An Analysis Of Accreditation Standards And Procedures For Virtual Learning Organizations: Maximizing Learning Technologies To Meet The Needs Of Today'-..

The promise of transformation and educational progress stimulated a rapid development timeline for online learning adoption in the American school system. Technology based instruction, digital learning, online learning, and blended learning held great promise for improvement of the American educational system. Despite the fervor, secondary online learning programs struggled to demonstrate legitimacy and obtain the recognition and privileges held by traditional educational organizations. Accreditation bodies serve as gatekeepers for all of the prerequisite organizational partnerships for online high school programs to succeed, including online program authorization by state agencies, federal and state funding, and enrollments of students seeking college admission to schools requiring graduation from accredited programs. Because virtual programs often cross state and regional boundaries, the use of regional accreditation standards posed a difficult obstacle for online learning organizations to overcome. The 2008 committee of virtual education stakeholders for the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) National Standards of Excellence for Online Programs worked to develop and align standards of quality. All regional accreditation organizations agreed to utilize the iNACOL program standards to measure the program effectiveness for accreditation. This mixed method ex post facto study was used to evaluate the state of alignment of regional standards for online high school programs with the iNACOL national standards in order to assess the levels of integrative activity needed for future efforts by iNACOL and the regional accreditation agencies.