Funding can certainly be complicated for technology in public schools. However, in places such as my school district (grade 9-12), students can definitely benefit from an on-line initiative.  This is a district where drop-out and truancy rates are high and learning rates are low predominantly because of external circumstances such as children skipping school to stay home and babysit for their siblings because both parents must work, or where students themselves must work because of poverty.  If these students could access on-line courses from their homes or remote locations, they might at least be able to continue their learning. Because government funding of public schools is already limited, one way the district can allocate funding for online education is by re-distributing resources to reduce face-to-face classes with the highest truancy rate.  Additionally, another source of funding for this type of program might be a partnership between the district and college education programs, charitable and non-profit organizations and corporations with a designated philanthropic ideal, the latter being the most lucrative.  The corporations would greatly benefit in that they would be developing a talent pool from which they could select potential future employees. This would be sort of a scholarship program on a grand scale, intended for the school or district rather than for individual students.  Because the future of economics and business lies in technology and communications, I would present this option as more than just viable, in fact, most desirable option because students would be able to learn in a modality most parallel to the real world.  They will be even better prepared to enter the workforce before they necessarily complete college which many of them may not even have the opportunity for. The ROI for the corporation will be exponential as more and more students use the on-line courses, especially if the school can demonstrated a reduced truancy rate.  In addition, there would be an underlined marketing schema for the company and its products.