Guest Commentary: Education Sector Looks at Reports on Online Learning

A hat tip to Bill Tucker and his "The Quick & the Ed" blog for taking a step back to put four recent reports on online learning into perspective.
Tucker launched what appears to be a multi-part series by looking at reports from Minnesota and Colorado. He also made mention of reports from Pennsylvania and Ohio. All the studies raised some concerns about the quality of online learning in those states. In Colorado, for example, a state senator has called for an audit of online learning schools.
Tucker's "Quick & Ed" post notes that the Minnesota shows that will the number of part-time students in online school nearly doubles and the number of full-time students more than tripled, since the 2006-2007 school year, "full-time online students have become less like to finish the courses the start; when compare with students statewide."
The Colorado study, Tucker reports, shows that the state expects to spend $100 million for about 18,000 students to attend online schools. What's more, "of the 10,500 students in the largest online programs in fall 2008, more than half--or 5,600--left their virtual schools by the fall of 2009. They were more than replaced by 7,400 new recruits by that fall."
The Colorado series is the result of a 10-month investigation by EdNews Colorado.
Click here to read Tucker's complete post and to find links to the reports.
Click here to see a video about the impact of online learning on one school and one student's perspective.
Tucker plans to update his report on Ohio online learning this week. We'll be reading and updating.