Abstract

Advocates for virtual education say that it has the power to transform an archaic K-12 system of schooling. Instead of blackboards, schoolhouses, and a six-hour school day, interactive technology will personalize learning to meet each student's needs, ensure all students have access to quality teaching, extend learning opportunities to all hours of the day and all days of the week, and innovate and improve over time. Indeed, virtual education has the potential not only to help solve many of the most pressing issues in K-12 education, but to do so in a cost-effective manner. More than 1 million public-education students now take online courses, and as more districts and states initiate and expand online offerings, the numbers continue to grow. But to date, there's little research or publicly available data on the outcomes from K-12 online learning. And even when data are publicly available, as is the case with virtual charter schools, analysts and education officials have paid scant attention to--and have few tools for analyzing--performance. Until policymakers, educators, and advocates pay as much attention to quality as they do to expansion, virtual education will not be ready for a lead role in education reform. Both virtual education advocates and education policymakers should learn from nearly two decades of experience with charter schooling, another reform movement predicated on innovation and change within public education. After nearly 20 years of practice, the charter school movement provides important lessons on how to ensure that improved student outcomes remain the top priority. The charter school movement's successes and mistakes have a lot to teach virtual schooling about bringing change to public education.

Citation

Dillon, E. & Tucker, B. (2011). Lessons for Online Learning: Charter Schools' Successes and Mistakes Have a Lot to Teach Virtual Educators. Education Next, 11(2), 50-57. Retrieved August 11, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/53700/.

This record was imported from ERIC on April 19, 2013. [Original Record]

ERIC is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.

Copyright for this record is held by the content creator. For more details see ERIC's copyright policy.

Keywords

• Accountability
• best practices
• Change Strategies
• Charter Schools
• Data Collection
• Educational Change
• Effective Schools Research
• electronic learning
• Elementary Secondary Education
• online courses
• Public Education
• School Restructuring
• Technology Uses in Education
• Virtual Classrooms