We had a great time talking to people about Keeping Pace last week at VSS.  Many asked where to start in reading the 168pp report (What? You haven’t already read it cover to cover?). We kicked off the 2011 release by blogging about the trends identified in the Executive Summary, so that’s one answer. However, we know that one thing many folks look for right away with each new Keeping Pace report are the numbers. We’ll take a couple of posts to look at some of the key highlights in this year’s report, starting with full-time multi-district online schools.

In a dedicated section beginning on p. 21, Keeping Pace 2011 discusses the 30 states that offer students a full-time online education. Key data points about full-time multi-district online schools include:

• Tennessee, Virginia, and Louisiana opened full-time online schools for the first time in fall 2011
• An estimated 250,000 students enrolled in full-time online schools nationwide, a 25% increase from 2009-10
• Arizona identified 36,814 unique students enrolled in full-time or part-time programs (the state does not separate these enrollment categories). If all were full-time, it would make for the largest full-time online enrollment, almost 4% of the state’s students.
• Ohio served 31,142 full-time online students, almost 2% of the state’s students
• Pennsylvania served 28,578 full-time online students, and is the home of one of the country’s oldest online schools, PA Cyber
• Washington served 17,786 full-time online students
• K12 Inc. reported 82,670 FTEs in its schools nationwide, growth of 23%
• Connections reported 35,000 FTEs in its schools nationwide, growth of 40%

If you scroll down on the Reports & Graphics page, you’ll find many of the graphics included in the 2011 report, including the full-time multi-district online school enrollment map. Thanks to our generous sponsors, these graphics are here for you to download and use under the Creative Common license.