APS moves to tighten monopoly on e-credits

It's no secret that APS Supt Winston Brooks and the board see charter schools as a threat to their monopoly on education here in River City. The Journal reports this morning, link,

Albuquerque Public Schools students soon could find it much tougher to get credit for online classes from schools outside the district.

The move, according to the Journal, was prompted by an incident a few months ago when a student upset the district by taking an online course over a weekend. Brooks filed a complaint with the NMPED hoping they would find something wrong with the coursework or with his arch rival charter Southwest Learning Center, link. The subsequent investigation by the NM Public Education Department found no wrongdoing; not in the online course and not by SWLC.

The PED did find that APS has authority to decide what credits it will accept. The finding is reasonable since APS grants the diploma and has a stake in its validity. The problem is, Brooks and board will use that authority, not to improve education or in the best interests of students, but rather to cement their monopoly over education and the funding it brings.

One of the most vociferous critics is School Board enforcer Marty Esquivel. The Journal reports,

"he raised concerns that other students could be angling for quick credits, either to graduate on time or to maintain athletic eligibility."

What exactly, is wrong with a student wanting, not "angling", to earn credits quickly for any reason, especially wanting to graduate on time or maintain athletic eligibility?

Why do we care whether coursework is done quickly, or why a student wants to take an online course? As long as the coursework meets standards, the student's motivation is utterly irrelevant. More power to students who can complete coursework quickly. That is, unless one has a financial interest in keeping students in school as long as possible to keep the money flowing into APS.

The proposed policy is deliberately vague. The proposed Administrative Procedural Directives that would be used to implement the policy change are more specific and largely justifiable;

1. Credits would be accepted only for classes not reasonably available to students through APS, including the district’s eCADEMY of online courses.
2. Credits would be accepted only from schools or districts that have a written agreement with APS.
3. Course curriculum would be subject to review by the APS curriculum committee.
4. Students would not be able to enroll after the second semester of their senior year begins.
5. Courses must require, and students must log, a reasonable number of instructional hours.
6. Students may be required to pass an APS-approved exam to demonstrate they learned the course content.
7. The course must be completed 10 days before the credit is posted to the student’s transcript.

1. The first requirement would all but eliminate competition, since APS offers most core classes (the ones students might want to take). There is an appearance of a conflict of interests. APS has two interests;

1. education and
2. perpetuation of an administrative oligarchy.

The School Board's own, albeit utterly unenforceable, Code of Ethics, link reads;

1. Make the education and well-being of students the basis for all decision making

Were their code enforceable, the perpetuation of their oligarchy would not play in their decision making.

2. What if APS (Brooks or some other) decides to not sign an agreement with some school or district? There is nothing in their standards which actually prohibits them from acting vindictively against some school or district because they're outperforming APS proper.

3. What makes APS "curriculum committee" the last word in curriculum approval? Are there no applicable state standards? What if the APS curriculum committee acts vindictively against their rivals for students and dollars that fund their own jobs?

4. Why can't a student enroll anytime they want?

5. What is a reasonable amount of instructional hours? Imagine you hire someone to dig a hole in your garden. You reason it should take 8 hours to dig the hole, so you offer your hired hand $64 to dig the hole. The worker digs in real earnest and finishes the hole in 4 hours. Has s/he not earned the $64? Just because it was dug quickly, do you still not have your hole?

The measure of satisfactory performance in any class is exit testing. If a student can pass the final test, they have proved what they need to prove. It doesn't make a bit of difference whether they studied for 100 hours, or 56, or five.

6. I assume that any school enjoying an APS or state granted charter, is using approved test instruments. Any legitimate approval is as legitimate as APS'.

7. Does it take 10 days for APS bureaucracy to post grades, or what?

Brooks and the board have a vested interest in requiring "face time" with teachers. They have not, and cannot, produce any empirical evidence that face time with a flesh and blood teacher is essential for every student all the time. How much have we learned in our own lives, without a "teacher" attending?

Students having problems need teachers. Students on cruise control though easy material, do not. Relieving teachers of supervisory responsibilities over students who don't need supervision, frees them up to give one on one help to those students who really do need a teacher.

Any decision about how students achieve their educations should be based on the students' best interests; not on board members', not on superintendents', and not on teachers'.

Submitted, just for drill, as a Letter to the Editors, Alb Journal.