Rushing to boost graduation rates, more school districts are relying on “online credit recovery”—a form of instruction that may be selling students short. This is the first part of "The Big Shortcut," an eight-part series with the Columbia Journalism School's Teacher Project exploring the exponential rise in online learning for high school students who have failed traditional classes.
From Slate:
What has happened in Gadsden [Fla.] shows how the push to rank schools based on measures like graduation rates—codified by the No Child Left Behind Act and still very much a fact of life in American public education—has transformed the country's approach to secondary education, as scores of districts have outsourced core instruction to computers and downgraded the role of the traditional teacher. It also offers a glimpse into what that shift means for the students who are increasingly dependent on online courses to help prepare them for college and the workforce. Spoiler: The view from the ground suggests that many online credit recovery courses are subpar substitutes for traditional classroom instruction.
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