Author comments on failure of online bill in Utah Senate

Michael Horn, co-author with Clayton Christensen and Curtis Johnson of "Disrupting Class," has a blog on Forbes.com today about yesterday's failure of SB65 in the Senate.

In the blog, he says, "... online learning represents the potential beginning transformation of that factory-model, monolithic system that doesn't serve our students well. If Utah's legislature doesn't end up passing this bill, it will punt on that opportunity."

Sen. Howard Stephenson's SB65 aims to expand online learning opportunities by creating a system to allow public and private organization to offer online courses to Utah students and get paid with public dollars for that. But the bill failed yesterday in the Senate after some lawmakers said it's too expensive in these tight budget times. (Some opponents have also called it another school voucher bill because it could redirect money that would normally go to public schools to private online course providers.) You can read more about the bill and the debate over it here.

Stephenson told me yesterday, however, that he will likely try to bring the bill back to the floor before the session ends, so I wouldn't count the bill out just yet.