23 de maio de 2012

Searching of the reality of virtual schools


Main findings:
Online courses and schools enroll a
small fraction of the 52 million public
school students, but they are rapidly
gaining ground. P-12 students take nearly
2 million courses online annually. In
addition, about 250,000 students were
enrolled full-time in virtual schools in 2010-
11, up from 200,000 the year before.
The development, management and
staffing of online courses and schools is
supported by both public and private
providers. For-profit companies K-12, Inc.,
and Connections Academy together enrolled
nearly half of all full-time online students in
2010-11.
Funding for online learning varies by
state, and ranges from 70 to 100 percent
of state and local per pupil rates. The
impact on district funds also varies by state.
In some states, districts are billed for each
student enrolled online. In addition,
accounting for the actual cost of virtual
courses and schools is often lacking.
The jury is still out on the effect of
online courses on P-12 student
achievement. The U.S. Department of
Education reviewed existing research and
found a modest positive impact of online
courses, but cautioned that the findings
were based mostly on results for postsecondary students.
Emerging reports show a troubling
overall picture of poor performance and
low graduation rates for full-time online
students. Two small-scale studies found
positive effects for elementary students,
however, suggesting that parental
supervision could be an important factor.
There needs to be a clearer
accountability path for online learning,
especially in regard to monitoring student
progress and performance as well as                        report Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader 
accounting for the cost of virtual s

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