Internet Safety News
U.S. High Schools Teaching Online
by Anne Collier
Many of us knew that virtually all U.S. high schools are online, but what we didn't know is that more than half of them now either offer courses online or plan to. That's according to a new study by Interactive Educational Systems Design, Inc.1 The higher-than-expected numbers include 40 percent of high schools that already offer online courses or plan to during this school year, 17 percent plan to offer them in the future, and 32 percent of public school districts in the U.S. will adopt online learning for the first time this year. "The main reasons cited by high schools for turning to online learning are cost effectiveness, providing educational equity, and resolving scheduling conflicts."2
1"High Schools Turning to
Online Courses." CyberAtlas at Internet.com. February
19, 2002, http://cyberatlas.Internet.com/markets/education/article/0,,5951_976531,00.
2US High Schools Moving Online. Nua Internet
Surveys. February 22, 2002, http://www.nua.com/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905357688&rel=true.
Anne Collier is editor of the SafeKids/NetFamilyNewsletter and president of NetFamilyNews.org, a nonprofit news service for parents and teachers of online kids.
