Report: K-12 Online Learning: A Survey of U.S. School District Administrators
Report:
K-12 Online Learning: A Survey of U.S. School District Administrators
Authors: Picciano, Anthony G.; Seaman, Jeff
Date: 2007
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
The Sloan Consortium's first ever survey of online learning in elementary
and secondary education, "K-12 Online Learning: A Survey of U.S. School
District Administrators," predicts rapid growth in online education.
The nationwide survey, conducted during the 2005-2006 academic year, finds
that almost two out of three (63 %) school districts had one or more students
enrolled in either a fully online or a blended course, which combines online
learning with traditional face-to-face instruction. The new study estimates
that 700,000 K-12 students were engaged in online courses in the 2005-2006
academic year. The complete survey is available online. The Sloan Consortium's
K-12 online survey, developed in collaboration with Hunter College and Babson
College and funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, consists of responses
from 366 public school district chief administrators representing two million
students nationwide. It was patterned after a similar study of online learning
in higher education.
Survey results show online learning is meeting the specific needs of a range
of students including those who need extra help, those who want to take more
advanced courses and those whose districts do not have enough teachers to
offer certain subjects. "Perhaps the voices heard most clearly in this
survey were those of small rural school districts," said Anthony G. Picciano,
professor, School of Education, Hunter College and Graduate Center of the
City University of New York. "For them, the availability of online learning
is most important in order to provide students with course choices and, in
some cases, the basic courses that should be part of every curriculum."
Picciano says these rural districts are potentially good models for districts
facing teacher shortages in high-need subject areas such as high school science
and mathematics. The Sloan Consortium is the nation's largest association
of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education and
administered through Babson College and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.
