Now school districts in at least a dozen states are starting to grant credit to students who round out their education online.
Students interact with their classmates through online chats, and with their teachers via e-mail.
School officials expect the trend to expand to home schoolers, dropouts and students with scheduling conflicts. In largely rural Kentucky, the student body of Virtual High grew from 47 to 300 in one year. Although some educators question the effectiveness of distance education, Keith Oelrich, CEO of Apex Learning, says that students taking Apex's online AP courses are performing as well on AP exams as students in a traditional setting. And online access beats not being able to take the course at all. All three organizations partner with states and school districts to offer virtual classes.