How is NM doing on virtual education?

The Rio Grande Foundation has been New Mexico’s leading proponent of virtual education. Notably, New Mexico is a state that has done fairly well in the area of promoting virtual schooling, but like nearly all states, we have a ways to go before we are really maximizing the potential of these new technologies.

The group “Digital Learning Now” has been started by former Gov’s Jeb Bush (R-FL) and Bob Wise (D-WV) to push state policymakers to move forward on digital education and virtual schooling. To this end, they have issued a report card for each of the 50 states. The report card allows users to pair various states, so I have paired New Mexico and Florida (one of the nationwide leaders in virtual education) here.

Higher numbers indicate that the state is achieving a greater number of goals associated with virtual schooling. New Mexico certainly doesn’t perform at the level of Florida and Arizona, but we do okay in the report.

Read the full explanation of the 10 elements of high quality digital learning and how policymakers can work to improve them.