The goal of this report is to inform schools, families and communities about the potential of personalized learning and empower them with ways to support the shift to student-centered learning. The authors define personalized learning and describe why it matters. They highlight examples of personalized learning in action to show how personalized…

As school districts deliberate over reopening schools with the COVID-19 pandemic still ongoing, we've developed this report with strategic guidance on how to harness our current opportunity to transform K-12 education. "Education Policy Issues for the COVID-19 Era: Policy Actions and Responses to Leverage the Moment for Future Readiness"…

Students will face enormous challenges in the coming years--from an economy shaped by ever-advancing technologies to the impact of globalization--and need the strongest foundation of academic, technical, and problem-solving skills we can offer. In an effort to improve their educational experiences, schools across the country are exploring and…

Over the last decade, the American education system has seen unprecedented transformation of teaching and learning as educators have grasped the power of new learning models to close achievement gaps and extend access to high-quality learning opportunities. The availability of adaptive digital tools that use data to improve student learning has…

In 2008, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) produced a series of papers documenting promising practices identified throughout the field of K-12 online learning. Since then, we have witnessed a tremendous acceleration of transformative policy and practice driving personalized learning in the K-12 education space. State,…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), enacted in December 2015, presents a historic opportunity for the United States to begin to transform K-12 education toward personalized, student-centered learning. Across the country, state leaders are shifting from a focus on compliance toward continuous improvement and systemic change, in order to support…

Our country has been trying to address the graduation crisis in many ways. We are seeing the impact of the efforts to improve graduation rates over the past twenty years including agreement among states to implement a common cohort-based graduation rate, research-based efforts to improve the transition to 9th grade, increased academic and social…

This paper provides a scan of the literature to expand the knowledge base for the field of online, blended, and competency-based education. Authors seek to integrate the core ideas of personalized learning, blended learning, competency education, and standards. The goal of the paper is to explain the nuances of key terms used across the field of…

The author traces the growth of K-12 online learning in the United States from its modest genesis in the mid-1990s with 50,000 students to the more than 4 million enrollments today, the fastest scaling ever of any innovation in K-12 education. The evolution from one-size-fits-all online courses to innovative, blended instructional models that are…