Despite the nation’s commitment to the ideal of universal access to education, our public schools frequently fall short of meeting the changing needs of students across the spectrum. The “no child left behind” mandate has still let some students slip through the cracks, revealing the structural deficiencies in our public school system. Schools struggle under budget constraints, and even the most dedicated teachers are only human. As it turns out, the one-size-fits-all approach is not the best fit when it comes to instruction since there isn’t just a single learning style that suits every student.

New entrepreneurial efforts are answering this need and seizing an opportunity to fill this educational gap with the latest in technology. They aim to provide educational solutions via technological avenues, offering software to supplement brick and mortar school instruction and even operating schools online. Technology offers the hope of bridging skill gaps by customizing instruction to target specific academic needs. And it helps fill the gap in science and math at the teaching level since instructors often lack experiential background in these subjects.

A major force in this new wave of online instruction is Ron Packard, CEO of K12. Inspired by his own futile search for a complete online course to help a daughter struggling with math, Packard devised a business model for a full-fledged web-based school. K12 now provides over 20,000 hours of instructional content covering the full K-12 progression (see story in Forbes). Operating its own web-based school as well as furnishing support to other online schools, K12 serves 70,000 pupils and generates $400 million in revenue.

While K12’s students aren’t a representative sample of the public school population, they all have needs which public schools failed to satisfy. They are students with exceptional talents as well as exceptional needs. Online schools cater to scholar athletes and others who find conventional school schedules conflict with extracurricular passions. In some cases, parents turn to online instruction because they see their own values in conflict with those represented by public school instruction.

Apex Learning is another entrant in this growing field. In operation since 1997, Apex Learning targets poor academic performers who are at risk of becoming part of a growing statistic, the million annual high school drop-outs. In addition to distance instruction courses, Apex Learning markets its programs to public schools, enabling more individualized, computer-focused learning in a regular classroom setting.

Making inroads into the achievement gap, Revolution Prep offers software that helps pinpoint and address concept/skill deficiencies. Its program has been adopted by Los Angeles schools to help struggling high school students pass mandated exit tests.

Confronting the challenges and limitations in our present public school system, technology is helping transform the role of teacher from lecturer to facilitator, and easing the workload on instructors at the same time. Technology provides a workable means of identifying and serving the unique academic needs of diverse students, while freeing teachers from some of the burden of devising and implementing lesson plans, and even filling the gap in subject expertise.

The idea of standardized online curriculum in public schools may strike some as revolutionary. But as weaknesses in the well-intentioned educational policies of the past grow more apparent, the concept seems tailor-made for the future of digital technologies in schools.