Retaking classes online?

The New York Times recently ran this article originally from The Texas Tribune.  It seems that students in Texas are making up classes that they failed using online courses.  The main concern that seems to be coming up is the fact that there is little empirical evidence that the students are learning as much in the online courses as they are in traditional classrooms.

Now as a student in an online masters program, I can say with certainty that online classes can be as rigorous as brick and mortar classes are.  And programs like Rosetta Stone and The Great Courses have proven records of success.  The credit recovery courses may be electronic, but there is no reason to think the students are not learning.

In fact, some students will perform better with the electronic environment than they do in the traditional classroom.  Especially if they have other things going on in their lives as Krendon Reynolds did in the article.  We do need to make sure the classes do cover the material that the students need to learn, but that is simple.  With the standards based education system that we are currently entering, we can focus the electronic education on the standards of the state.  And with Common Core being adopted by more and more states, this would be a very good place to start.

The purpose of standards education is to make sure that the students know certain important elements that they will need when they are out of school.  Whether this is done through a classroom or a computer program, the results are the same.