• Education Week: Districts Embracing Online Credit-Recovery Options Annotated

  “… some states’ “seat time” requirements are a hindrance to the effective use of credit-recovery programs. With such requirements—long a mainstay of eligibility for a high school diploma—students must spend a certain amount of time in class, typically 120 hours, for each high school credit earned.

  Many online credit-recovery programs, however, consider a student to have passed a course if he or she has demonstrated mastery of the subject matter. Passing is not based on how much time he or she spent online.

  “The notion that students should have to sit in a chair for a certain amount of time when it’s only a certain aspect of algebra they didn’t get baffles me,” Ms. Vaughan said.

  Kathy Christie, the chief of staff for the Denver-based Education Commission of the States, agreed that states should create policies that enable students to earn high school credits for mastery of skills, not just seat time.

  “To work off of a proficiency base allows kids to accelerate. It allows them to make up for bad decisions,” she said. “It keeps the eye on the prize for kids: ‘These are the standards. These are the things I need to know.’ ”

  tags: education online online learning

  • some states’ “seat time” requirements are a hindrance to the effective use of credit-recovery programs. With such requirements—long a mainstay of eligibility for a high school diploma—students must spend a certain amount of time in class, typically 120 hours, for each high school credit earned.

    Many online credit-recovery programs, however, consider a student to have passed a course if he or she has demonstrated mastery of the subject matter. Passing is not based on how much time he or she spent online.

    “The notion that students should have to sit in a chair for a certain amount of time when it’s only a certain aspect of algebra they didn’t get baffles me,” Ms. Vaughan said.

  • “To work off of a proficiency base allows kids to accelerate. It allows them to make up for bad decisions,” she said. “It keeps the eye on the prize for kids: ‘These are the standards. These are the things I need to know.’ ”

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