Mandating students to take at least one online class to earn a Highschool Diploma

Just came across a posting at Clayton Christensen's blog (network?) on the Digital Learning Now! initiative.

Apparently Jeb Bush and Bob Wise are now promoting this imitative demanding that students take at least one online course in order to earn a high school diploma. A few states and districts seem to have jumped already on the initiative.

Just thought that this might be an interesting subject to bring up if anyone has already some experience on how they are implementing this.

 

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I'm all for having the government and the education establishment embrace online learning. I'm not so sure about mandating it for high school students. There's potential there for it to do more harm than good. Some young students would flourish in an online environment, but it seems like more mature work ethics and study skills are necessary to succeed in an online class. I'm not sure that many high school students would possess these skills. If they failed miserably at an online class, they may be prejudiced against DL for their entire lives.