Many US States have paved the way for mandating laws requiring students to take online courses before they graduate from high school in an effort to prepare students for using technology and online courses in college, careers and in everyday life. These states believe that technology will continue to be an intricate part of all aspects of life for all people now and in the future. Futhermore, those schools are forward thinkers by developing course work within their respective states and home districts. However, they have some competition in the private sector. Newly estabilished online schools are expanding and new ones are forming every year at an alarming rate to meet the growing and diverse needs to today's learner. Parents are turning to online schools to better meet their children's individual needs. The reasons they turn to online schools vary, such as: to recover high school credit, to take courses not
Online Courses By: Patricia Ryan
normally offered by their local disrict, to take college courses, avoid bullying, resolve the "fitting in" to a traditional setting, meet the unique needs of students on IEP's and career readiness, just to name a few. There is no doubt that the traditional brick-and-mortar schools will need to readjust their thinking if they want to keep up.
The Private Online School Companies will continue to steal our students and the per pupil educational monies that would normally be allocated to the local districts, adding to already strained budgets. Public schools cannot afford to ignore
6 CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY