Hechinger Report

Simply sitting a teenager down in front of a computer to click through online lessons – in a class he or she has already failed – doesn’t seem to work, according to new research.

The study sought to determine if online courses are successful for catching up ninth graders who have flunked algebra. More than 1,200 students in Chicago Public Schools who had failed algebra in 2011or 2012 were assigned randomly to make up the credit through either an online or a teacher-led class, in a study by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research...