Grade School And High School, School Free

shadowlight1 writes: "This CNet article discusses a complete virtual classroom environment under development over the 'net. It would be especially geared towards the developmentally disabled." The venture this story focuses on is called K12 -- and it's for profit. (You may be surprized by it's spokesman / backer here.) The story also touches on other online education efforts, though, some of which blend well with what homeschoolers have been doing for many years.

Comments

It Won't Stop School Bullies, Though.

[citizenc]

.. They'll just go about it a different way:

iCQ UH-OH Sound "Hey, geek, PayPal me your lunch money, or I'll packet your webserver back to the stone age!"

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CitizenC

For profit

[Guylhem]

This for profit school online is a stupid idea.

Just give more money to the public school system, improve the quality of teaching from k12 to college (introduce computer science or coding ?) and you'll have better results !

Re:For profit

[phutureboy]

This for profit school online is a stupid idea.

Government schools are a stupid idea. I don't think the idea of having a school online is that great either.

Just give more money to the public school system, improve the quality of teaching from k12 to college (introduce computer science or coding ?) and you'll have better results!

The public school model is fundamentally and hopelessly flawed, and that won't change regardless of how much money is dumped into it. I'd rather see schools competing for students than the one size fits all, bureaucratic monopolies we have today in the U.S.

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Re:For profit

[Sc00ter]

I somewhat agree, I think they more need to look at HOW they're spending the money.

People spend over 20k/year to go to school to become a teacher, sometimes going for masters degrees then what happens, they get put in this shithole public school making less then 30k for the first 5 years of their teaching jobs.

Once they peak at around 50k they get slowly pushed out so they can bring in the next tearch for 25k to cut costs.

The biggest problem is all these soccer mom's and football dad's that bitch and bitch and get all this money spent on stupid ass sporting equimpent so there's no money left for books or tearchers salars, hell Joe Blow the coach is probably making more the the princapal because they pushed for the good coach from upstate or whatever.

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Re:For profit

[Coz]

The public school model is fundamentally and hopelessly flawed, and that won't change regardless of how much money is dumped into it. I'd rather see schools competing for students than the one size fits all, bureaucratic monopolies we have today in the U.S.

Unfortunately, noone has come up with a mechanism that allows everyone to go to school without the public school system.

Do we really have one-size-fits-all schools? Heck no. We have magnet programs, and special education, and "tracked" curriculums. What we don't have are enough resources, in terms of personnel, facilities, and supplies, to enable 5-children-per-gifted teacher learning experiences.

Personally, I think the schools we have today are a remarkable example of the free market in action. We can't find enough qualified, capable teachers because those individuals are also gifted enough that they can find better-paying, less-strenuous, more-respected jobs elsewhere.

You want to blame someone for our schools? Blame the parents who:
- Don't care enough to be involved
- Won't pay for the public schools (through taxes, etc.)
- Use their kids' scholastic performance as a competition with other parents.

The ones who don't get involved - well, there's not a lot you can do. The ones who are TOO involved - in the wrong ways("How dare you give my little Johnny detention! You're not challenging him enough to make him pay attention in your class - it's your fault he talks out of turn!") need to be "sentenced" to teach for a month - that'd educate them on those "cushy teaching jobs."

Wow - that sounds bitter - and I'm not even a teacher.

Re:For profit

[simpl3x]

as usual, technology tries to recreate a space when what is really needed is augmentation of what exists. help the teachers focus on what they should do--foster learning. what if your average programmer ordered his/her office supplies, cleaned their office, planned the project for the day, tested their work for the day/week, and where asked to add features for the developmentally disabled the week prior to launch... this would really facilitate great code, don't you think? creating stimulating environments is much easier after one takes care of the basics. teachers should be professionals and supported as such. "the teaching gap" is a great book on the subject.

advertisements

[dR.fuZZo]

Non-virtual schools haven't been able to keep corporations out, with crap like Channel One and the like. You just know that a virtual school would have plenty of targeted advertising forced on the kiddies.

I hope you're joking

[Anonymous Coward]

Just give more money to the public school system ..

I hope you're joking. Have you seen American test score results lately? Public schools are a disaster. Furthermore, there is a very real case to be made that public funding for education is unconstitutional. Public schools are not so much centers of learning as they are centers of indoctrination into all sorts of unsavory things that concerned parents do not want their children exposed to (sex education, evolution, etc.)

If America's educational system is to be saved, we must get the government out of it. Children are better served by sending them to parochial/religious schools or independent private schools run by competent education professionals. Corporate America does nearly everything better than the federal government; there is no reason to assume that education would be any different. Children would be far better off in modern, high-tech corporate schools than they are in the festering cesspools that our current "public" schools are.

Re:I hope you're joking

[john@iastate.edu]

While the case can be made that the federal government has no constitutional authority in the area of education (although, as far as I know, no court has agreed with this position to date), that does not impinge upon the state's rights to do so (and the federal contribution to education funding is well under 10%).

As for the rest of your assertions, you provide no evidence to support any of them. Let us take them in order.

1. they are centers of indoctrination into all sorts of unsavory things that concerned parents do not want their children exposed to (sex education, evolution, etc.)

   First, I must say, I resent your implication that parents that are not opposed to the teaching of sex education and evolution, etc are not concerned about their children's education and that they are party to "indoctrination".

   Second, I don't know about your child's school district, but my child's district has written policies on both the teaching of/about religion and controversial subjects -- in the unlikely event there was something I objected to my child being taught I would know how to handle the situation -- have you looked into your district's policies? If not, who are you to be calling me unconcerned?

2. If America's educational system is to be saved,...

   As laywers like to say "assumes facts not in evidence" -- where is your evidence that it needs saving (and from what)?

3. Children are better served by sending them to parochial/religious schools or independent private schools run by competent education professionals.

   Again, a statement without proof. In fact, most reserach shows that, for example, "the average private school student has large advantages in terms of family income and parental education" and "the composite measures of reading, mathematics and general knowledge do not show advantages from attending any of the three broad types of non-public kindergarten" (this study, http://www.nd.edu/~iei/hoffer.pdf, was of kindergarteners).

   The number 1 determinate for school success is parental involvement -- and private schools have much fewer "low involvement parents" (obviously, they went to the trouble of enrolling their children in private school).

   Personally, I think most people would rather have the Board of Directors of their school answerable to the community rather than the stockholders.

4. Corporate America does nearly everything better than the federal government;...

   In addition to being laughable on its face, this statement neglects that the federal government has a quite small impact on public education, most of the control is at the local school board level (with varying levels of interference from the state governments).

5. festering cesspools that our current "public" schools are.

   I know that our son's public school is anything but a 'festering cesspool'. I know this largely because I (and my wife) are regular volunteers in the classroom. I also know this because the district routine has average scores around the 90%ile on national and state standardized assesments.

But, hey, feel free to ignore the facts if they don't fit into your frame outlook way of life and everything -- after all, I'm just another commie (school board member).

Re:I hope you're joking

[john@iastate.edu]

1. Education is, by and large, indoctrination...

   If by indoctrination, you mean:

   1: to instruct especially in fundamentals or rudiments : TEACH

   then, of course, I agree. However, when you say indoctrination, most people think of:

   2: to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle

   and that is a perjorative view that I do not accept.

2. ...in the business of teaching according to the wishes of their master - the government

   Right, and that government, the local school board, serves at the pleasure of the populace. I would argue that, as a general rule, the smaller and more local a government is, the better it reflects the wishes of its consituency, and therefore, most school boards are, I would argue, among the better functioning governments.

   If you are an anarchist and see NO use for government, then we probably have no common ground upon which to continue a conversation.

3. ...outperforming even high-income public school children...

   High family income is actually fairly far down on the list of factors for success. Of course, "parental involvement" is hard to measure in objective ways, but IIRC, (don't have it here in front of me) recent studies have shown mother's educational attainment to be at the top of the list (which I would suggest is probably a good predictor for valuing and therefor being involved in their childrens education).

4. ...the government compells them at gunpoint to place them in schools...

   Not true, else home schooling would be illegal.

   You can argue it, but it has been ruled by the courts that society has a compelling interest in seeing that each generation is educated.

   BTW, the study was literally the 1st one Google gave me, I keep that 'school stuff' at home. so I did not have any at hand.

5. ...filled with grammar and spelling mistakes...

   I can't speak to the items you mentioned in your school district, nor am I in a position to correct them, but you are...

6. ...it takes 25% of the budget to hire the bureaucrats to implement and oversee the regulations. If you don't understand that, please resign in favor of someone who might have the balls to tell the feds to go to hell and retain local control.

   And you, obviously, have a corresponding ignorance about our district. In our current budget, our federal revenue is $557,839 out of a total of $33,682,860) Of that $33.6M, $26.3M is personnel costs, and of that only $1.9M goes to administration (bureaucrats, to use your word, but in fact, the largest share of those are elementary principals). Hardly 25% of our budget!!! Sheesh!

This could be an empidemic...

[resonator]

Without teacher and peers present, who's going to stop all these kids from eating paste?!

Like so many other ventures...

[TDScott]

...what would happen if this e-school, for want of a better word, were to fail?

A school like this surely can't have masses of targeted advertising (and if they did, there'd be an outcry from privacy and parent groups), so where is the funding coming from?

Assuming it does get up and running - what if it fails? You have quite a lot of pupils suddenly out of school, some with disabilities and with no other option than an expensive home tutor.

To me, this just sounds... too risky.

Homeschoolers are bizarre

[Hairy_Potter]

Seriously,

I know a few homeschoolers in Rochester, and a few parents who wanted to but were too depressed/stoned to attmempt it, and I've noticed that parents of homeschoolers usually have such severe personality defects that public schools were traumatic for them.

So, rather than hope their children will do better than them in public schools and not become such social misfits, they keep them home. Have you ever seen an 8 year boy who has more social interaction with his psychotic mother than his peers? It's not pretty.

Of course, there are valid reasons for home schooling, particulary those of Christian persuasion who are disgusted with the secular humanism forced down their throats, but for most kids, they need more interaction with their peers and less with computers.

Re:Homeschoolers are bizarre

[goliard]

Why is it that when homeschoolers are wierd, homeschooling is quickly blamed, but no matter how badly behaving someone who was "socialized" in schools is, no one ever says "those schoolers, they're bizarre"?

That was a rhetorical question, of course: Most people have deep emotional reasons for wanting to argue the superiority of their own culture. Lots of (otherwise) bright people prefer to let their emotions overwhelm their reason where their own upbringing is concerned. Dissing homeschoolers is a cheap and easy way to stroke one's own ego. Double standards are always indicative of an inferiority complex.

Re:Homeschoolers are bizarre

[thex23]

I agree that a lot of people who keep their kids home to "educate" them themselves are pretty marginal and weird. And that a borderline bi-polar mom becoming the focus of her kid's life 24/7 is not a good thing.

But what is wrong with secular humanism? People can worship or not worship whatever they like in their religious communities, but to complain that kids aren't being properly indoctrinated into one religious tradition or another in the public educational system is a little hypocritical. I don't buy the argument that secular education destroys or diminishes the value of religious convictions. I would prefer to see religion taught at home and in the community, not in state-funded institutions.

My main problem with your position though, is that you think interacting with "peers" is a purely positive thing. I would argue that the artificial way we stratify peer groups damages society: how can kids identify with the wider social context when the only culture they know comes from what is popular within their own age group (+/- one year)? What is wrong with kids socializing with younger and older humans, and hearing the stories of a wider group? I think a lot of youth culture's shallowness has to do with the lack of any foundation: each generation leaves nothing behind, because they have no ties to the generation before or after them. The "generation gap" is precisely that: a chasm between humans based solely on when they were born, seperating them from the experiences of others who may have similar interests, values, and problems and forcing them to surrender to the elitist power structures that function even in the lower grades. (being a reject from the system, I have seen first hand what happens when you don't "fit in"... and the former bullies are always the first to complain "What are they whining about? EVERYONE gets teased, it's no big deal.")

I would think geeks in particular can see how damaging this is: do you think that a 12 year old, a 16 year old, and a 20 year old are ever going to be able to make a connection and interact in a positive way? No, because we actively discourage children from interacting with other age groups (both younger and older) for fear of the things that we were too afraid to educate them about in the first place (ie: sex, drugs, crime, etc.). I think kids have a lot to contribute to society, but we force them to take a passive role, denying them a voice in the media and society in general.

Of course, all this makes them much easier to market to, to control and pacify via the culture of conspicuous consumption, and we even play them against their parents, teachers, and other authority figures to "win them over" to our commercial messages. You should be more concerned about the culture of alienation that our school systems are reinforcing than what kids are (or are not) being taught in class, or what they're being taught at home.

Re:Homeschoolers are bizarre

[headcase fargone]

I'm a homeschooler currently, in high school, and I basically agree. for the first 14 years of my life I had little or no social interaction because of wacky psycho-conservative Christian parents trying to shelter me, and it's a problem I never recognized until recently. I've been socially crippled in a lot of ways that are going to affect me for my whole life.

the bright side of homeschooling is, however, that I've come to appreciate the time that I have by myself, alone, for deep thoughts and such. that's an advantage I have that some homeschoolers really don't.

generally homeschoolers end up either TREMENDOUSLY insecure, or so sheltered and deluded that they think they're ok. it's really sad how some turn out.. but if given the chance, I wouldn't change how I was raised at all, because it's helped me build character I may not have otherwise. OTOH, perhaps nullifying everything I just said, I'm definitely sending my kids to public school. :)

Re:Homeschoolers are bizarre

[SuperKendall]

I was homeschooled all through junior high and highschool, and knew a lot of other homeschoolers (through attending various meetings or homeschool sports leagues) - I noticed very little in the way of personality defects in the parents as whole.

As others have said, generally homeschooling parents either want an education based more in religion, or they are of the "unschooling" variety which just want kids to learn at thier own pace (which can be faster than public school in some/all areas, and slower in the others). My parents were the latter group - For me, that meant a lot of time to be able to pursue computers as a hobby (note that does NOT mean to the exclusion of studying art or literature or other areas of science!).

Homeschooling can be as much or as little about peer interaction as you like. The nice thing about homeschooling is that generally Homeschoolers get a much broader range of peer interaction from all age groups, and so are better equipped to deal with real life and larger groups of people than public school students. Of course, that's just my observation.

Re:Homeschoolers are bizarre

[thz]

Enough with the "Homeschoolers are bizarre" junk. Sure there are a few bizarre homeschoolers
out there--I know a few-but most aren't. I should know, I was homeschooled for 12 years. I have
met quite a few other former homeschoolers at my college. Most people don't even realize that
we were homeschooled. Homeschooling usually results in an education as good or better than a
public school education. Most of the calling homeschoolers bizarre is just a poor argument against
homeschooling. (BTW: I'm 19, a junior studying Computer Science and Physics at a well known
university, and play on the school lacrosse team. If you want to argue against homeschooling with
me, you'll have to come up with some good arguments.)

ANYWAY: about the article. Why waste the money on an online classroom? All of the ones that I
have seen are pretty lame. Including most of the college ones. (I've worked for one for the past
three years.) All the homeschool curriculums that are sold stink too. Do highschool the right way:
get a computer and internet access, use the public library, and read college textbooks. It works.

-thz

Demonstrably untrue

[John Jorsett]

Just give more money to the public school system, improve the quality of teaching from k12 to college (introduce computer science or coding ?) and you'll have better results !

Spending on education has gone up severalfold in real dollars since 1950 while math and reading test scores have been flat. Kansas City was forced by a judge to spend billions on its school system, and produced educational palaces. Result: no improvement on test scores. Simply tossing more bales of money on the fire isn't a solution; bring in market forces if you want to see improvement.

Re:Demonstrably untrue

[Sc00ter]

Kansas City was forced by a judge to spend billions on its school system, and produced educational palaces

In other news, Kansas City just spent millions on a new stadium, track, baseball field and other sporting equipment.
They also forced 40 teachers to retire and they hired 30 new young unexperienced teachers to take their place and cut costs to pay for the new parking lot.
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Re:Demonstrably untrue

[cje]

I agree that randomly throwing money at schools and calling it good is no solution at all. Still, you can't raise teacher pay (which is desperately needed) by cutting funding. You can't reduce classroom size (again, which is needed) by cutting funding. You can't wire schools and classforms for Internet access by cutting funding. You can't .. and the list goes on and on.

Throwing money at schools simply for the sake of throwing money at them is certainly the wrong approach. But increasing funding with specific, measurable goals and a definitive chain of accountability would do wonders to improve the current educational system.

Re:Demonstrably untrue

[John Jorsett]

Reply#1: Compared to inflation during the same period?

What part of 'real dollars' is unclear?

As for the rest of your replies, I'll just refer you to the report on the Kansas City debacle put out by the Libertarian Cato Institute. Here's the executive summary:

For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, "You can't solve educational problems by throwing money at them." The education establishment and its supporters have replied, "No one's ever tried." In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.

Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.

The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.

The Kansas City experiment suggests that, indeed, educational problems can't be solved by throwing money at them, that the structural problems of our current educational system are far more important than a lack of material resources, and that the focus on desegregation diverted attention from the real problem, low achievement.

I think it's amazing

[AntiPasto]

... that a college hasn't developed a complete college-free, accredited undergraduate degree program. Everything I've seen requires regular classess along side of online classes.

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Re:I think it's amazing

[john@iastate.edu]

You mean like Western Governors University?

Making the bad even worse...

[spellcheckur]

I certainly hope an educator didn't come up with this one. This solution merely serves to heighten the problem that most developmentally disabled students have, namely that of missing out on day-to-day interaction with children their own age.

Because of the resource expense and the distraction in the classroom, many schools separate "special" students from mainstream education, which, for purposes of instruction, makes the education process easier.

The problem is that this impairs these students' abilities to functionally interact with other people. Teaching adults that have been separated all their lives to function in "normal" society is nearly impossible, so some of these people become more of a burden than they would have been if schooling were looked at as an experience instead of just an instructional process.

Electronic Schooling

[yoink!]

The one thing that concerns me, and this should be seperate from the issue of electronic schooling for disabled children, is the lack of interaction that goes on between students if a digital curriculum loses focus on the social nature of human existence.

Children need to run and play and not spend too much time in front of devices that don't help their neurons expand and create new connections. How come we don't see more music training in schools, which is one of the great neuron stimulators and has effects on mathematical ability for starters. I think a lot of questions need to be asked, and when education becomes cause for profit... who are we selling? Our children?

Just thinking.


Yoink

Virtual school. not far from bots as teachers

[rkt]

That reminds me of the movie "Class of 2000" where robots teach a class of students. However that was for a different reason....

CBT and web based training is already popular. However they don't provide what a young student requires the most.... personal touch, interaction, and pressure.

As it is most of the people here are geek already... without being taught by a bot. I hate to think what the next generation of geeks would look like who may not even know what a school-friend means....

You know you are geek when you have 23 friends... 22 of which are from IRC, and the last one is your UPS delivery agent whom you meet every other day.

rkt

Re:Schools for the homeless, migrant, and abused.

[John Jorsett]

Another section of the population to consider are the children of migrant workers. Many are ignored by uncaring, understaffed or simply prejudiced school districts.

Even worse, schools have a perverse incentive to give these children an inferior education. The more kids that can be classified as 'learning disabled', 'non-English-speaking', or 'poor,' the more money the district gets. Until recent reforms in California, many Hispanic kids were dragooned into bilingual-ed classes, even if they spoke no Spanish and even if the parents objected. All because the school districts got extra money for bilingual-ed.

Threat to life as we know it!

[StandardDeviant]

Man, without shitty highschool experiences, where would the crop of angsty goth and industrial musicians be?!? In twenty years we'd have nothing but happy shiny crappy whiny oops-I-fucked-up-again music from the mutant prozac-gobbling offspring of Britany Spears and NSuck.

Like Trent Reznor said, "I could go to therapy but it might ruin my musical career." :^)

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Adult Education Boon

[KingJawa]

This is a wonderful idea. Kinda.

I'm not a big fan of correspondence schools; the lack of socialization is killer. But there lies here a great opportunity for embarrassed adults to "go back" to high school.

Even those of you who hear the words "for-profit" and begin to write a check to Ralph Nader likely would not have much of a problem if the adult populace was educated in such a fashion. The good part about for-profit institutions, especially in this case, is that no one cares where the money comes from. I could make a $5k donation to the school (assuming I didn't have $4.21 in my wallet), a corporate sponsor could fund a virtual "wing", or students could pay the tuition. Who knows.

There are a good amount of people -- adults -- who would gain from this. That's why Sally Struthers has a job.

have a list of free online schools?

[equipd2rip]

I must admit I only did one quick search, found free school course links
but was curious where everyone else goes to learn? (ie howstuffworks.com, etc...)
Anyone know of better sites that have it all put together, preferably with professor type of input and quality and material kept current? It seems like the person who put together the above site took enough time to get links to the basic classes.
Having a non profit type page I think would be difficult to keep material up to date and for some courses it would be better to just have links to the horses mouth (ie java.sun.com for Java)
I like the idea even though it has its pitfalls ( example- less than perfect human interaction, although I think this will get better. If high speed multiple video connections were used, along with that smell box, course touch will have to wait for that full body sensory suit)

Kindergarten?

[Nidhogg]

Ok high school and even middle school I could see.

But kindergarten?

What are they going to do? Paste cutout construction paper apples to the monitor? Fingerpaints on the mouse?

And for nap time do we really want to teach them to fall asleep at the keyboard like we do at that age?

funding

[delmoi]

They get the funding from the $2000 a year you have to pay to use it... At least that's their plan.

And if they do fail, the student could just enroll in the local elementary school the next semester

Digital divide strikes again...

[Interrobang]

The above is a great idea...except for one thing. Private, "charter," for-profit schools are certainly not going to help educate the disenfranchised, especially not online. Contrary to popular belief (and you can see a little evidence for it in the C-Net article where they mention the number of people with whom the child is interacting online), online education is often more capital-intensive, and expensive than classroom education.

Online education is definitely more labour-intensive for the teachers and the institutions, and has much higher maintenance costs than many people suspect. That's why, in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education Live Colloquy, Dr. David Noble suggested that most online education is really only for the rich, at least at this point.

For more information, see Hara & Kling on student frustration with technology
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI/wp00-01.html
and LaRose, Gregg, & Eastin on "low-tech high-tech"
http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol4/issue2/larose.html ;
Mason on online education at http://www-iet.open.ac.uk/pp/r.d.mason/GlobalEdu.h tml ;
Morgan on online learning economics at http://multimedia.marshall.edu/onlinecosts/distanc elearning.pdf (you will need a PDF reader for this one!);
and Noble's famous and justifiably critical "Digital Diploma Mills" series -- One--The Automation of Higher Education, Two--The Coming Battle Over Online Instruction, Three--The Bloom Is Off The Rose, and Four--Rehearsal For the Revolution.

In any case, charter schools are just a bad idea whose time has come. They take money and authority away from the state, whose job it is to provide education and some sort of societal standard...which is why Canadian universities don't have entrance exams. Canadian schools are strictly enforced by a centralized, federal government, so school in one place is much like school in any other. Don't you wish you could say the same thing about US schools?

A Slashdot interview?

[update()]

At the state-funded Valley Pathways online school based in Palmer, Alaska, roughly 300 students take one to six courses a semester on the Web.

Roblimo? Wouldn't a group of these students make a terrific Slashdot interview? I'd love to hear how well this does and doesn't work and what tech they'd need to make it more usable. Even if they're not pudgy or strange.

By the way, the comment about the risk of increased paste eating made my laugh so hard an Altoid flew into my sinus. Ouch.

What's wrong with for-profit schools?

[goliard]

Geez. From all the belly-aching here, you'd think that selling education was a crime against humanity.

Haven't any of you people ever taken karate lessons, ballet lessons, music lessons, etc as kids? Haven't you attended computer camp or a G&T summer school? Haven't you ever learned a new language at an intensive language school or took (or worked at!) a test prep service?

If it's OK for me to hang out my shingle and take piano students at $30/half-hour, why on earth should it not be OK to run an entire school which charges per semester? Sheesh.

Re:What's wrong with for-profit schools?

[Coz]

It's not. There are lots of private schools out there - but they're not the only game in town.

It's when the public schools disappear that we realize exactly how few people those private schools can support... and how few people can afford to go to them.

Deeper philosophical questions

[RobertGraham]

One of the problems with the American education system is that nobody steps back and asks "why are we doing this?". There is this intertia that causes us to go blindly forward because this is what we've always done.

This is why so many "geeks" feel oppressed by the American education system. The ruling principle is that students won't learn information unless it is force-fed to them (the image I'm trying to get at is the geese who have corn shoved down their gullets in order to get those englarged fatty livers for patte-de-foi gras). These virtual classrooms are just an extension of the force-feeding principle.

An example of this is the American principle that we should teach students how to think rather than teach them facts. Geeks think differently, and therefore get oppressed. For example, I failed numerous math tests in high-school because I solved the math problems in ways other than was tought by the instructor. In college, I had to spend several hours proving to my instructor not only that my lab experiment calculating the Thevinen resistance was correct, by that my method produced creater accuracy. (I still only got a "C" on the experiment).

Virtual classrooms are just an extension of this. Rather than giving children a list of what to learn an resources to do it (taped presentations, books, discussion e-mail lists, etc.), people instead create virtual classrooms where people have to sit down at fixed times and watch live video feeds from the professors.

The reason I try to get back to first-principles here is that there is a lot within the education system beyond the subject matter. Schools are where children learn to interact with other people. The social interaction on the playground is every much as important as what happens in the classroom.

Therefore, this distant learning crap fails on all counts. Emulating the classroom is even more oppressive than having no classroom, and not having social interaction for children is even worse.

Why only for the disabled?

[AntiBasic]

As a dropout who was in the gifted program, I feel cheated yet again by the schools. There are so many programs out there to help a seventeen year old with the mind of a nine year old but none that promote the opposite. We're expected to succeed simply because our IQ's were scored over 130 (and some of us 150+). I found myself bored to tears after funding for the gifted program was dropped and the best the schools offered was "Honors" classes where we still used colored pencils in our sophomore year.

No I'm not bashing this idea. It may be a God-send for some of the slower kids but there has to be a program for the extreme opposite.

Re:Why only for the disabled?

[astr0boy]

And in my school district you had to qualify for the gifted program by 2nd grade. i didn't get here 'till 3rd, now i get to take classes with people who get drunk durning passing time. i have never done homework, but my lowest grade has been 97%. if you want to fix education, don't give the retarded kids 2 teachers EACH, give at least some to the smart kids, and don't limit those teachers to the kids with the doctor parents.

Re:Why only for the disabled?

[AntiBasic]

Heh, I know how you feel about the homework and the test bit. I didn't do any homework for almost two years but getting an A on an AP test was easy.

It reminds me of Brave New World where all the intellectuals were sent off to Iceland because the drones of society couldn't understand anything that wasn't subjective. People like us are merely forsaken. Hate to break it to you.

Re:Money for public education

[Coz]

I'd really like to see a well-monitored voucher program tried somewhere. Some supplemental appropriation, so the standard education lobby couldn't scream "The schools are being robbed!" (although they will anyway - "That money should go to schools!") over a meaningful period (4-6 years). Do it right, get good evidence - then sit down and figure out what to do, based on those results, and not just a bunch of people engaging in knee-jerk reactions to the latest edu-fad.

what school really is.

[rebelcool]

The computer is no replacement for genuine social interaction, which a "real" school provides. Social interaction is just as important as academic knowledge. If anything its more important. What good is all your knowledge if you dont have the social skills to convey it to others?

Keeping kids out of school earlier and earlier is ridiculous. Can you learn how to share through a computer? Can you learn manners? Things that are extremely important to the way you develop can ONLY be taught by in-person interaction. Teaching them purely through a computer is ridiculous. The computer is a useful learning TOOL..but it is no replacement for genuine interaction. You would not build a house with nothing more than a hammer.

This reminds me of the conference about how companies can help 3rd world countries by donating computer systems, and bill gates giving a speech on "How is this going to help when those people don't even have enough food or medicine to live? A woman will see this computer and say 'But can it save my sick child?'".. computers are not the solution to everything.

Online schools miss the whole point of school

[J.C.B.]

I think that the "online school" idea is one that won't work. Learning stuff is one major component, but the "online school" concept compleatly neglects the other main part, learning to socialize with other people. No, chat rooms and ICQ don't count as socializing. The lower the grade, the more of a need for socialization there is. They shouldn't even think of having this for any grade before 8th, period.

Also this idea of an online gym class totally misses the point. Gym (at least when I had it) was more of a structured play time, it wasn't some exercise that you could do on your own. I wish these people would realize that you can't do everything online.

William Bennett as a Backer...

[ackthpt]

Recently we had a wealthy backer of a School Voucher initiative on the California ballot. In the reading I've done, I haven't found much on the motivations of the backer, Tim Draper, other than the usual parents-deserve-more-choices-public-schools-should -be-held-accountable line. After hearing Bennett berate the public schools, it's not suprising in the least that he's backing this.

The fish or cut bait is: Is he doing this out of some moral obligation or is this the kind of drive which could be picked up by, say, George W. Bush as a sterling example of how education ought to be done and jammed down everyone's throats.

It's worth reading what the reviewer had to say on Amazon, regarding The Educated Child and Bennett, et al's conservative views.

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Re:William Bennett as a Backer...

[Reality Master 101]

I'm always astounded when the anti-school choice crowd calls giving parents more freedom through more education options "jamming it down everyone's throats".

If you want to send you kids to public schools, then fine. But it's mighty arrogant of you to make that decision for poor and middle class parents everywhere, particularly ones in inner cities where the schools are atrocious.

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Re:William Bennett as a Backer...

[ackthpt]

If you really want to know why inner city schools are in so much trouble all you have to do is look at 20 years of tax cuts.

Voucers, as was pointed out, do not guarantee the child will be accepted in a private school, only that funds will be available. When it becomes Bennett & Drapers Schools, Inc. where do you honestly believe the inner city school student will be? At Eaton, I suppose?

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They're missing the point

[fluxrad]

i've seen the argument hinted at in several posts, but i would like to just reiterate. School is not, specifically, about knowledge. Or at least not about the kind of knowledge that parents are berating public school teachers for not imparting on their bright little gang-banging children.

If you take away the classroom, children miss out on the most important part of school: Social interaction. I personally hated high-school. I had fun in middle school, and elementary school wasn't so bad. But all told, i have to say that i did most of my learning outside of the classroom, while still at school. This proposed K12 system takes away the advantage of students being placed in a social setting where they can interact with other children and learn the most important lessons of their lives; the social ones. Sure, students can play with their friends after they're done with their lessons. But they won't be (yes...i'll say it) forced into a situation where they have to deal with good as well as bad. The bully, the friend, the cute girl you just can't seem to work up the nerve to talk to. The miscreant, the outcast. All of them are an integral part of any childrens social development. If you take that away, you severely retard the social and intellectual capabilities of the very students you are so righteously(sp) trying to help.


FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network

Eevee I choose you!

[Graymalkin]

Ok, so it shall be said; booooooo! Why must everyone insist on sticking computer screens in front of little kids all the fucking time? Little kids ought to be having books read to them (maybe teaching them to fucking read while you're at it) and do some artwork their moms can stick on the fridge. Having a terminal in front of them is only going to limit their creativity more than being force fed Power Rangers and Card Captors. Hey great and wonderful if you want to let kids play games on a computer but make it a reward for something rather than a curriculum. Legos, blank sheets of newsprint paper, and crayons are going to get their underdeveloped neurons moving. Oh yeah, I realize this is for home schooling purposes. A learning environment is a fucking learning environment. If it is a garage or classroom, it is still going to follow the same ideology. Computers and technology in general should be an additional medium of information exchange not the focus of the learning or the only medium you're going to convey information with. Stop treating disabled kids like some super special extraordinary case. If someone needs a little extra help in any context be it a learning disability or blindness help them where they need it but keep them in the mainstream; no one is being done a bit of good by being segregated.