3 Interesting facts regarding D.E.

1. Distance education for elementary school-aged children.

I didn't realize that distance education in the form of home schooling accounts for eight (8%) percent of school aged children grades kindergarten to sixth grade. I understand the reasons why more parents are choosing home school settings over the traditional classroom setting. It seems that parents are choosing this route mostly due to safety issues and poor educational practice at the public school setting.
Today, there are over 80 state sponsored virtual K-12 schools. In the year 2000, there were only 14 state sponsored virtual K-12 schools.

2. Distance education comes in various forms.

I wasn't aware that correspondence, television, educational radio qualified as forms of distance education. I knew that television and radio were educational. I knew that in the beginnings of home schooling, assignments and exams for those that were involved in the home schooling environment submitted their work through correspondence. My understanding of distance education was only that of online learning.

3. Correspondence education

Interesting to read that distance education was frowned upon and done away with due to the lack of quality programs available. Fraudulent distance education due to the commercial sectors seem to do the most damage to the development of correspondence. Imagine what developments could have already been made had there been no delay in its development since the 1950's, only to be recently revived in 2002 due to the relaxing of government regulations.