The consequences of failing core academic courses during the first year of high school are dire. In the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), only about one-fifth of off-track freshmen--students who fail more than one semester of a core academic course and/or fail to earn enough credits to be promoted to 10th grade--graduate high school, compared with over 80% of on-track freshmen (Allensworth & Easton, 2005, 2007). Failure of Algebra I is particularly problematic. In CPS, only 13% of students who fail both semesters of Algebra I in 9th grade graduate in 4 years, and the largest share of 9th grade algebra failures occur in the second semester of the course. Elucidating the ways that students can get back on track is of the utmost policy importance. Credit recovery is one strategy to deal with high failure rates. The primary goal of credit recovery programs is to give students an opportunity to retake classes that they failed in an effort to get them back on track and keep them in school (Watson & Gemin, 2008). As schools across the nation struggle to keep students on track and re-engage students who are off track, online learning has emerged as a promising and increasingly popular strategy for credit recovery. Despite the growing use of online courses for credit recovery, the evidence base is thin. This paper describes the design, implementation, and results of a randomized control trial that was designed to address this gap. The primary intent of the proposed paper is to share findings to date for the two cohorts of students who participated in two Algebra I credit recovery courses (one online and one face-to-face) as part of this trial--first time freshmen in 2010-11 at 15 CPS high schools and first-time freshmen at 13 CPS high schools in 2011-12. Tables and figures are appended.