The Delaware Department of Education has a Request For Proposal (RFP) for middle-school students to have “blended” learning in the World Immersion Program. I called this last October! Rodel has been pimping the whole personalized learning thing for the past year, and I am sure it will be a highlight of their latest Vision fest in September. Blended learning and personalized learning are essentially the same thing. The RFP states they want students in 6th to 8th grade to be able to take their time learning another language.
World Immersion, on the surface, looks great. But it is having the undesired effect in some schools of causing special needs students and low-performing students to not be able to participate in this program. It is already making it’s mark in Capital and Caesar Rodney. Students from one school in a district are moving to other ones because this program is offered at that school. This is creating a shift to occur, whereby some schools will do well and others won’t. And the districts are the ones doing this! Check out the below RFP and please let me know what you think of this latest venture. I know some teachers who agree with me on a lot who think World Immersion and personalized learning are great things, but I just see it as something that will separate the “strong” from the “weak”. And don’t forget, this is all Governor Markell’s baby. What happens to those schools in districts in a few years that have all the most high-needs students while all the “smart” ones are at the high-performing schools learning Chinese or Spanish? The way Delaware sets up certain schools to fail continues to astonish me! I’m going to predict this now: either Schoology or 2Revolutions will get this contract!
The Season Of Myths 