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.

As of this fall, 44 states offer significant online learning opportunities for students.  Seventeen states offer significant supplemental and full-time online options for students, and many of those states have both a state-led program and full-time online schools. For example, Florida offers the supplemental Florida Virtual School and the full-time Florida Connections Academy and Florida Virtual Academy. Similarly, Colorado offers the state-led Colorado Online Learning program, as well as numerous full-time district programs and charter schools.

Twenty-three states offer significant supplemental opportunities but not full-time opportunities, and most have state-led programs, such as the Michigan Virtual School and the Illinois Virtual School. 

Four states offer significant full-time opportunities, but no supplemental programs; these states have extensive charter schools and/or district online programs, but do not offer a state-led supplemental program that makes courses available to students across the state.

Students in many states turn to state-led online learning programs or initiatives, and as of this fall, 34 states offered state-led programs or initiatives that are designed to work with existing school districts to supplement course offerings. Examples of these state-led programs--which provide full courses, teachers, and student support--include Kentucky Virtual School, Idaho Digital Learning Academy, and the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program. State-led initiatives that provide online resources or serve as a central clearinghouse for online courses include the Washington Digital Learning Commons and Wyoming Switchboard Network.