The Louisiana Department of Education will begin accepting requests for applications Monday from those interested in becoming certified course providers under a new provision of the state’s education law that will allow students in poorly performing public schools to take courses outside of the traditional school setting.
Known as Louisiana Course Choice, the provision of the recently enacted Act 2 education law has been largely overlooked until now. But it represents a radically different way for students in “C-,” “D-” and “F”-rated public schools to take for-credit courses that their schools either don’t offer or don’t do an adequate job of presenting.
Under the new law, which doesn’t begin until the 2013-14 school year, alternative courses will be offered in any number of formats—online, in a classroom or both—by any number of providers who qualify, including existing school districts and job training academies, virtual schools, individual educators or even local companies.
“We don’t know who will apply or what the market is going to propose,” says Dave Leftkowith, deputy superintendent of education. “That’s the beauty of opening it up to the market. Markets will surprise and delight you.”
Course providers who get certified by the state to offer courses—like an online AP calculus class to a student whose rural school doesn’t teach the advanced math course—will receive a percentage of the state education dollars that would ordinarily go to that student’s school. That could add up.
Under the law, students will be able to take as many as five of their six courses from alternative course providers. But it may be a while before many students take that many courses outside of the walls of their school. Moreover, considerable logistics have to be ironed out in advance.
The state has to conduct a lengthy vetting process to certify providers, and local school districts have to get on board with the program, as it will fall to their administrators and guidance counselors to coordinate student schedules that will include a mix of traditional classroom courses and alternative, off-site or online courses.
“There are a lot of people in this building working on a lot of different pieces and parts of this simultaneously,” Leftkowith says.
The department is encouraging any interested providers in applying, including businesses that may want to partner with existing schools or educators to offer job-training courses. Application requests can be downloaded from the website at here, and they’ll begin being accepted via the online Course Choice portal on Aug. 17. A webinar with information on funding as well as on the application and evaluation process will be held July 18-20. More information on it is available here.
