Virtual Christian School

Here's an idea: a virtual Christian school. It's my primary passion, Christian education that is, and I've had three "brick and mortar" schools. But the economics of Christian education are difficult at best and downright debilitating at worst. Without outside support, it is almost impossible to operate a viable educational institution with all the bells and whistles necessary to prepare students for life in the 21st century.

When I started my school in Los Angeles at the Dream Center, we had two classrooms, one activity room, and an office. As we transformed the office into a computer lab, we were given four more small rooms in another area that served as the school office, my office, a workroom and storage. At one point we turned the activity room into a third classroom, which provided us with space for a total of 42 students, grades 2 through 12. We used an isolated parking lot behind the building that also had a patio for recess and physical education. While the third classroom was in operation, we used the small auditorium in the building for chapel services and music classes. We operated on a shoestring budget with outside support, but for five years we provided parents with a safe environment to educate their children in a God-honoring curriculum that also resulted in phenomenal increase in learning, as evidenced by standardized test scores. When we started, we charged $25 per student per month, an outrageously small amount. When we closed, we had increased to $40 per student per month, still only 10-15% of what most other schools charge. What parent can afford that and still live in the inner city of Los Angeles?
As you can see, infrastructure can be a major hurdle to establishing a viable alternative to the government (not public) schools that generally do such a poor job of educating our nation's children. I won't go through the litany here, but we all have heard and read the data. Well, enter the virtual Christian school.

This could be done either as a home school environment or as a co-op where students could gather in a central location where resources could be pooled. Based upon a mastery paradigm in a programmed environment, this could begin to provide what is needed on a much larger scale than is currently available. Thanks to the ubiquitous proliferation of technology along with almost universal access to the internet, this could literally be promulgated world-wide.

Right now, this is just a germ of an idea. I hope to get the full-blown disease, and soon.

First Post

Hey, everyone!

Here's my new blog on blogspot related to Instructional Design. It popped out of my head this morning as I was thinking about stuff for my other blog, "Milton's Musings" at miltonbulian.com. I'm going to use this more as an outlet for occasional thoughts on the subject of ID, since that is my specialization in my doctoral studies. I may use it as a brainstorming venue as I begin work on my dissertation. Nothing like stirring the old juices, huh? And if I can get some existential feedback from some of my colleagues, maybe we'll both learn. Sound good to you? Sounds good to me!