Global Strategies

“Adopt a pro-America trade policy that brings to more Americans more of the benefits of global engagement"

The Council on Foreign Relations recently sponsored an independent task force on “U.S. Trade and Investment Policy.” That task force, chaired by Tom Daschle and Andrew Card, just released its report. They also appeared on C-span to present their findings.

The task force’s own overview says (here):

One of the most effective ways to create good new jobs and reverse the income decline of the past decade is for the United States to “become a thriving trading nation,” concludes a new high-level Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)-sponsored Independent Task Force report on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy.

The report calls for the Obama administration and Congress to “adopt a pro-America trade policy that brings to more Americans more of the benefits of global engagement, within the framework of a strengthened, rules-based trading system.”

The growth of global trade and investment has brought significant benefits to the United States and to the rest of the world. But U.S. leadership on international trade has waned in recent years because of deep domestic political divisions over trade policy that arise largely from the very real economic difficulties too many Americans face, acknowledges the Task Force…..

 They did make recommendations:

The Task Force calls for a new trade and investment strategy based on seven pillars:

A trade-negotiations agenda that opens markets for the most competitive U.S.-produced goods and services

A National Investment Initiative that would coordinate investment policies to create more high-wage, high-productivity jobs in the United States

A robust and strategic trade enforcement effort that ensures U.S. companies and workers are not harmed by trade agreement violations

A greater push to promote U.S. exports through more competitive export financing and a more active U.S. government role in supporting American overseas sales

An expanded use of trade to foster development in the world’s poorest countries

A comprehensive worker adjustment and retraining policy

A new deal with Congress to give the president a mandate to negotiate trade-opening agreements with an assurance of timely congressional action

Professor, and blogger, Daniel Drezner comments  on the recommendations that (here) “So, to sum up, all of the the good, innovative policy proposals are politically impossible right now.”

My thoughts:

I share the task force’s perspective that many of the US’s biggest economic opportunities are abroad. That’s where the dynamic growth markets are. So, like them, I’m for the US, and Oregon, becoming more of a “thriving trading nation.” But, the problem, that continues to leave me dumbfounded by our national leaders, such as those on this task force, is that changes needed in our educational system are overlooked. I’ve not read the full report but I do not think it calls for strengthening foreign language and study abroad programs. If so, the task force report is as much part of the problem as any kind of solution. How can we sell more goods and services abroad if our workforce cannot speak the languages of those foreign markets or has not spent any time in those markets.

The report should have called for every school district in America to "Make a year of study abroad an option for high school." Without spending a dime more, the US could have tens of thousand of high school student studying abroad in the dynamic and growing markets.

We are shooting ourselves in our feet. The task forces report just shot another foot.

Singapore's Stephanie Sun Yan ZI sings "One United People"

 

From wikipedia (here)

Stefanie Sun (simplified Chinese: 孙燕姿; traditional Chinese: 孫燕姿; pinyin: Sūn Yan Zī; born 23 July 1978), born Sng Ee Tze and known to fans as 13姐 ("13th sister"), is a Singaporean singer-songwriter. She has sold over 30 million copies of her albums during the span of her career thus far. She does the majority of her recording, and conducts most of her publicity events, in Taiwan, which comprises her largest audience. She also visits mainland of China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore frequently for promotional rounds….

…. Sun was educated at Nanyang Primary School, St. Margaret's Secondary School, Raffles Girls' School and went on to attend Saint Andrew's Junior College. She later attended Nanyang Technological University, where she obtained a degree in Marketing. Her voice talent was discovered by her music teacher Lee Wei Song.

In the Mandarin-speaking world, Sun is more popularly known by her Mandarin name, Sun Yan Zi or Sun Yanzi. Sun has sold over 10 million copies in Asia. With ten albums to her name, she is arguably the most successful singer from Singapore, second to Kit Chan. Stefanie Sun is also known to be good friend with fellow Pop Princess of Taiwan, Jolin Tsai. They are often the performing guests of one another concert.

On 8 May 2011, Stefanie Sun married Nadim Van Der Ros, 34, a Dutch-Indonesian and senior executive at Aviva. They had met through a mutual friend and dated for five years, but their relationship was revealed only when she was spotted supporting him at Aviva Singapore's Ironman Triathlon in 2009. They had earlier secretly registered their marriage on 31 March 2011

Most of her songs are sung in Mandarin Chinese, with a few in English. Sun's ability to speak various dialects is reflected in the songs she sings.

In the song "Cloudy Day" (天黑黑), she sings in both Mandarin and Hokkien. It is an adaptation of a traditional Hokkien folk song that included the first six words in the original Hokkien- Thiⁿ-bo͘ho͘h, beh bo̍hō͘ - in the chorus.

    

 

Video: Kitzhaber and Hanna on Chinese TV - Oregon open for Chinese investment and business

 

This is an interesting, long interview on Chinese TV with Governor Kitzhaber and Co-Speaker Bruce Hanna. Blogging about it, Curtis Robinhold, Chief of staff to Gov. John Kitzhaber, wrote (here):

After arriving at the CCTV studio – China’s national television station – the Governor met Oregon Co-Speaker of the House Bruce Hanna, and entered the studio of the Charlie Rose of China. The interview show, called "Dialogue," is broadcast to over 100 countries, and is essentially a half-hour discussion of one primary issue.

The host focused on international trade, and Oregon’s role in the national trade debate. The Governor and Speaker Hanna did a great job at focusing the discussion on how to help create jobs and investment in Oregon, and not on the China vs US debate. The two of them did a great job, and genuinely seemed to enjoy the verbal sparring with their Chinese host.

Three thoughts:

(1) The interviewer Yang Rui, for all his rambling and pointed comments before questions, asked hard, big questions. In Oregon, much of such public questioning by our press asks narrow, very political insider, and often easy, expected questions. It was refreshing to see something different. Both of Oregon’s leaders answered questions well. It was much more interesting and informative.

When will the Oregon press ask probing questions about our failure to expand Mandarin immersion programs or send high school students to China?

(2) From the comments of both Oregon leaders, Oregon is clearly open to Chinese investment and business.

(3) Both Oregon leaders referred to the Confucius Institutes as if Oregon were doing a lot with Mandarin education. Oregon is not. Oregon now, through the Confucius Institutes, does bring Chinese Mandarin teachers to Oregon at very reduced costs. It costs Oregon nothing. So there are more Mandarin teachers than five year ago. But I’d guess that less than twenty teachers have come in the past two years. Oregon is not putting any of its own resources into Mandarin education. Oregon is not expanding its Mandarin immersion programs (unlike Utah, which is) and is not paying to send high school students to study abroad in China. The last session of the legislature failed to pass a cost neutral bill shifting $30,000 to pay for sending five Oregon high school students to China for a school year. There is much more that Oregon needs to do.

 

How to better spend $3.6 billion for Oregon's economic future

Oregon’s business and labor organizations and their leaders are not providing the economic leadership Oregon needs. Nothing illustrates this more than their continued advocacy of the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project, the unimaginative ballooning of some core transportation needs into a gigantic boondoogle of a public works project designed primarily to provide labor jobs and contractor profits, not to serve public needs.

Business and labor leaders concerned about Oregon economic future should fret more about how to turn the digitalization and globalization transformations to our economic advantage. Not our business and labor leaders. They’re stuck in the past and so consumed with the CRC that responding to the great changes taking place in the global economy are overlooked.

 As Jeff Mapes reports in his Oregonian article “Spurred by business and labor, Oregon congressional candidates back Columbia River Crossing Project” (here):

The proposed Columbia River Crossing project is controversial in some quarters, but not among the major candidates running in Oregon's special congressional election.

Businessman Rob Cornilles, the likely Republican nominee, and the three leading Democratic candidates all speak enthusiastically of pushing ahead with the $3 billion project to replace the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River along with other improvements along the 5-mile corridor.

Critics say the project is too expensive and charge that its financing -- from a mixture of federal funds, tolls and state gas taxes -- is based on pie-in-the-sky projections.

But the project retains potent support from a wide variety of business and labor groups that say a new bridge is crucial to easing congestion on I-5. Add to that the prospect of 2,000 construction jobs a year over a decade, and the bridge becomes especially alluring to congressional candidates eager to show how they can help revive the economy.

Leaders concerned about Oregon’s economic future would reduce funding for the CRC and find ways to make Oregon more globally competitive with high speed broadband internet services and with a workforce more capable of selling Oregon’s good and services abroad.

Last I knew, in spite of what Mapes just wrote, the estimated cost of the CRC was $3.6 billion. Here’s a better way to spend that much:

First, cut the cost of the CRC project to below $2 billion. See here for an alternative $1.8 bil lion proposal.

Second, invest $500 million in upgrading high speed broadband in Portland.

Third, provide laptop or tablet (like the iPad) computers to all high school students in Oregon at an estimated ten year cost of $350 million.

Fourth, provide high-speed broadband internet connections for all Oregon high school students for ten years at an estimated cost of $430 million.

Fifth, provide 4-8 weeks summer abroad (especially China) foreign language education programs for 10% of each Oregon high school class statewide for ten years at an estimated cost of $250 million.

Sixth, provide full school year study abroad programs (again, especially China) for 5% of each Oregon high school class statewide for ten years at an estimated cost of $250 million.

Reduced, alternative CRC                          $2,000,000,000

High-speed broadband in Portland               500,000,000

Laptops/tablets for students                            350,000,000

Internet connections for students                  430,000,000

High school summer abroad                              250,000,000

Full high school year abroad                              250,000,000

Total                                                                        $3,680,000,000

Stop funding the past, invest in the future! And, if we need to get new business and labor leaders to do so, let’s do that too. Otherwise, we’ll just fall further behind economically.

U of O pay raises : "Do not muddle along with a public higher education system without cost controls"

Consider the dilemma the State of Oregon is in. It really has no control over costs in its public higher education system. From the Oregonian article “University of Oregon gave pay raises this spring to 1,300 professors and administration workers” by Bill Graves (here):

Oregon faced a $3.5 billion budget hole, its seven universities were to avoid across-the-board pay increases and most university employees worked with pay freezes or furlough days this spring.

But at the University of Oregon more than 1,300 professors and administrative workers got salary hikes. The increases included $2.8 million divided among 578 professors who had tenure or were on track to get it – an average raise of about $4,845, though increases varied widely.

The university also boosted salaries for 450 administration workers, which include clerks, and 300 nontenured instructors. These were not merit or across-the-board increases but an attempt to stay competitive by bringing faculty and administrator pay up to levels of comparable universities, according to a report released to The Oregonian on Friday by the University of Oregon.

The report was a response to a Sept. 2 letter from Chancellor George Pernsteiner  asking UO President Richard Lariviere to explain why he gave raises to so many people during an economic slump and period of budget austerity.

In its response, the university argues that increases came from money it raised itself – rather than taxpayer money – through tuition, enrollment increases, private funds and research grants. The raises, it said, will compensate its employees competitively and help retain a high-quality faculty.

The UO was able to raise faculty wages from 85 percent to 97 percent of what prevails in similar research universities, the report said.

These "equity increases" went to about 80 percent of tenure and tenure-tracked faculty, 20 percent of non-tenured instructors, and a third of the administration staff. 

First, like the housing market, there is a probable bubble in higher education nationally. Cost increases are racing ahead of the underlying value. At some point, it will all come crashing down. But, for now, individual universities, like the U of O, may have to compete for outstanding faculty with other universities. But, also, its bubble may burst.

Second, it is silly to argue about whether the funds to pay for such raises come from state funds or other sources. Cost increases are cost increases. They are the fundamental problem. The Oregon University System has little control over costs, and does far too little in the way of cost accounting to even know what its costs are. If the institutions of the OUS want to stay public, this must change. 

Third, I’m for making significant changes in public higher education over time. Let several of our premier institution go entirely private (while retaining some public ownership rights to land and buildings). Shift all state funding to Oregon student scholarships, good at any in-state or any approved online institution. Develop expanded funding of research at Oregon institutions.

Fourth, either let the U of O go more private (and assume more risk for its own future in the face of a probable bubble in higher ed) or censure (or fire) U of O President Lariviere and get costs under control. Do not muddle along with a public higher education system without cost controls.

 

Western Governors University: "one of the most unassuming but revolutionary institutions in American higher education"

The Washington Monthly magazine has a long article on the Western Governors University. It’s by John Gravois and is titled “The College For-Profits Should Fear: By offering adults an education that is faster, cheaper, and better than the likes of Kaplan, Phoenix, or Capella, the nonprofit Western Governors University just might eat their lunch..” The University is online. It’s competency-based, with competencies feeding into job proficiency tests, and its less costly than traditional higher ed.

Excerpts from the article (here):

With that, Robinson stumbled into one of the most unassuming but revolutionary institutions in American higher education. Western Governors differs in several respects from the crush of online schools that have mushroomed in recent years to serve working adults like Robinson. For one thing, unlike the Phoenixes, Capellas, Ashfords, and Grand Canyons that plaster America’s billboards, Web sites, and subway cars with ads, Western Governors is a nonprofit institution. That means no $100 million marketing budget, and no 30 percent profit margin. For anyone actually enrolled at Western Governors, the biggest difference is simply its price. The average annual cost of tuition at for-profit universities is around $15,600. Tuition at Western Governors, meanwhile, costs a flat rate of just under $6,000 a year.

And:

WGU’s answer to the status quo is to offer a degree that is based on competency rather than time. By gathering information from employers, industry experts, and academics, Western Governors formulates a detailed, institution- wide sense of what every graduate of a given degree program needs to know. Then they work backward from there, defining what every student who has taken a given course needs to know. As they go, they design assessments—tests—of all those competencies. “Essentially,” says Kevin Kinser, a professor of education at the State University of New York at Albany, “they’re creating a bar exam for each point along the way that leads to a degree.”

Those fixed standards enable a world of variation. At Western Governors, students aren’t asked to sit in a class any longer than it takes for them to demonstrate that they have mastered the material. In fact, they aren’t asked to sit in a “class” at all. At the beginning of a course, students are given a test called a “pre-assessment.” Then they have a conversation with their  mentor—a kind of personal coach assigned to each student for the duration of their degree program—to discuss which concepts in the course they already grasp, which they still need to master, and how to go about closing the gap. The students are then offered a broad set of “learning resources”—a drab phrase, sure, but no more so than “crowded lecture hall”—that may include videos, textbooks, online simulations, conversations with a WGU course mentor (an expert in the subject matter who is on call to answer questions), or even tutors in the student’s hometown.

And:

This is where the real power of the Western Governors economic model comes in. Tuition at the school works according to the “all-you-can-eat buffet” principle: $6,000 covers as many courses as you can finish in two semesters. Given the freedom to move at their own pace, many students can finish more than a standard academic load each term. In fact, according to Western Governors, the average time to degree for people who complete their bachelor’s at the school is around thirty months. That’s a college degree in two and a half years—for a total of around fifteen thousand bucks.

And:

Western Governors, by contrast, found its model particularly well suited to degree programs that feed directly to an official test of proficiency, such as the Praxis national teachers’ exams. Such external tests dovetail naturally with the school’s system of competency assessments, and in some cases are essentially folded in among them. For example, before he graduates with his MBA in human resources, McKinnon—the North Carolina expastor— will have to pass the national human resources management certification exam. In an online education sector plagued by accusations of low quality, Western Governors can show that its degrees are backstopped by the official guardians of various professions. (It also helps that WGU students tend to score higher than the national average on such professional exams.)

And:

At just over 25,000 students, WGU’s enrollment is still a rounding error in the grand scheme of American higher education. The school’s curriculum is relatively narrow, and its model may require a degree of discipline and self-motivation that many students don’t possess. But perhaps more than any other institution out there, Western Governors is aligned with the new pressures shaping the higher education market. The only question is how big it can get. 

Oregon just needs to make its state-supported student financial aid useable in attending the Western Governor University.

Luo Zilin: Miss China comes in 4th in Miss Universe contest

Miss China came in fourth in the Miss Universe contest. From the Shanghaiist (here):

At the Miss Universe finals which took place earlier today in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Miss China Luo Zilin (罗紫琳) entered top 5, and was named 4th runner-up.

Not a bad result -- all that prepping from Yue-Sai Kan might have helped.

In the final segment, each of the remaining top five contestants was asked a question. Miss China had the good fortune of picking a rather daft question, which was posed to her by Isabeli Fontana: "Nude beaches are common in some parts of the world. Is public nudity appropriate or inappropriate and why?"

Speaking through an interpretor, Luo answered, "Every country has its rules and regulations and every country has their own habits as well. We should respect them and be more understanding."

The Wall Street Journal reported on her month of training in New York City (here):

Miss China’s month-long training in New York City may not have led to the Miss Universe crown, but her handlers believe the experience prepared her for her second act — starting with a stint on “Keeping up With the Kardashians.”

Luo Zilin — or Rosaline, as the reigning Miss China prefers to be called in the U.S. — was set to walk in the Sherri Hill fashion show Wednesday, an event where the Kardashian sisters are expected to film an episode of their reality-TV series.

Luo’s mentor, the Chinese beauty mogul and TV personality Yue Sai-Kan, sees the potential TV appearance as a launch pad to bigger and better things in America.

 

 

Portland's broadband plan lacks urgency and funding priority

Yesterday Portland’s City Council passed a broadband plan but did not give developing broadband much priority for funding. To me, developing widely, and cheaply, accessible high-speed internet is an essential infrastructure component of a dynamic, economically competitive city. Portland needs to do more and do it faster.

From the Oregonian article “Portland City Council approves ‘prudent’ broadband plan” by Mike Rogoway (here):.

Portland commissioners voted 4-0 this afternoon (Mayor Sam Adams is in New York) to approve a broad plan for boosting Internet speeds and making Web access more affordable.

The plan, conceived over several months this year, shies away from grand ambitions like a publicly sponsored fiber network to residents' homes. Instead, the city promotes collaboration with industry leaders and suggest Portland use existing resources to extend broadband's reach.

"This is a prudent plan for tough times," Commissioner Amanda Fritz said, acknowledging that community and tech activists sought more ambitious goals.

"We don't have the money for that right now," she said.

In an earlier article, Rogoway wrote (here):

Last time Portland took a close look at its broadband needs, city staffers conceived a massive fiber-optic network connecting every home to hyper-fast Internet access.

Portland commissioners scrapped that ambitious plan in 2007 after they got a look at the project's price tag: Half a billion dollars.

Four years later, the city has crafted a new plan that puts a high priority on faster Web access but makes no commitments -- financial or otherwise.

As a result, the new plan is all but certain to win City Council approval Wednesday afternoon (2 p.m. in council chambers). But it's much less clear that it will accomplish anything.

Commissioner Dan Saltzman oversees Portland's Office of Cable & Franchise Management, which crafted the plan. This time out, Saltzman said, the city wants to marshal private resources, even if it takes a while for changes to take hold.

"This approach right now is a much more collaborative approach," Saltzman said, "working with CenturyLink, Comcast, Integra (Telecom) and others." 

There is dissent, again from Rogoway’s second article:

Grass-roots Internet activists, though, are less enthusiastic.

"The plan's action items have always seemed way too timid for me," said Russell Senior, president of the volunteer nonprofit Personal Telco Project, which builds free wireless Internet access nodes around Portland.

The companies serving Portland aren't doing enough to increase speeds, according to Senior, and have a financial incentive to keep rates high. So he said he'd like Portland to try a publicly sponsored network in a portion of the city and evaluate the results.

"To me," he said, "the only real solution is for local governments to essentially create privately owned infrastructure."

The plan itself does state well the significance of broadband development. From its executive summary (here):

Broadband networks power access to global information, economic activity and politics in the same way that highways provided the transportation corridors for the old economy. Broadband is about keeping Portland competitive so that our workforce can continually innovate locally and collaborate globally. Just as electricity fundamentally and forever changed our society and economy in unanticipated and disruptive ways, the interconnected web of “the Network” is transforming our ability to participate, educate, inform and compete. A shortage of broadband capacity will cause Portland to lose ground in its economic future. So it is important for us to learn what the Network is and how it impacts society. We must proactively set a strategic course for our economic and social development. This Plan will inform other planning efforts at the City. The Broadband Plan lays the foundation for understanding, embracing and adapting to the digital economy. The Portland Broadband Strategic Plan is one of the fi rst local government efforts in the nation to address the linkages between broadband and our local economy, sustainability and the environment, our educational and governmental institutions and our policies and industry responses. We recognize that the Network—and all of the technologies represented under the umbrella concept of the Network, are disruptive and game changing for society as a whole, and for the sustainability of our local economy and quality of life. Our plan recognizes that Broadband is Critical Infrastructure. The Network has become integral to both the working and personal lives of most households, families and businesses. The majority  of job listings are online, education (K-12 and higher ed) has rapidly been moving online, economic development and jobs are demonstrably related to adequate broadband capacity to recruit and retain businesses in our community, critical health care functionality is rapidly moving online, e-commerce and home-based businesses need this critical access, and Portland’s culture and policies promoting sustainability have a critical delivery element that has a strong correlation to adequate broadband infrastructure. This plan identifies strategies for developing our new economy in the broadband era, and defines our values for planning a safe, sustainable and equitable future with technology as a pervasive force in our environment.

 Relating to schools, the executive summary also says:

Getting a quality education in the 21st century increasingly depends on Internet access.

Modern K-12 education methods and goals depend on students and families having access to the Internet.

I agree, but public schools in the city of Portland are doing too little too slowly to use online education to expand learning opportunities and reduce costs.

Both the City of Portland and its public schools need to up their broadband game. I’m not an internet techie. I don’t know the specifics on what should be done. But I do understand the dynamics of the global economy, and, if Portland cannot do better, we will fall behind. This plan is not good enough. There needs to be more urgency and a higher priority for broadband development and use. We live in a very competitive global economy. We need to give broadband development a very high priority.

David Tao sings "One Last Cry"

From wikipedia (here):

David Tao (Chinese: 陶喆; pinyin: Táo Zhé), born Tao Xuzhong (Chinese: 陶緒忠), was born on 11 July 1969. He is a Taiwanese Golden Melody Award-winning singer-songwriter. He is well-known for creating a crossover genre of R&Band hard rock tunes which has now become his signature style and for having popularized R&B in the Mandopop industry.

Tao was born on 11 July 1969 in Hong Kong to parents who were entertainers in Taiwan. His father, Tao Dawei (David Tao Sr.), was an actor/singer/composer and his mother, Wang Furong, a Chinese opera singer.

Tao spent part of his childhood in Hong Kong (something which he shared with his audience during his Soul Power concerts in Hong Kong). His parents supposedly eloped when his father could not get approval to marry his mother. Tao had his education in Taiwan from kindergarten to the junior high school level at the Bethany Campus of Morrison Academy in Taipei. Later, his father decided to pursue his dream of working for Walt Disney, and they migrated to the United States city of Arcadia, California. There he attended Arcadia High School, where David Tao Sr. realized his dream and worked as an animator in Disney Burbank.

Tao's parents later returned to Taiwan where his father began his singing career, leaving him to complete his education in the United States. Left to fend for himself, Tao took on many jobs, including a stint as a policeman in the LAPD, without the knowledge of his parents. Eventually, he graduated with a bachelor degree in Psychology from UCLA.

I do not know if David Tao has U.S. citizenship. Leehom Wang, who Tao sings with in several of these video, is a U.S. citizen.

 

"50 percent of all high school courses will be offered online by 2019"

I do get annoyed when Washington, or Seattle, gets ahead of Oregon, or Portland. But now it appears that the University of Washington has a Center on Reinventing Public Education. And, while Oregon has a governor and some educational leaders who want to “reform” education, I don’t think Oregon is quite ready in polite political circles to “reinvent public education.” Too bad, Oregon is falling behind again.

From the AP article by Donna Gordon Blankinship which ran in the Oregonian as “Educational reformers look to bolster online learning” (here):

Education researchers believe it could take 100 years to close the achievement gap between children of different races and economic situations in Washington state, but participants in a Monday forum on education reform say there are ways to shorten the timeline.

The idea promoted at the event organized by the University of Washington's Center on Reinventing Public Education was digital or online learning to help tailor instruction to every child's needs.

It levels the playing field by helping kids who need extra help to catch up at their own pace, said Michael B. Horn, executive director of Innosight Institute, a think tank that focuses on applying a theory called "disruptive innovation" to social issues.

He spoke on the need to disrupt the nation's current education system to help move ahead more quickly with reform.

"Managing innovation effectively is one of the things tripping up our public schools," Horn said. Finding the simplest way to reach the goal of helping every child succeed is the process he hopes to bring to education.

The disruption is necessary, Horn says, because existing systems tend to want to make reform efforts fit existing parameters.

And:

Digital learning can enable students at schools that don't offer calculus, chemistry or Japanese to take some of their courses online. It can allow students to retake classes they failed or help dropouts catch up with their classmates. Online learning could replace summer school in some districts. And teachers could use digital learning right in the classroom to help some students relearn a unit or move along at their own pace.

Nearly 40 states already offer or sanction some online education. Horn said some research indicates that as many of 50 percent of all high school courses will be offered online by 2019.