California. This Charter School was established in order to provide instruction to pupils who are not currently successful in conventional public school settings by using distance learning that employs state-of-the-art technology (Blanton, 1998, p. 1). In the years between 1985 and 1993 the dropout rate in Kern county was reduced by over half. Their distance learning program made use of many means including computer based, media-based, small group activities, and directed instruction. The targeted students were those who were either prospective dropouts, on probation, or even homeless children. Mississippi, because of the fact that it is considered a rural state, qualified for federal funds when implementing its statewide distance learning programs. Oklahoma is also getting on the Distance learning bandwagon. For example, Teachers in Western Heights School District in Oklahoma dont drive to meetings anymore. And parents dont always come to school for teacher conferences. They joined forces to install JetNet, a state-of-the-art telecommunications network which brings desktop videoconferencing to the districts 230 classrooms (Quesada,1997). Each classroom now has an ISDN phone line, a Gateway 2000 Pentium computer, color TV, and Intel ProShare. The district provided paid training for the teachers and has seen dynamic things happen. The United States as a whole seems to be quite involved in the concept of distance learning. The NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio has conducted a survey of 500 United States schools K-12 in March 1998. Of the 72 schools that responded, 78% are currently involved in distance learning, 22% have plans to become involved in distance learning and 28% are part of a distance learning network of schools (Peterson, 1998).When you consider many of the reasons why a school district or state would be slow about pursuing distance learning, reasons such as money, training, upgrading, it has come ...
