Education - Issue #161 - Virtual Only, Plus Edtech’s Moment of Truth

As education leaders begin to look beyond the pandemic, some students are opting into online learning for good. When officials at Fort Smith Public Schools in Arkansas began preparing an online-only option for fall 2020, they expected to have about 500 sign-ups from the district’s 14,000 students. Instead, online enrollment hit 3,500. The district paid teachers a $500 stipend to complete a virtual training program standardized on a single learning management system, and it implemented a third-party online curriculum.

U.S. policy makers in education and communications have been meeting with edtech leaders to determine how best to move forward in the wake of the pandemic. These meetings are part of a national strategy to leverage federal resources to support education initiatives at the state and local level across the country in a collaborative effort to improve student learning and provide increased support to teachers and administrators through the strategic use of edtech.