Can high-speed Internet access increase graduation rates?

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Despite ongoing scandals involving the IRS and phone records, President Barack Obama is touring the country touting online education. The president continued his Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour with a stop in North Carolina this week and spoke at Mooresville Middle School about technology and digital learning. The president’s initiative is called ConnectED, and it aims to have 99 percent of American public school classrooms connected to high-speed Internet within the next five years.

Mooresville uses the Angel Learning Management System, and the school district’s technology team is committed to training teachers and working with them to create lesson plans meant for digital consumption. In 2008, Mooresville issued 4,400 laptops to elementary, middle and high school students. Graduation rates shot up to 91 percent in 2011, up from 80 percent in 2008.

Mooresville Middle School is no stranger to media attention. The school system was featured in a mini-documentary on PBS NewsHour, Superintendent Mark Edwards has spoken on a White House panel and was recently named 2013 national Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators.