New York City expands online learning

The New York City public school system recently announced that it is expanding online learning options. This is potentially a major development for reasons I’ll explain below. First, the details:
 
“New York City plans to offer an expansive voluntary virtual learning program to all public high school students and some middle school students…
 
[This will be] the first major school system in the nation to offer an expansive voluntary virtual learning program that would ultimately be available to all high school students and at least some middle school students.
 
While not a substitute for in-person learning, it would give students access to a much broader set of course offerings across the city, and the ability to take classes at non-traditional times, like evenings and weekends. It would also give an opportunity for educators to teach virtually.

The initiative will allow public schools to expand course offerings to students who don't currently have access to the full range of accelerated courses and to reach students for whom traditional in-person schedules don't work, such as students who work full-time jobs.”
 
Why is this potentially a big deal?
 
First, New York City is by far the largest school district in the country by enrollment, with more than one million students. By comparison, that’s about the same number as Arizona or Sweden, and only one other district in the US is even half NYC’s size. Calling this a district initiative is both accurate and misleading because of the system’s size, and because of that size, its impact has the potential to be felt widely.
 
Second, much of the online learning story has been driven by the needs of rural schools and students, and by the needs of relatively small student populations such as hospitalized/homebound students, gifted students seeking advanced courses, etc. The NYC initiative holds promise for demonstrating how urban schools and large, demographically representative numbers of students can be served by online courses. The only region this has occurred so far has been in Florida—which is obviously a very different place than NYC. To have a true blue city and a scarlet red state be among the online learning leaders at a national level could go a long way towards avoiding culture war issues in online learning.
 
Third, the potential for students in New York City to use online courses to create scheduling flexibility, and take advantage of the endless opportunities that the city offers, may be an under-appreciated element of this initiative.
 
Hybrid schools in other states, such as Crossroads FLEX in North Carolina, offer opportunities for students to focus on jobs, internships, and other pursuits of interest. A main challenge that students in these schools face, however, is finding opportunities that they can reach, given that in most of the country such opportunities are geographically spread out and public transportation is poor.
 
These conditions are exactly the opposite in NYC. Jobs, internships, and other pursuits abound, and the city has by far the most robust public transportation in the US. NYC already has programs such as FutureReadyNYC connecting students with these types of opportunities; the scheduling flexibility that online courses provide may further bolster that program and others. Just imagine the difference in options if a student can only go to a work site after school, getting there at 3pm, versus being able to spend an entire afternoon learning on the job at that site. Or, for that matter, being able to spend one day a week at a job site. That may not be possible yet, but with students able to use online courses to meet academic requirements, such options may soon be available.
 
The last reason the situation in NYC is important is potentially the most impactful.
 
For many years, teachers unions have been a force against online learning in the Unites States, especially in certain regions of the country such as the Middle Atlantic states. NYC could not implement an initiative like this without the approval of the union. In fact, the article quoted above includes extensive reference to the union role (emphasis added):
 
“New York City plans to offer an expansive voluntary virtual learning program to all public high school students and some middle school students, under a tentative contract agreement with the teachers union.

The program was included as part of a tentative five-plus-year contract agreement with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), Mayor Eric Adams announced on Tuesday. The agreement covers approximately 120,000 municipal employees…
 
"This is really cutting-edge stuff that the UFT and the chancellor were able to come together on of what teaching is going to look like in the future, and how you take that great teacher and have a wider pool of young people who could learn from their knowledge," said Adams…
 
UFT President Michael Mulgrew explained that the new tentative contract includes language that allows instruction to be flexible, especially when it comes to the virtual learning program.”
 
If the NYC online learning expansion signals a new era in the relationship between unions and online learning, the effects could be felt in urban and suburban areas across the country that educate the majority of students. The next post will explore this idea in more detail.

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