One of the major issues the education system in the United States has been recently grappling with is that of high school dropouts. The high dropout rates being witnessed nationwide are slowly becoming a cause for concern for both, parents and academicians. With an online learning platform being the only alternative that comes close to offering parents and teachers viable solutions to tackle this growing concern, traditional learning mechanisms are now slowly giving way to more modern, tech-savvy methods that leverage technology to provide students with more flexible and affordable options to earn their high school diploma. High dropout rates in the country certainly spell bad news for the future prospects of our children and most definitely bring with it unwanted and challenging risks to our economy.

Based on several research studies, it is clear that high school dropouts earn lesser than their counterparts with high school diplomas. Moreover, in the long run, they are more likely to be unable to support themselves and are a lot more likely to be unemployed as opposed to their counterparts who’ve graduated college. Online education seems to be the answer to this growing conundrum not just in the United States but the world over. Several online high schools in the country have witnessed marked improvement in their graduation rates and students have even been using online learning solutions to supplement their traditional education curriculum. This phenomenon isn’t peculiar to students in the United States. Students from around the world have been enrolling with online schools given the ease of registering and the convenience of being able to complete their course material from practically anywhere.

What has been a major concern for most teachers and parents is the gradual waning of interest in academics on the part of students. Over a period of time, students just seem to lose interest in their academics by the time they reach higher grades. This is an alarming concern because studies have shown that several students who quit and dropout are just shy of a couple of credits required to graduate high school. The decreasing level of importance students assign to a high school diploma has certainly not gone down well with parents and teachers alike. In an economy struggling to get back on its feet characterized by employers constantly demanding more employable skills, efforts to get job growth back on track are facing increasing challenges that need to be overcome. This is where academicians have turned to online education to help with the nation’s high dropout rates.

There are several online high schools in the country offering students the opportunity to make good on credits for courses they’ve failed or quit midway. Online learning management systems also offer students the option to customize these credit recovery courses to help suit their individual learning needs in an endeavor to help them grasp the skills they failed to do so during their first attempt. The reasoning behind the use of such courses lies in the fact that these students have put in the required seat time but failed to successfully complete the course and earn the necessary credits. Molding the course material in a different manner that is more suited to grab their attention and help them absorb concepts better is the underlying foundation of online courses. This way, students also have the option of varying their pace of learning according to their needs as opposed to trying to cope with the rest of the class.

Among several methods that have been employed to help students stay in school and graduate on time, online education is only one of the latest that has made the cut. Summer school is probably the oldest form of credit recovery that has been used for years to help students make up their credit scores and graduate from high school. However, with the advent of technology, delivery of credit recovery programs has become much more efficient and cost-effective. The use of online instruction has also offered students, parents and teachers a higher degree of flexibility in delivering that course content. Overall, the last few years have seen an increase in the adoption of online learning management systems by online high schools in the United States and the benefits are visible in the improved graduation rates.

In order to further boost graduation rates, online schools across the nation have been taking on various initiatives and providing students with a diverse range of options to help with their credit recovery programs. With the help of online high schooling, students now have access to their entire program in a virtual environment, one that can be accessed by them from anywhere at any time. Delivering course content online certainly offers teachers and students numerous benefits in terms of flexibility and affordability. Certain schools have also chosen to adopt hybrid credit recovery classes that combine online instruction with face-to-face teaching. Whatever the approach, at the end of the day, online credit recovery programs are definitely becoming an integral part of the efforts targeted at boosting graduation rates in the country.

While the employment of online methodologies may be new to the world of academics, several experts agree that the quality of education delivered through online courses can be as good as, or better than education delivered through traditional classrooms. More than just the opportunity for credit recovery, students view the use of online learning management systems as a second chance to overcome the challenges they faced previously in their attempt to clear the course. Such online schools are designed to offer students the flexibility to study at their own pace, review and repeat instruction according to their own individual needs, thereby increasing their chances for successful completion of the course.

The potential for learning and economic viability offered by online learning environments are unparalleled in the present age, which is why most schools across the country are slowly warming up to the idea of employing such methods for credit recovery in an ambitious endeavor to help their students graduate high school.