Online Learning: Addressing Challenges and Seizing Opportunities (State Profiles)
America’s K–12 education system faces three significant challenges: (1) increased global demands for skilled workers, (2) significant financial shortfalls, and (3) a looming teacher shortage. Independently, these factors present significant challenges for U.S. schools. In combination, they create a national imperative for swift action to create a more innovative, effective, and efficient education system. Every day, creative educators are using technology better to meet the needs of students and teachers. Technology can no longer be considered an “add-on” tool in education but rather one that is integral. Embracing online-learning opportunities for students and teachers will strengthen the supply and quality of teachers, improve efficiency, and increase students’ college and career readiness.
The "Online Learning: Addressing Challenges and Seizing Opportunities" state profiles present state-specific information about the three challenges. Each state profile summarizes information about (1) online-learning opportunities in that state, (2) the presence of state policies that support online learning, and (3) how federal policy supports online learning in that state.
To access the online-learning state profile for your state, click on it in the list below.
Additional information
The Online Learning Imperative: A Solution to Three Looming Crises in Education 
Issue Brief (updated June 2010)
Currently, K–12 education in the United States is dealing with three major crises, each of which on its own is capable of wreaking havoc on schools and communities around the nation, but together are an all-out perfect storm. Simultaneously, the U.S. education system is facing a growing workforce whose mounting needs for education and training will not be met by the nation’s current public education system; declining state fiscal revenues; and mounting teacher shortages, further crippling low-performing secondary schools. The time for merely rethinking and upgrading the role of technology in education has passed; policy decisions today must embrace a dramatic transformation of teaching and learning. Technology can no longer be thought of simply as an “add-on” tool in education, but rather an integral part of the total educational environment. This issue brief describes these looming crises and suggests ways that online learning can lead the U.S. education system out of them.