This is Part 4 in our series on a new research agenda for school choice. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Online education is growing rapidly in the K–12 sector just as it is in higher education; Virginia might soon join Florida in requiring that all students have an option to enroll in a full-time online schooling program. Even so, the sector is quite new, and only a few evaluations of the effects of online schooling exist. At the K–12 level, online schooling includes schools that provide an entire education program online as well as programs that provide individual online courses to students who are otherwise enrolled in conventional (or brick-and-mortar) schools. The schools providing complete online programs tend to be charter schools, and the online charter sector is dominated by for-profit firms. Meanwhile, some states have set up statewide providers of individual online courses; the Florida Virtual School is a pioneer in the area. More research is needed about online schooling, as discussed in the video below.
Additional research resources on online schooling:
