My eldest is homeschooling via online courses. He's taking two CTY courses that are fantastic. One is Forensics and the other is From Structure to Style (English). I highly recommend these courses. His writing has improved considerably in only five weeks, and the English course is an important reason why.

However, he wasn't happy with an AP history course offered through CTY because it had a big emphasis on memorizing and regurgitating and very little emphasis on patterns and motivations in history. As a test prep vehicle for the AP exam, it's probably pretty good. But when judged against teaching about how historical events unfold and why, I think it's a failure. I did my first degree in history and have published in the field, and therefore believe I have a reasonable understanding of how the discipline should be practiced. Memorizing factoids and writing essays in 45 minutes or less (part of the course) isn't it.

Someone from CTY called me this morning to ask about why DS dropped the course. I talked about the differences between the history course and the other classes. A key one, IMO, is that Forensics and English are homemade by the teachers, whereas AP history is a canned course from a big company. IMO, the homemade courses are superior. The teachers' enthusiasm for their subjects is abundant and obvious and the classes serve the needs of gifted students very well. For example, the English class requires that students think HARD about how they write and what they write. The canned course is what it is: generic test prep for a broad audience (IMO).

The woman from CTY told me that they're thinking of licensing in a bunch of courses from a company called OdysseyWare. I looked at their site. The courses aren't designed for gifted students. I saw things like Aligned with Common Core! and Differentiated Instruction! and Success for at-risk students! There was lots of what I perceived as generic EducationSpeak. Perhaps this approach is good for most students, but I question the fit with gifties.

I may have been too blunt ( ), but I said that inlicensing too many canned courses that aren't aimed at gifted students would dilute the CTY brand. I also said, "Why should I pay a premium for OdysseyWare via CTY when I can get the same course for half the price?" She countered that "Our teachers are so great," but I countered back that canned online courses don't really lend themselves to great teaching because the teacher has to follow a prescribed syllabus. And besides, they aren't designed with the needs of gifted students in mind, yet CTY is supposed to be all about gifted students.

I suggested that CTY hire subject specialists from community colleges or other tertiary-level institutions, and let them design their own courses. I can see it now: "The Rise of the Dictators," "The fall of Communism," "Evolution and living things through ages." Compare to the canned courses after two or three years. Which ones get better reviews? Etc.

What do people here think?

What do I think? Having been victims of this industry for seven years?

THANK YOU. I hear angels singing when I read what you suggested.

I have never SEEN a canned online instructional module that was truly suitable for HG+ kids as a core part of their instruction. As enrichment? Sure. As a tool in a well-designed course? Sure, again.

Well, with the caveat that I'm not familiar with the courses you're discussing, IMO just from the way you describe the issues you have with these courses convinces me that you have excellent points and as a possible future consumer of more online courses, I would like to thank you very much for expressing them candidly to the CTY representative. Hopefully they will listen. (BTW, do you think maybe CTY is 'shifting its business model' or something like by trying to appeal to a wider (i.e, not so HG, etc.) audience? That would be disappointing.) We're only doing Stanford's EPGY right now (for math), but the comments I have/had seen before choosing it were right on target (and in passing, let me say that one of the reasons we chose it--the Stanford transcript that was to have been granted at the completion of the course--is now no longer with us, because they changed that to a certificate of completion instead, FWIW, but we're sticking with it anyway although you would think by now most of the bugs would have been fixed). So if we end up homeschooling for part or all of middle school (which is seeming more and more likely), I will definitely be using online resources and definitely taking into consideration what people on this site think of them. So thank you again for expressing your opinions about what makes a superior product to CTY, and for your post here.

I'm afraid that they're either doing this or that they're using the canned courses because the profit margins are higher.

I think it is a higher priority for students to acquire background knowledge from survey courses (such as AP US History, AP European History, or AP World History) before they take specialized courses, both because they should know what is taught in the survey courses (which may be their terminal courses in the subject) and because such a background would make more specialized courses more meaningful.

What's wrong with the commercial mass market? That's what makes America great . Even the "artisanal" and "organic" is done on a large scale. Tens of millions who "think different" can all enjoy their Apple products.

With all due respect, Bostonian-- spoken like someone who hasn't seen one of these real stinkers.

I don't disagree with the utility of survey coursework, and I am guessing that Val isn't saying anything of the kind.

It's just that when pre-recorded 5 minute video segments, 3-question multiple choice "quizzes" that are at the lowest levels of Bloom's taxonomy, and no: a) meaningful course discussion, b) critical thinking about information, and/or c) access to an expert teacher...
out-of-date materials, errors in materials, the over-reliance on 'free' weblinks, poor transitions (as a result of using a set of cobbled together free materials), poor continuity between topics, poor assessment, no student feedback on higher order thinking skills...


well, in those cases, a sign that says "Billions Served" really isn't a good indicator of quality any more than it is at McDonald's.

YES.

In fact, many educational e-curriculum houses rely upon virtual sweatshop labor gleaned from contract technical writers. These aren't subject experts-- in any way, shape, or form. They are writers who will bid low because they are fairly desperate. (We're talking, 'here, write this accounting module for us in a week. For $500. Here's what we need covered.')

Sometimes even the bigger providers get sucked into this because they have pressure to meet profitability goals, and contract out a course that they don't have, or purchase it from a smaller provider.

Unfortunately, this is one instance in which mass production (if one will) does NOT indicate either coherence in design process or high quality.

CAN such things be high quality? Of course. We've seen that with some of the offerings of our national charter school-- they use Virtual Sage (which is dreadful), Aventa (similarly dreadful offerings), some in-house offerings (also not generally very good-- because they aren't devised by TEACHERS, but by administrators), and Florida Virtual School offerings, which are generally developed by teachers and faculty at CFU's incubator for virtual secondary education.

There's a huge quality variance-- what we've noticed is that TEACHERS have to be involved in the curriculum design team or it pretty much will suck. Period.

Administrators may have all the right qualifications and may THINK that they know what students need, but because they aren't in direct contact with students using the curriculum... they usually don't know what will/won't work.

I agree with you Val. FWIW, our ds is taking his first CTY online course this fall semester, and from my perspective, his teacher has been worth her weight in gold, and made the course well worth the $. I have looked at the courses offered and at first glance would have hoped to see a wider variety of subjects, but not at the expense of quality.

polarbear

My son did a survey course of American history in 7th grade and another in 8th grade. He did a survey of world history in 6th grade. Effectively all kids do survey classes in middle school and again in early high school. How many survey classes are required before they can spend time going deeply into a subject? As I mentioned, though, if your goal is test prep, the courses I described in my OP are fine. Personally, though, I'm trying to raise kids who can analyze information from different sources, not kids who are test-prepped multiple choice warriors who will go forth unquestioning. YMMV.


Please tell me you're just yanking my chain here and not responding out of unquestioning ideology. Perhaps I'm just feeling too serious today?

Is the course homemade by the teacher, or does it rely primarily on materials produced by a third party like Pearson, etc? Obviously, DS's courses use third-party materials, but the teachers designed the courses themselves and pick and choose what to use and how to use it.

That mirrors what we've found over seven years (not with CTY, but with Connections, which is now-- ironically-- a Pearson subsidiary ).

The teacher makes (or breaks) the course, as often as not. If they exercise a great deal of autonomy over how to use course materials, the course can be very good, and if the teacher basically just turns students loose with the canned product and shrug off questions... not so much.

I am being provocative but mean what I say. I have though a lot about my ideology . One reason America is one of the richest countries in history is that it is a huge internal free trade zone with a relatively homogeneous culture (almost everyone understands English, for example). This has permitted great economies of scale. In a much smaller country McDonalds and Walmart would not be able to sell products of their quality (such as they are) at the prices they do.

If the quality of U.S. textbooks and other educational materials is sub-standard (a view I am sympathetic to), despite the large market, this is a market failure worth examining.

McDonald's sells food all over the world, in countries large and small, and it's all substandard (but in many other countries, McDonald's is actually kind of expensive). And yet they thrive.

Re: Market failure.

Education is not like, say, the auto industry or the clothing industry. With cars or clothes, you can buy second-hand stuff. You can trade clothes with your friends or buy something expensive at Nordstrom. If you don't like that brand of car (quality too low), you can sell it and buy a new one that's better. There are lots of choices, and the market works because of real competition.

With education, the situation is very different. The vast majority of people are stuck with the school the district assigns them. Plus, they have no say in decisions about the curriculum or how it's implemented. They take what's handed to them, just like our kids take what the schools give them, even over our protestations. Students are more of a captive audience. The AP "market" is especially bad because the College Board controls course content.

Ergo, it's really not a free market and rules that work for jeans and sneakers don't work well in public education.

Thanks for bringing this up and sharing your opinions with CTY. I heartily agree. We just started using CTY this past summer. My daughter is taking an EPGY math class through them. It is disappointing to pay so much more for EPGY than we would if we just used it solo. (We are doing it pretty much just for the transcript, since we homeschool and might need it someday for high school applications.) I am not unhappy with EPGY, but CTY adds essentially nothing to the experience.

It's good to hear you have really been happy with some of the courses. I think we will homeschool through middle school if not possibly beyond, and I see on-line course providers such as CTY as being an important part of our curriculum in the future. I would be very disappointed indeed if they only or mostly offered boxed programs, especially if those were not specifically designed for gifted kids. We tried compass learning last year, and my kids thought is was deadly slow and dumbed down. That has generally been my experience with most products like that.

Here is a depressing look at textbook publishing from the Kitchen Table Math blog:

worse than you think, part I've-lost-count
http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2013/02/worse-than-you-think-part-ive-lost-count.html

At one time, a writer in this industry could write a book and receive roughly 6% royalties on sales. The salesperson who sold the product, however, earned (and still does) a commission upwards of 17% on the same product. This sort of pay structure never made sense to me; without the product, there’d be nothing to sell, after all. But this disparity serves to illustrate the thinking that has been entrenched industry-wide for decades—that sales and marketing is more valuable than product.

Now, the balance between the budgets for marketing and product development is growing farther and farther apart, and exponentially so. Today, royalties are a thing of the past for most writers and work-for-hire is the norm. Sales staffs still receive their high commissions, but with today’s outsourcing, writers and editors are consistently offered less than 20% of what they used to make. As a result, the number of qualified writers and editors is diminishing, and those being contracted by developers and publishers often don’t have the necessary skills or experience to produce a text worthy of the publisher’s marketing claims.

I'd say that connection is not only true of text development, but is probably at least triply true of online content development.

It's sweatshop labor, or nearly so. It truly shows, too-- because the editorial process is only charitably termed "minimal at best."

It's true of most parts of IT, most companies I or my husband have worked at the sales and presales teams often earn 2-3x what the senior developers earn.

Would you mind letting us know the name of the course that you are happy with? Thanks for sharing!

If you are looking for a writing course, my dd11 is taking the CTY Flexi-pace "Process of Writing" course which is expensive but well worth the $$. Her writing has improved, but, more importantly, her mood is lighter and she enjoys interacting with the teacher via email. She feels she is finally being challenged in this course which is advertised as being taught at the 11th grade level.

She usually waits until the last minute to finish her homework, but with this class, she has turned in every assignment early!

The course appears to have been designed by the teacher, who provides specific praise and recommendations.

I think the 11th grade part comes in with the instructions for each assignment being several pages long in different places, so be aware there is a LOT of reading involved. But that is what makes it an interesting course. You can view a sample assignment on the CTY website and I think you'll see what I mean.

My DD12 is in 6th grade, so I don't care about accreditation, or should I?

Anyway, I would consider an online class for gifted students taught by a qualified teacher, even if it's not part of CTY. If anyone knows of some good online classes, especially someone teaching MCT grammar or vocabulary classes, I'd like to know about them.

OnlineG3 teaches MCT grammar and vocab and they do it well. My daughter loves the literature classes there in particular. Online3G.com.

Agreed, it's not a free market. However, it's untrue that market dynamics can't be applied to a public industry with dampened price signals. They can be, but the price multiplier effects would be distorted by the disconnect between payor and consumer. Narrow that disconnect and you achieve more efficient outcomes.

One way to do this would be to make private education amounts fully tax deductible on an achievement and needs basis, with lump sum subsidies to top up low income households. Voila! Equal access, not equal outcome, like the current system is designed to achieve.

Then the issue at hand becomes how to scalably address the long tail that is the gifted market at cost parity. It's that cost parity under the public system that may be problematic because of the lack of agglomeration economies in the gifted world.

PS. Feel free to PM me to chop this comment if you feel it derails the central discussion. It's not my intent to hijack!

Also, thanks for starting this thread. Val-uable information!

Thanks for the review of CTS's online AP course, Val. Unfortunately, I've heard numerous complaints about AP courses lately, both online and B&M. What I hear from friends in the schools: The classes aren't so intellectually challenging as they are time-management-challenging. IE loads and loads of homework. In classrooms, teachers present the material as easily digestible power point slides with little mind expanding discussion. I'm suspecting many if not most of the AP courses are basically just test-prep vehicles, and the emphasis on memorizing testable facts is the nature of the beast. A beast we've all helped to create with our desires to give our kids a leg up and get ahead of the game. When choosing a history course for our kids, maybe we are forced to choose between depth and quality or potential college credit -- if we're lucky and have these choices. Considering how expensive college is these days, it's a darn difficult choice, and it feels unfair. However, considering what standardized test graders are paid and the amount of time they spend on each test, I'm not sure we'll see any major changes -- at least not without a significant cost attached. And there we get into some tricky business --- but my mother taught me that ladies don't discuss economics I have some great cookie recipes, though!

Kitty