Education officials announce pilot program

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Education officials on Monday announced a pilot program to create courses available in schools, libraries and homes throughout Oklahoma via the Internet.

The program, expected to be unveiled in less than two months, would include an online curriculum that will offer algebra and other math courses for students in the fourth and seventh grades at nine pilot schools.

If the Virtual Internet School in Oklahoma Network, or VISION, program is successful, other subjects could be offered and made available statewide, she said.

"One of our greatest difficulties in Oklahoma is having equal access to education," Garrett said during a presentation to administrators, legislators and corporate partners. "From the smallest, most remote schools to the urban, inner-city schools, this would ensure equal opportunity."

Legislators created the program last year. Since then, state education officials have been working with administrators, teachers and corporate partners to figure out how to implement the program in the pilot schools.

The corporate partners include Intel Corp., JES & Co., Microsoft, Dell Computers, SAP, a software company, and Ignite!, an Austin-Texas based company run by Neil Bush, the younger brother of President Bush.

The school districts in the pilot program are: Claremore, Durant, Frontier, Lawton, Muskogee, Oklahoma City, Stilwell, Tulsa and Western Heights in Oklahoma City.

Western Heights Superintendent Joe Kitchens said the online curriculum will include high-quality video streaming along with text and graphics. The online courses could be offered as stand-alone lessons or as a supplement to classroom instruction.

"It reaches the students when, where and how they need to be reached. Some students are visual learners. Some are auditory learners. This can play to their strengths," Kitchens said.

Garrett said the state already has spent $400,000 developing the online math curriculum. The Legislature appropriated $500,000 to the effort last year.

The nine pilot districts and eight other school districts have formed a cooperative in hopes of qualifying for millions of dollars in discounts available through the federal reimbursement E-rate program. The program helps some of the nation's poorest schools pay for telecommunications services, including Internet access.

Garrett also is hoping for as much as $5 million from lawmakers this year.

The project's e-business component would enable districts to integrate academics with management in a way not previously possible, Garrett said. It would help schools better manage their money several ways, including the use of student and management data to identify what academic programs work best and most efficiently.

Such a system also would allow districts to submit electronically their financial data to the state Education Department.