While the findings aren't at all shocking to those of us who embrace online learning, kudos to the Department of Education for undertaking the study, and for publishing the results. 

Steve Lohr of the New York Times nicely summarizes the 93-page report: Study Finds that Online Education Beats the Classroom.  But if you want the original details, here's the full report, Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning.   

Too many schools persist in the notion that learning can only or best take place in a classroom, with teacher-centric instruction. Teaching may happen best in a classroom, but Learning happens best with Learner-centric instruction (and the best teachers deliver learner-centric). 

That's because well-designed online instruction can be

Adaptive to the learner; speeding up, slowing down, or going deeper, depending on the learner's knowledge.

Immersive; inviting the learner to play and experiment for different outcomes, without classroom distractions.

Learner-centric; less dependent on the skills or subject-expertise of the teacher.

As more schools, educators, legislators, and policy-makers insist on empirical measures of effective instruction, in both classroom and in online environments, we'll be able to continuously improve the learning experience, and create deeply engaging and lasting learning.