Not on Online Education - but I have done a fair amount of work in the industry and this is one of the more referenced books: https://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Kids-World-They-That/dp/1451...

This is a good blog on the state of online education: http://mfeldstein.com/

And a really good article: https://www.fastcompany.com/3062958/how-google-is-schooling-...

To answer why top Universities bet on MOOCs: this is partly an attempt to get around Education's Iron Triangle (ref: http://www.adaptivelearningworld.com/?p=110)

I REALLY wish teaching was as prestigious as say, being a doctor, or investment banker. I read a very interesting [1] book on this and it really just opened my eyes regarding the mediocrity of teaching (not quality per say, but as a profession, which eventually leads to poor education).

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Kids-World-They-That/dp/14516...

I wonder what really would happen if the experiment were tried. It would be difficult indeed to find any credentialed United States schoolteachers who speak Finnish well enough to teach in Finland (but not insuperably difficult to find Finnish teachers who speak English well enough to teach in the United States, which tells us something right there). I would like to include a few more countries in the mix. Indeed, that is what I like about the new book The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way,[1] because the book follows some American exchange students over to other countries (Finland, yes, but also Korea and Poland) and examines a lot of different trade-offs that different school systems around the world have to deal with. The boy who traveled over to Korea to be an exchange student and was profiled in the book traveled over from the same school district in Minnesota I have lived in since I had children. Finland is not the only model of a different system, and we should be studying a lot of different models to make sure we aren't missing out on lessons we can learn from practice elsewhere.

P.S. I am a teacher by occupation, and I know that the research shows that teacher characteristics matter for learners. The parental involvement or value placed on education by parents mentioned in several comments that preceded mine here are important, but I deal often (just today, in fact) with trying to help parents who are involved in their children's educations but are frustrated by what's happening to their children in United States public school classrooms.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Smartest-Kids-World-They/dp/145165...

You should read her (the author of the article is a woman) entire newly published book, which is receiving very good reviews, and see if you still summarize her argument in the same way.

http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Kids-World-They-That/dp/14516...