Blended learning is poised to transform American education by personalizing student learning – uniting the highest-quality online content with highly-effective educators in “live” instruction and supervisory roles. This white paper from Innosight Institute (now the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation), the Charter School Growth Fund, and Public Impact defines six models of blended learning, provides vivid examples of blended learning in action, and discusses both the technology and policies needed to realize the promise of blended learning. The white paper highlights the importance of creating policy environments that grant innovative educators autonomy, enabling them to design and implement models based on affordable quality and personalization. In these policy environments, the focus of regulation must not be on input-focused rules, but on accountability for outcomes.
Making Technology Work for Students and Teachers
Demystifying Special Education in Virtual Charter Schools
This report, by Lauren Morando Rhim and Julie Kowal, describes how educating students with disabilities in virtual charter schools entails not only molding state charter school laws to fit a specialized type of charter school, but also adapting federal and state special education guidelines aimed at providing special education in traditional brick and mortar settings. This special report, funded by the USDOE National Initiatives Grant of the Charter Schools Program and administered by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, is a supplement to a series of special education primers, Primers on Special Education in Charter Schools, created to inform state officials, authorizers and charter school operators about special education in the charter sector.
