Give hope a chance

LITTLE ROCK — THE POPE is on Twitter.

According to dispatches, for the first time last week Benedict XVI twitted or tweeted or twittered or whatever the kids call it.

It’s a new world. A brave new one.

An elderly woman asked her middle aged daughter a question the other day: All of your children live out of state now. How can you handle not talking to them all the time, honey?

The reply: “Mama, I talk to my children every day. Several times a day.” It’s called email or Facebook or social media in general.

We know of a granddad here in Arkansas who can talk to his grandkids any time he wants-face to face, sort of. He fires up the ol’ computer, and there they are, all living in Houston, Texas, and all smiling and mugging and generally running off at the mouth. And all readily available every day after school.

Imagine walking into this world from 1960! Or even 1980. It would be as surprising and confusing as Lucy’s first visit to the wardrobe in C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s book. (Not that it isn’t a good read for grown-ups, too.)

Comes now yet another dreamer proposing yet another charter school in Arkansas. This particular dreamer, a former public school superintendent, wants to open a charter school.

So? What’s so new about that? He wants it to be online. That is, the students would stay at home, but meet with their teachers via some sort of videoconferencing technology every day. The kids would get their assignments online, they would work with other kids online-and they’d do it all at home. Or at grandma’s. Or while traveling. Anywhere they had access to a working computer.

There are still some details to be worked out, as Gentle Reader can well imagine. For example, would the kids need to take tests in person? Few doubt that the technology to pull this off won’t soon be available-if it isn’t already.

Frank Holman, the dreamer in this case, calls it Blended Virtual Learning, because even if the kids aren’t in a classroom, they’re still under a teacher’s supervision.

If the school can get off the ground, it would serve up to 500 kids-mostly in Northwest Arkansas. But maybe others around the state could join. It’s online, after all. Physical distance doesn’t count all that much. We ourselves still have an archaic prejudice in favor of face to-face communication. And the kind of civilized conversation/discourse it promotes. (“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”-Francis Bacon.) But this Blended Virtual Learning idea does have possibilities.

An online school? Good idea or no?

We’re gratified to be able to answer that question promptly: We don’t know.

Patrick Wolf is in the University of Arkansas’ department of education reform, and he told the paper it may not matter if the kids are actually sitting in a classroom. They can just learn long-distance. Online education hasn’t been exactly a New Thing for about a decade now, so you’d think a lot of the kinks would have been found, straightened out, and ironed flat.

Now it’s up to the state to give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down to this dream and dreamer.

The state’s Board of Education is likely to take up the matter after the first of the year. Maybe as soon as January.

Here’s hoping this online charter gets approved. And that dreams can still become reality. If we work at dreams, they can prove more than just dreams.

WHAT IF it doesn’t work, huh, huh, huh? That’s always the first, middle, and maybe last argument of those who oppose charter schools. When they aren’t pointing to those charter schools that have proved duds-and therefore had their charters yanked. Which is the best answer to their argument: If the charter school doesn’t work, that is, if it doesn’t live up to its charter, it’s closed down. And the kids are sent off to other schools. Better schools, let’s hope.

The best argument for charter schools is precisely the number of charters that have failed-and paid the price. They failed. They closed. End of school, end of failure, beginning of a new and better chance.

When was the last time you heard of a traditional public school being shut down because it failed its students, year after year, generation after generation? But when charter schools fail, they’re closed. And need to be closed. It’s called trial and error. And the method can work as well in education as it does in science.

For now, charter schools are worth a try. They might have a new-fangled idea or two that works. Like online schooling.

Dream on, dreamers. We need you. Education needs you. Our kids need you.