Guest Commentary: The Hechinger Report--Do Online Credit Recovery Courses Work?

The Hechinger Report was launched earlier this year as a nonprofit news organization producing in-depth reports on education. It's goal is to fill the reporting gaps created during the downsizing of traditional news media outlets.
This month, Hechinger reporters have turned their attention to Solving the Dropout Problem?The article's focus is on the role that online credit recovery programs play in reducing dropout rates.
Online credit recovery, that is allowing students who have failed a class to retake it and "recover" the credit toward graduation, is gaining in popularity. The reasons are simple.

• Online "cassrooms" can go where the students are--in storefronts, in malls, at home.
• Older students, who may not fit in at a traditional high school with younger students, can take the classes any where, any time.
• The cost for online recovery classes is less, a big plus for school districts in this cash-strapped age.

The Hechinger Report article questions the rigor in these online courses and whether these courses can reduce dropout numbers. "Questions remain over whether credit recovery effectively mirrors the difficulty and quality of traditional courses in all school districts. Almost no research exists on how much, or how little, students learn in credit-recovery courses," according to the report.
Click here to read the complete article.