This morning Jennifer M. Granholm, the governor of Michigan, signed a bill that will require all high-school students in the state to take at least one course online before they can graduate. This is apparently the first such requirement in the nation. The provision was included in a bill that toughened the overall state high-school-graduation standards. The online course students take does not have to be for credit, but observers expect many students to take Advanced Placement courses via the Web.
Lawmakers initially questioned why they needed to require students who grew up on video games and the Internet to take online courses. In the end, they decided that making students conduct some of their education over the Internet would better prepare them for college and the workplace, which relies more and more on online tools.
For more information on this topic, see an article from The Chronicle by Dan Carnevale.
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