Tom Clark, president of TA Consulting, has been researching and writing about virtual and distance learning for several years, and is one of the evaluators for the STAR project, a 5-year e-learning project funded by the U.S. Department of Education. He answered some questions from Connect for Kids about the growth and potential of virtual schooling.

Virtual schools have been around for a decade and are becoming more and more popular. Why now?

The technology is there and I think people were ready for it. First virtual universities took off and then it started to emerge in K through 12. Teachers were already being exposed to it because they were taking online courses through graduate classes. You see (the need for) educational reform with No Child Left Behind. Online learning (via charter, nonprofit or state-supported programs) is one way to address this. And online learning is a form of distance education, and this is the new way delivering distance education.

What kinds of virtual schools are succeeding, and why?

A wide variety are. The main issue they face is finding stable funding models. (With good funding) they can have a very good management team, they can have processes and very high quality people in place. For example, Florida Virtual School, and Virtual High School does this, too, do evaluations every year; they have processes in place to monitor their courses; they train their teachers well. At Florida Virtual School, the teachers have to co-teach a course before they can teach their own course.

And charter schools can do well, too. They've done studies in Canada, which have found that the kids in the online charter schools have done better than the students who have been in the on-site charter schools.

Do you think virtual schools can ultimately improve the abysmal graduation rates we are seeing?

Online learning can play a role here, at least in terms of some targeted strategies. I know of experiments in large districts to help students needing a limited number of credits for graduation. If it looks like (a student) is going to drop out, they try them on an online course to see if they can get them through to graduation.

Is this an area where we can get out ahead of global competition?

We are ahead in virtual schooling and the Internet, but people in other nations are using these technologies to found companies that work around the world, in engineering, science, etc. while we fall behind in these areas. We will be left behind if our students don't become tech-savvy; and learn to compete globally on virtual teams.

Give us the picture: What does virtual high school look like ten years from now?

We may see more students whose own parents grew up in the tech-savvy 90's and beyond who learn and practice in real-world settings with remote supervision, rather than in a physical school or at home. But kids will always need supervision and many parents will still work. So the physical school won't be going away. I expect that most students in virtual courses will attend bricks-and-mortar schools, and that almost every one of them will have the opportunity at least to try online learning.