Successful credit recovery programs from four districts

“For a regular comprehensive high school trying to set up something based on how slow or fast kids learn, it would be a nightmare. Semesters would have to begin and end at all different times; it just can’t work,” Baker says. “But in an online situation, it’s much easier to handle” this kind of personalization.

Tucson USD requires students to log in for at least five hours per week, per class. Students have two months to get through a credit recovery class, though some get through the courses much faster.

Baker points out that the personnel costs don’t go down significantly with online courses, because you still need teachers, administrators, and counselors involved. But when you balance those costs against the cost of a senior taking up a seat in algebra that a freshman could take in the fall, then online credit recovery often becomes worth it.

“When you’re talking about credit recovery and today’s student, who wants information in a variety of different ways, the more flexible you can be, the better,” Baker says.

Baker says there has been a real revolution in how colleges are delivering classes, offering more flexible schedules with evening classes, online classes, and even weekend classes.

“High school hasn’t really caught up with that idea,” he says. “Part of that is, what do you do with a 14-year-old kid who doesn’t have to go to school all day? There remains the idea of schools being able to watch the kid. Still, we’re stuck with the ideal of how we’ve done schools for the last 100 years. We need to start redefining how we present information, how we can draw on a variety of sources.”

John Glenewinkel, superintendent of the East Valley School District in Spokane, Wash., seems to have embraced the idea of flexibility in moving more students toward graduation. He has put a number of programs into place to serve students whom he calls “truly displaced and nontraditional learners.”

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