Education

Community college online classes soon available statewide

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By JORDAN BRADLEY
Capital News Service
LANSING — The Michigan Community College Association, or MCCA, is working on a system that will give people students in remote areas of Michigan access to all online online courses available at community colleges in the state. Residents in sprawling Michigan’s sprawling areas, like much of the Upper Peninsula, have larger distances to travel to reach a community college’s campus. “Fifty percent of the land mass in Michigan is not in a community college district—that means within 30 to 40 miles,” Michael Hansen, president of the MCCA, said. According to Connect Michigan Inc., a non-profit dedicated to increasing Internet quality and access for residents in rural areas, 643,000 households are either without access to broadband Internet services or with access to slower upload speeds. However, since 2011, there has been a 60 percent increase in access to broadband Internet that has a minimum download speed of 100 megabits per second.

Education

Online courses offer students second chance

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By ANJANA SCHROEDER
Capital News Service
LANSING – School districts in the northern Lower Peninsula and West Michigan are offering credit recovery programs to allow students to make up classes, work for better grades and stay on the right track to graduate from high school. The goal is to promote student success, Superintendent of Public Instruction Michael Flanagan said. Credit recovery is a way for students, who failed or haven’t finished a course, to take the courses during or after school to catch up and prepare for high school graduation. Rick Seebeck, Gladwin Community Schools superintendent, said his district has been using Plato, a credit recovery program, for the past four years. “Five years ago, kids would fall behind on credits but it wasn’t as big a deal because they had time to make it up.”
Not so now.