Email
The article “Diploma Costs a Weekend and $200″ is missing important information and unfairly taints the great opportunities available to students through Southwest Secondary Learning Centers. A family member of mine has used this resource to improve poor grades and has learned significantly more with online instruction than he did in a “face-to-face class.”
He also worked to earn the $200 class fee.
Not every student learns well sitting in a classroom full of distractions, listening to a teacher lecture. Some learn better by reading. Some learn better by watching the lecture online with no commotion or diversions, and the ability to rewind and repeat lessons until they are fully understood.
In a classroom the teacher moves on to the next lesson if most of the students have successfully completed the skill. A student cannot proceed to the next lesson in a Southwest Secondary Learning Centers’ online class until he has mastered a lesson and achieved at least a C on the test.
There is no indication in the article that the student failed the class because he had not absorbed any of the instruction. Many, many parents of teen boys can attest to backpacks full of completed or nearly completed assignments that were never turned in. Did the student fail to turn in his work? Did he have excessive absences?
While I’ve never seen a student complete a semester class in four days, the article does report that the student was logged in for almost 57 hours. He obviously worked on it day and night with intense dedication to completing the task.
As the high schools try to look more and more like colleges in their scheduling, they should also accept the fact that compressed classes are often available. The University of New Mexico has offered classes where a student can earn a semester credit in one week – with fewer hours than the reported student worked that one weekend.
It should also be noted that students taking online classes through Albuquerque Public Schools’ eCademy can sign out of a course as soon as it is completed whether that be a couple of weeks or a full semester. The only difference between eCademy and Southwest Secondary Learning Centers is the cost and the flexible timing of the start of the class.
It is impossible to complete an online course by taking shortcuts. You have to complete every step in the curriculum. We’re not talking about three years of full-time work in 10 days. We’re talking about a one-semester course, worked at around the clock for four days.
Southwest Secondary Learning Centers offers an excellent opportunity for “other learning.” It gives students an opportunity to recover from mistakes and poor choices in weeks or months instead of another semester or two.
I would hate to see the reputation of this excellent resource tainted by a sensational report about one isolated incident.
