Virtual high school part of P-16 initiative in Nebraska

As stated by Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman in his state of the state address last month, one of the goals of his state's P-16 council is to eliminate student achievement gaps.

And perhaps as one way to eliminate those gaps, the Nebraska P-16 Initiative, the state department of education and the University of Nebraska are working together to develop a virtual high school, to allow rural students to take a broader array of courses and allow students, regardless of location, to study at their own pace and at hours outside the regular school day and year.

Although I have not seen many other P-16 or P-20 coordinating entities working across education silos to develop or expand virtual high schools in their state, this may be an approach to improve college-readiness--provided that bandwidth and other technical issues in small and underresourced schools does not limit access to such courses for the very students who would benefit most from them.