Final post

Reviewing your previous blog posts, what, if anything, has changed in your attitude toward online schools and online schooling over the past 15 weeks?

I think that I have gone from being overly optimistic with online schools to overly cautious. My knowledge of online schools was pretty limited to begin with but I do think I had this notion that online schools could solve some of the issues that regular schools have like overcrowded classrooms, fewer resources for non-core classes, etc. And while I still believe that this is true, I say that I am overly cautious because I now know much more about the types of virtual schools (state vs. private) that exist, who these schools cater to (parents, students, public schools), how they train their teachers (intensive vs. loose training), how students come to them, where their curricula comes from (homegrown vs. purchased), how much interaction students have with teachers and their classmates, is it synchronous/asynchronous or is the class taken during or after school, and their policies around supporting students (not only teacher-to-student connections but also the tools, online/offline, that are used to support). I think what I find most disturbing is that there is so much variation in these virtual schools.

And of course, I know that these variations exist in the f2f schools as well but somehow, this is less disturbing to me. Maybe it's because I have more confidence in the intake process and teacher training for the classroom setting than I do for the online setting. Or maybe it's just because f2f schools are tangible -- you can talk to the teacher or principal face-to-face if necessary.

I think if I were a parent, I would be overwhelmed by all of the options and ultimately, I would just pick the virtual school(s) that could provide evidence that students were actually learning content (not just barely passing the course), that the content was engaging and didn't necessarily require my child to sit in front of computer all the time, and that there would be constant contact with my child and myself.