ONLINE GROWTH: Sure, there's been plenty of pushback from the likes of Mother Jones and The Nation about online schools. But that's unlikely to stem the tide, as a new survey by the National Center for Education Statistics revealed. Focusing on "distance education courses," (defined as online, full-credit, remote courses), the study, Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary and Secondary School Students: 2009-10, found that 55% of the 2,310 public school districts surveyed in 2010 had students enrolled in these courses, triple the numbers from 2004-2005. Among these districts, 96% reported having enrollment at the high-school level, 19% at the middle and junior-high level. The Huffington Post aptly points out that this report came out the same week as a National Governors Association survey that examined education budget cuts, most recently in 18 states that made mid-year slashes to school programs.
