Each one-credit course in high school takes a minimum of 120 hours of classroom instruction, but there is a way for students to complete that in less than an eighth of the time. That’s thanks to a program called credit recovery.
For secondary schools in Northwest Florida and around the state, credit recovery is for students who do not pass a class on the first try. They might have had a health crisis during the school year or a family misfortune that resulted in a failed class. If so, they can then take credit recovery — a shortened online course — and if they pass it, it’s as good as if they passed the original, year-long class.
Is this a good idea?
Pros and cons
Okaloosa County Schools’ Catherine Card praises the program. The district contracts with an independent software company called Edgenuity for their Credit Recovery courses.
“One of the things that we love about this course is we want to meet students where they are," said Card, who is the school district's public information officer. "And everybody has a different learning curve. With this program, it has a multitude of courses, so it covers a wide variety, and that helps the majority of student needs. It also has a language translation component. For students who are English language learners, they'll be able to benefit because they'll be able to do the translations."
Okaloosa School District has used Edgenuity for more than a decade at a cost of $219,231 per year. Card also said that Edgenuity allows students to stay on track for graduation with their classmates.
While the program has its fans, credit recovery also has its critics, like former Santa Rosa County classroom teacher, Claire Browning, who says it does little to prepare struggling students for the real world.
“These kids know that credit recovery is a quick and easy solution and it's almost like a reward to many of them," she said. "You don't try in class, you get a free period, and then you do credit recovery. You breeze through everything in a month maybe, and you get a 75 on your report card. And I understand the thought behind credit recovery. We want our kids on track for graduation, but let's be honest, they are not learning in credit recovery. They are just clicking through the program. So a student graduating by recovering, however many classes, is not graduating with the same knowledge and skills that a student who has not had to recover classes is.”
Browning was in a high school classroom in Santa Rosa County for three and a half years. She said that some of her students overused the safety net in order to graduate on time.
“Credit recovery has always left a bad taste in my mouth because I would have a handful of students each year who just completely checked out of my class," she explained. "And when I would talk to them about what was going on, they'd be like, 'Oh, nothing's wrong.' I know that (they're) going to go to course recovery because they had done that in the past and they saw how easy it was and there was nothing I could say or do to change their minds or get them to engage in my class. And this meant that I would have a student or two every class who is just sleeping or more often, being disruptive.”
Policies and procedures
According to The Florida Department of Education, “...credit recovery courses are recognized as credit-bearing courses and cover the … requirements for grade forgiveness.” The DOE also said, "districts may decide how to offer these courses.”
One way districts do that is by implementing a policy for the number of retakes students get. In Okaloosa County, there is a limit.
“The district policy allows two retakes on quizzes and unit tests," said Card. "The teachers can give additional if needed. It's taking each student where they're at and helping them. There is only one retake on the final."
Something else districts determine is how much time a course can take to complete. If needed, there is an option for students in a rush. It's called Fast Track.
“There's two tracks," Card explained. "The students who fail those courses behind their graduating classmates can take their credit recovery during the year of the summer, or they can do multiple courses and do the fast track full time during the day to recover those credits.”
How fast students complete the fast track depends on the student, Card said.
“It could be the full semester. It could be a half a semester. Again, it's going to depend on the pace of the student.”
Proponents claim credit recovery allows for more at-risk students to graduate, ones who might otherwise drop out. Others say it hurts them in the long run.
“There has to be a consequence for not working toward their grade, and the consequence would be having to sit through this course that you probably hate more than once until you pass it," said Browning. "Credit Recovery is often handing the student a grade, and they need to really work for that.”
A current teacher in Santa Rosa County, who declined to share their name, calls the program “terrible” and said they have “no confidence that students really learn anything in Credit Recovery using Edgenuity.”
"There is no real remediation and re-instruction element to it," the teacher said. They added that most “parents will not support a real summer school or having students repeat grades” as they did in years past.
One improvement to the program suggested by the National Education Policy Center is to not only strengthen the academic rigor of these online assessments but to increase the regulation of for-profit course providers, like Edgenuity. They are the most-used online Credit Recovery provider in Northwest Florida.
There are instances where students actually learn in credit recovery. Over the summer at Washington High School, students were given the option of online credit recovery, like with Edgenuity, or in-person credit recovery with a teacher who offered direct instruction.
According to one Escambia County parent, her child had difficulty with math the first time around, but “the intensive in-person instruction was critical to … actual learning.”
Credit recovery experiences have shown to be successful when the teacher acts as more than simply a proctor, watching from the front of the classroom as students work on laptops. When they can offer one-on-one instruction, struggling students have a higher probability of retaining the information they are supposed to learn.
That’s an ideal situation though, because most credit recovery classrooms have numerous students working on individual courses. Finding an experienced teacher who can cover lots of course material is difficult.
Neither Edgenuity nor Escambia County Public Schools responded to WUWF's interview request before this article was published.
Disclaimer: Christina Andrews is a former employee of the Santa Rosa County School District.
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