Of the thousands of Montana students who turned to a state-run virtual program to make up courses they previously failed, 57 percent passed, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
The study is the latest to look into the controversial world of online credit recovery, which has exploded in popularity despite scant evidence of its effectiveness. It looked at enrollment and course-passage patterns at the Montana Digital Academy during the 2013-14 school year.
Course-passage rates were higher for girls (60 percent), 12th graders (63 percent), and students in social studies courses (71 percent), but lower for students in math (49 percent) and English/language arts courses (52 percent).
