A poll released today by the Hoover Institution covering perceptions of public institutions shows that most parents are receptive to publicly-funded online learning for high school students.

 

One question, “Would you be willing to have a child of yours go through high school taking some academic courses over the internet?” garnered a 69 percent response in the affirmative, while different questions surrounding providing public funding for online courses for drop-outs or homeschooled students resulted in an overwhelmingly negative response. The pattern that emerges from these results is that while respondents favor online options for their children, advanced students, and rural students, little support exists for making these options available to those “outside” the system.

 

This reaction isn’t surprising, as tax-payers are hesitant to extend services to those who they perceive as having willingly relinquished their right to the service in the first place. This shifting approval for online high school courses will undoubtedly be linked to similar increases in approval for online universities, a trend that is quite overdue.

 

[Poll results and methodology]

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education