LATimes: online classes reinventing high school

[asteriskea]

<p>Just the other day, my S just asked me what I thought about the idea of his taking an online algebra class so I was interested in this the LA Times article “Online classes go mainstream” - it gives a very positive view of this trend toward virtual schooling overall based on information culled from the North American Council for Online Learning. I didn’t know that Michigan requires students to take an online course to graduate from high school or that Advanced Placement test pass rates for students who take the preparatory courses online are 10% higher than the national average.</p>

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the University of California is launching an extensive effort to make sure applicants’ online high school courses are on par with traditional classroom instruction.</p>

<p>Nearly half the states offer public school classes online…In California, a state senator introduced a bill last week to allow public high school students to take online classes without depriving schools of the state funding they receive for attendance.</p>

<p>Online learning “is going to reinvent high school in the United States,” said Ken Ellwein, executive director of Lutheran High School of Orange County, which created its online school last year.</p>

<p>“To keep technology away from kids while they’re going to school, when they have it in every other part of their lives — it just doesn’t make sense.”…</p>

<p>Students from kindergarten through high school are filling the equivalent of 10,000 classroom seats in Stanford University’s online program for gifted students, and in September the university launched a selective online high school…</p>

<p>The University of California has seen such an increase in applicants taking online courses that last fall the faculty established criteria for evaluating the classes…

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<p><a href=“New K-12 elective: class online”>New K-12 elective: class online;