Further growth hinges on policy, funding changes in states from coast to coast, it says

Online learning is growing rapidly, but its continued growth will require specific policy and funding changes that focus on increasing educational choices and opportunities while ensuring high quality and improved student achievement, according to a new report.

"Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning," the fifth in an annual series of reports examining the online-learning landscape, debuted at the North American Council for Online Learning's (NACOL's) Virtual School Symposium on Oct 27.  The report recommends several policies to increase online learning options for students.

Those policy recommendations include ensuring that students and parents are free to choose online courses and schools; encouraging schools of education to incorporate online instruction as part of the curriculum for future teachers; creating true national content standards so online content does not need to demonstrate alignment with countless different content frameworks; revising accounting standards for funding to get away from count dates, seat time, and other measures that don't apply to the online environment; and establishing some standard metrics for basic quality assurance and measurements, such as consistent measures for course completions.

The report found that online learning continued to grow in the latter part of 2007 and the first half of 2008, in terms of both new programs and the enhancement of existing programs. Many states have passed new legislation to promote further growth in online learning, it says.

Read the report…

Source: eSchool News 11.3.08, www.eschoolnews.com