Single-District Virtual Ed. Seen Growing Fastest
The shift to greater local control means districts will have to take a hard look at how they evaluate virtual education
Single-district online learning programs were the fastest-growing sector of virtual learning in the United States in 2011. Whether it is to provide more options for students, keep more students from seeking virtual learning options outside the school district, or simply to move toward 21st-century teaching and learning, many districts are launching and sustaining their own virtual learning programs.
As districts move in this direction, they are taking a harder look at how they will evaluate their local models of virtual education, which is gaining popularity even though reviews on its effectiveness compared with that of more traditional approaches are still mixed.
"District administrators in close to half of all states know that they are losing students to online schools," says John Watson, the founder of the Evergreen Education Group, a Durango, Colo.-based organization that researches online learning, and an author of the "Keeping Pace With K-12 Online Learning" report , which tracks annual...
This article is available to subscribers only.
To keep reading this article and more, subscribe now or start a 2-week FREE trial.
Subscribe to Education Week
You Save 20% or More!
Access selected articles, e-newsletters and more!
Viewed
Emailed
Recommended
Commented
- Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction
- Lake Forest School District 67 & 115, Lake Forest, IL
- Elementary Principal
- Forest Grove School District, Forest Grove, OR
- Teacher
- Perspectives Charter Schools, Chicago, IL
- Director of School Support
- The Achievement Network, Multiple Locations
- Superintendent
- Princeton Public School District, Princeton, NJ