Greetings Eddies!
During COVID, millions of families got the worst possible version of online school.
Staring into the void of Gallery View for 6 hours a day turned a lot of kids into glazed-eyed “Zoom zombies,” and convinced a generation of parents that all screen-learning is a dead end.
This is why I was surprised to learn recently that the woman who basically invented virtual school (back in the 1990s) dislikes that version of online school as much as we all do.
My guest on the podcast this week is Julie Young, who built Florida Virtual School from 77 students on dial-up internet into a model with a 50,000-student waitlist, and later launched ASU Prep Digital (she tells the full story in her new book, Say Yes! How Virtual Became Reality).
Prefer audio? Listen on Spotify or read my full feature story on Julie here.
Before Julie’s founding team ever wrote a single online lesson, she walked to the center of a conference table and laid down a blank sheet of paper with one word on it: “student.”
What was supposed to be a one-hour meeting lasted four hours.
“Are hospitals built for the patients, or are they built for the doctors?” Julie asked me. “The same question comes up when we think about schools. Are we building schools for kids, or for the adults in those schools?”
First rule to go was the 70% “passing grade.”
“Why would we settle for a student getting a 70 on a test and moving on to new material the next day?” Julie said. “They don’t know 30% of what they need to know to advance. Once students really got the hang of trying again with a teacher, they didn’t want the 70, the 80, or the 90. They wanted the 95 or the 100.”
In this episode:
Why traditional schools should be copying homeschoolers right now (instead of the other way around)
How a kid who hates science can learn high school physics through baseball, dance, or training service dogs
The one question every parent should ask before enrolling their child in any online class
How taking just one class online broke the all-or-nothing school monopoly
Virtual School Without Raising a “Zoom Zombie”
Most families today don’t want a six-hour-a-day online school in a box. They want to cherry-pick what works (maybe a 20-minute video math lesson or a live weekly class) without handing their kid over to an algorithm.
We just overhauled our parent guide, Virtual School & Online Classes for Kids: How to Mix What Works (Without Raising a “Zoom Zombie”), with Julie’s perspective, along with real data from thousands of OpenEd families and top tips from our teachers and curriculum advisors.
Inside the updated guide:
The 5-second “After-Class Face Test” to tell if an online class is feeding their curiosity or frying their brain
Why plopping your toddler in front of an iPad to buy time to teach your older kids backfires (and the simple flip that fixes your morning)
Why the exact same adaptive math app makes one teen shout “Mom, come look!” but causes his neurodivergent sibling to melt into a puddle of defeat
How clever kids learn to “hack” multiple-choice quizzes in 48 hours, and the 1-page pencil rule that stops it cold
That’s all for now!
– Ela
P.S. Mid-year enrollment for a January start closes November 13 in most OpenEd states. If a friend has been telling you their child’s school year isn’t working, send them our 2-minute Switching Quiz.
And if friends in your co-op have been asking about OpenEd and you’d like a 20-minute Q&A with our team just for your co-op, reply to this email and we’ll set it up!
