March 2008 — News
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K-12 Online Teaching Endorsements: Ohio Department of Education Perspectives
Extra Credit The links below provide further information on online teaching endorsements. You can also find Pat Deubel's previous article on this topic by clicking here. More Information
--D. Nagel |
In "K-12 Online Teaching Endorsements: Are They Needed?" (Deubel, 2008), I noted that four states, including Georgia, have endorsement programs for teaching online and suspected that it is only a matter of time for more to follow. A reader responded with concerns. Endorsements might deter current licensed teachers from pursuing teaching online, require some colleges and universities to create new courses for their teacher preparation programs, add thousands of dollars to the expenses for teachers-to-be to take additional coursework, and ultimately impact state departments of education, which might need to create new administrative offices. Of course, this is just one opinion, but the reader raised legitimate issues. There is the flip side to an endorsement movement, and I can see arguments on both sides.
As an Ohio educator for most of my career, I opted to further investigate the status of such endorsements in Ohio. John Watson and Jennifer Ryan (2007) noted 18 states have full-time, multi-district online schools. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota have the largest number of students in those programs (p. 17). As of August 2007, Ohio does not have a state-led online program. There are 40 eCommunity (charter) schools in Ohio with a combined enrollment of more than 20,000 students for fiscal year 2007. These include seven statewide schools (p. 113). While not the largest of those, Ohio Virtual Academy, which began in fall 2002, serves all 615 school districts in the state. Its 4,000 to 4,999 students were being taught by 112 full-time and two part-time teachers, 100 percent licensed (p. 76).
