EDITORIAL

a funding system for online schools based on students learning rather than, or in addition to, how much time they spend logged on.

It’s long overdue. While counting time logged in is better than simply counting names on a roster, it ignores the fact that a student can be logged in all day without engaging in any learning. Devising a fair system won’t be easy; it shouldn’t push schools to cheat and shouldn’t penalize those trying to help students who have learning challenges.

Lawmakers don’t seem eager to get to work on the task. The bills weren’t sent to Gov. John Kasich until late July and he signed them on Aug. 3. Committee members, who haven’t even been named yet, face a Nov. 15 deadline to submit a report.

We hope lawmakers somehow manage to keep politics to a minimum and make a sincere effort, guided by experts, to come up with a fair and effective funding mechanism.

Online schools aren’t going away, nor should they. Constantly improving technology promises great benefit — for example, allowing dramatically expanded course offerings for students in small or rural districts. But Ohio needs a system that recognizes the fundamental differences between online and brick-and-mortar schools and provides realistic standards for each.

Two decades of neglect yielded the ECOT debacle — a mess that we hope is entering its final chapter.