World School

Journey to Establish Standards

I have been thinking a lot lately about how to establish a high caliber of standards that would make something like World School desirable for people interested in alternative educational options for their children. For the first leg in this journey I kept it close to home, looking at how each state in the USA stacks up to each other, and how those rankings are established. My hope is to then venture outside of our borders to consider the reading, science, and math programs of countries like Great Britain, Japan, and India for example. It seems like an appropriate avenue for World School.

About WS

World School is a consortium of educators who take an entrepreneurial approach to distance teaching. Members of the group typically wish to continue teaching, but more on their own terms.They may be retired teachers who kind of miss the kids, or younger teachers who have not been treated well by the educational system, or they may be just looking for better salaries and better working conditions.

Terms

1. teach only the grade levels and courses they wish
2. teach only the number of students they want
3. teach from any location(s)
4. teach at any time of day
5. move easily in and out of teaching/non-teaching

Projects

The first project will be to offer a teaching staff for K-5 or K-6 to parents who are "on the go". This includes individuals or couples whose work requires that their family relocate to places where there are few viable educational opportunities for children. It may also include upscale families interested in home schooling.

Method

1. Recruit elementary teachers who are entrepreneurial at heart and eager to teach with technology from a distance.
2. Select an appropriate online base curriculum from among several vendors or create from scratch.
3. Work to determine ways to enhance/supplement this curriculum to provide a more "high touch" DL approach for parents and their children.
4. Train teachers.
5. Sell seats in virtual classrooms.
6. Support each other.

Hardware