high-need students succeed on the AP Biology Exam.

KnowledgeWorks, in partnership with the Riley Institute, is honored to join the above group of Round 2 awardees for our proposal to establish two STEM-focused New Tech High Schools along the economically depressed I-95 corridor in the southern part of South Carolina. These schools, one of which served as an initial plaintiff in the historic Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court case, serve a high population of disadvantaged students that deserve better educational opportunities than those promised to them when the Brown v. the Board concluded more than fifty years ago. Thanks to this award, the New Tech Network will have the resources to transform these schools into a learning environment that thrives on one one-to-one computing, project-based learning, integrated classes, and an online learning management system that links all educators in the 85+ school New Tech Network. College and career readiness will no longer be an anomaly, but the expectation for every student enrolled in these programs.

Each of these proposals holds great promise as technologies are evaluated, fine-tuned, and scaled to fit the needs of students all over the country. I am anxious to see these innovations take hold as digital learning becomes the new norm and the field of new graduates continues to push the envelope of what is possible for America’s classrooms.

In partnership with the Alliance for Excellent Education and Getting Smart, KnowledgeWorks and Ohio Education Matters are pleased to announce Ohio’s participation in the first-ever Digital Learning Day on Wednesday, February 1, 2012.

By participating in Digital Learning Day, Ohio strives to build momentum for a wave of innovation that changes policies, shifts attitudes, and supports wide-scale adoption of promising instructional practices. All events will be held in Columbus and include:

• “Getting Smart” Book Chat with Tom Vander Ark

• The Education Committee of the Ohio House of Representatives of the 129th General Assembly will begin its February 1st hearing with testimony on digital learning from Tom Vander Ark, and a cadre of digital learning stakeholders.

• Ohio Digital Learning Day Reception

• Town Hall Meeting in Nation’s Capital Featuring Ohio’s New Tech West

Please register here for Ohio’s Digital Learning Day.

Last week I visited Central Collegiate Academy, a Detroit Public High School. Principal Steven McGhee spent a good part of his very busy morning with us talking about the special challenges and opportunities faced by educators and students in the urban core of America. Later we were joined by Crystal Jackson, a teacher at Central who most deeply experienced the change in technology, instruction and climate as a result of coaching services provided by our EdWorks subsidiary over the past three years.

Michigan's first public high school has a proud tradition.

I am excited to have had the privilege to visit this school and to work with MicroDocumetaries to create a video series that captures some of the positive energy I witnessed there. This truly is a school to watch! Look for the videos in February!

I was a nomadic kid.

My dad had a job that moved my family to and from eight states and two countries by the time I was 16. But, thankfully, I got to spend four formative years living in Greenwood.

Pat Conroy once wrote: “You can be moved profoundly by other vistas, by other oceans, by soaring mountain ranges, but you can never be seduced.”

There is preciseness to that statement that reflects the beauty and people of South Carolina. When we left, I carried the love of sweet tea, the smell of pine trees, and the wonder of a first grader shaped by exploring the nooks and crannies of the great outdoors. South Carolina followed me -nurturing my heart – on my life’s journey.

And so today, I find it fateful that my work would bring me back to South Carolina more than two decades later. On Dec. 8, we will announce the results of our efforts with Clarendon 1 and Colleton County school districts, the Richard W. Riley Institute at Furman University, and the Evaluation Center at the University of West Georgia to bring an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant to fruition.

This grant was selected as one of 23 finalists by the United States Department of Education, and South Carolina stands poised to receive $2.9 million. The project will create two STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math)-focused New Tech High Schools along the I-95 corridor in South Carolina.

New Tech Network (NTN), one of our subsidiaries, works nationwide with schools, districts and communities to develop innovative high schools. NTN provides services and support that enable schools to fundamentally rethink teaching and learning so that students gain the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in life, college and the careers of tomorrow. These two schools will be transformed into cutting-edge, technology rich schools and eventually into NTN training centers for future development of additional New Tech schools across the state of South Carolina.

This i3 grant provides funding for Clarendon and Colleton to create 21st-century learning opportunities for all of their children. Moreover, these schools will provide new and unique opportunities for students to gain the skills demanded by an ever changing world and reshaping economy. The New Tech schools will help to draw business and industry into the classroom as partners.

Education and economic development are inextricably linked; this much is true. Furthermore, we need to recognize that a 21st century education is the bedrock of economic competitiveness—the engine, not simply an input, of the economy. Investments in proven educational models not only function as catalysts to drive a new and robust economy but also capitalize on rapidly emerging technologies and a reshaping of industry through grassroots economics. This is the primary aim of this grant.

South Carolina’s state motto, when translated, reads, “While I breathe, I hope.” The i3 grant provides a hopeful opportunity to a region that helped reshape education through Briggs vs. Elliott, the original case that was consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education. The story of hope and rebirth continues. The leaders and residents of this region, in partnership with KnowledgeWorks, NTN, and the Riley Institute, are working to reimagine what teaching and learning can be, providing a brighter, more hopeful future for all students in the Corridor and throughout the state.

The respected, D.C.-based education think-tank Ed Sector today released its long-awaited report on shared accountability, or collective impact, titled “Striving for Success: Shared Accountability and School Improvement.”

For any community that is going through budget cuts, changes in academic standards, changing demographics and any number of issues that influence student achievement, you ought to read this report. The work of the Strive Partnership and the burgeoning Strive Network in Cincinnati, Newport and Covington is prominently mentioned in the piece.

Ed Sector and the authors of the report — Kelly Bathgate, Richard Lee Colvin, and Elena Silva –are to be commended for taking what is sometimes a complicated issue and making it plain so that communities all over the country can better learn how to tackle the growing challenges they now face.

In the 13-page report, the non-profit, non-partisan organization beautifully illustrates how a community pooled its resources, indentified what works best to increase student achievement, and got to work. Thankfully, the benefactors are the kids in our community — and increasingly in other communities — who will have a fighting chance for a more secure future.

When EdWorks partners with schools, we always stress the importance of community partnership. It’s great when you see those partnerships blossom into something really powerful. Mount Carmel Health System in central Ohio is in the early phases of a partnership with Health Sciences & Human Services (HS²), an interest-based academy at Reynoldsburg High School .

Reynoldsburg schools is leasing space to the health provider at no cost beyond utilities. The health center will have a separate entrance from the school and be a primary care resource for the community, which helps Mount Carmel Health System expand its reach. Students at HS² will have access to learning opportunities like mentoring and internships and lunch-and-learns.

I’m excited to see how student learning progresses over the next few years as the health center becomes more established. Learn more about the Reynoldsburg High School partnership with Mount Carmel Health System.

In his Sunday editorial in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Glenn Sharfman makes a case against the early college high school model because the schools result in students starting college “underprepared and overcredentialed.” He supports this by an example of one student who attends the college at which he works.
I agree with some of the points Sharfman makes, such as, “It is a disservice to encourage students to take college classes before they legitimately are ready in the hopes that having many hours of college credit or an associate’s degree, along with a high school diploma, will make them learned or prepared for the workplace.”
But, done well, the early college high school model can work. It because they work that the City University of New York is pursuing early college high schools to increase their college graduation rates, as noted in this Monday’s Wall Street Journal article. (The early college high school program being sponsored by the City University of New York is in partnership with EdWorks, the Smart Scholars program and the State University of New York.)
At a recent visit to Toledo Early College High School (TECHS), the students were in agreement that their college classes were easy compared to the high schools one. This is because the rigorous high school classes at TECHS are taught with a goal of preparing students for the college environment.

The Strive Partnership in the cities of Cincinnati, Covington and Newport released its fourth annual report which offers an update on the encouraging progress being made to improve student achievement and growth.

Highlights of the report include:

• Kindergarten readiness has improved in all three urban school districts over the past several years. Thanks to the work of United Way of Greater Cincinnati’s Success By 6 ®, Newport’s readiness rate has improved 12 percent to 72 percent of students since 2005, Cincinnati’s readiness rate has improved 9 percent to 53 percent of students prepared since 2005, and Covington has seen a 4 percent improvement (versus last year) to 67 percent of students prepared.

• Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) became the highest-rated urban school district in the state and the only to receive a rating of “Effective”, which was maintained for a second year in a row. Covington experienced meaningful growth in 4th grade reading, 8th grade math, high school graduation rates, and has partnered with Gateway Community and Technical College and the Social Innovation Fund to transform Holmes High School to further drive academic success and postsecondary enrollment. Newport experienced growth in ACT scores and postsecondary rates.

• Both the University of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky University have seen retention rates improve since 2005, and all four local public colleges and universities have seen improvements to postsecondary completion rates and credentials awarded.

Read the full report please visit the Strive Partnership website.