Now in its second year, the school is operated by the Greenfield school district but enrolls students from throughout the state. Full-time “virtual” schools form just a small part of the burgeoning field of online education, but they are experiencing enormous growth, with schools now operating in 30 states plus the District of Columbia and about 250,000 students enrolled. Proponents say virtual schools represent a valuable new option for the small number of students who, for reasons ranging from health issues to bullying, are not well served by traditional schools.
Full-time virtual schools have become a flashpoint for controversy over the quality of online education. Much of their growth is being driven by huge for-profit companies that critics say are more focused on returns to shareholders than student achievement. Student outcomes at many schools have been poor, and some educators recoil at the idea of children as young as kindergarten missing out on the social development that comes from attending a school with peers.
The much bigger frontier in online learning, however, involves tapping innovation to better serve students in traditional schools. Students are complementing standard in-school course loads with classes taught online. Meanwhile, classroom-based courses are integrating online technology into the face-to-face instruction provided by teachers. More than 1.8 million K-12 students nationwide are estimated to be involved in this so-called “blended learning.”
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