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

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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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.

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).