eSchools - Are we utilising technology in the right manner?

Online schooling grows, setting off a debate in US

Sam Dillon

Milwaukee: Weekday mornings, three of Tracie Weldie’s children eat breakfast, make beds and trudge off to school—in their case, downstairs to their basement in a suburb here, where their mother leads them through math and other lessons outlined by an internet-based charter school.
Half a million American children take classes online, with a significant group, like the Weldies, getting all their schooling from virtual public schools. The rapid growth of these schools has provoked debates in courtrooms and legislatures over money, as the schools compete with local districts for millions in public dollars, and over issues like whether online learning is appropriate for young children.
One of the debates has concerned the Weldies’ school in Wisconsin, where last week the backers of online education persuaded state lawmakers to keep it and 11 other virtual schools open despite a court ruling against them and opposition of the teachers union.
Two models of online schooling predominate. In Florida, Illinois and half a dozen other states, growth has been driven by a state-led, statefinanced virtual school that does not give a diploma but offers courses that supplement regular work at a traditional school. Generally, these schools enrol only middle and high school students.
Despite enthusiastic support from parents, the schools have met with opposition from some educators, who say elementary students may be too young for Web learning, and from teachers, and school boards, partly because they divert state payments from the online student’s home district.
Other opposition has arisen because many online charters contract with for-profit companies to provide their courses. The Wisconsin academy, for example, is run by the tiny Northern Ozaukee School District, north of Milwaukee, in close partnership with K12 Inc, which works with similar schools in 17 states.
The district receives annual state payments of $6,050 for each of its 800 students, which it uses to pay teachers and buy its online curriculum from K12.
Saying he suspected “corporate profiteering”, senator John Lehman, a Democrat, last month proposed cutting the payments to virtual schools to $3,000 per student. But during legislative negotiations that proposal was dropped. NYT NEWS SERVICE

Tracie Weldie teaches her children, including Isabel and Harry, at home with lessons outlined by an internet charter school