Public school. Charter school. Private school. Parochial school. Home schooling. Unschooling. These are the words that tapdance around my brain at night, as my preschooler nears the age where we must decide her kindergarten fate. Educational offerings in the Bay Area are inconsistent at best, and we can't afford "at best". It's easy enough to rule out some of our choices (don't let the door hit ya, unschooling), but the pros and cons of the remaining options have become a giant tumor pressing on my frontal lobe, blurring my vision.
Now my entire brain can just go ahead and explode, because now I've heard of yet another option: Cyberschooling. Although Wired gave the trend a thumbs down two years ago, it's becoming quite the trend in Pennsylvania.
Parents rave about the convenience of having their children sit down to work at the computer and be done for the day and off to ballet class by 11 AM, but the skepticism Wired expressed in 2004 is still alive and well today, and the sub-par test scores are, too. West York superintendent Emilie Lonardi says "There's virtually no
accountability that we have as a school district over our students who
are in cyber schools," and also notes that this lack of accountability to the district means she has no idea whether the cyber charter schools' poor
test scores are the result of curriculum or student-related issues.
In theory, cyberschooling sounds like the best parts of home schooling (flexibility, not having to change out of my pajamas to drive them to a physical campus) with the structure and curriculum that a traditional school provides. In practice, it sounds like any other educational path: it's not for every child, and the results will depend entirely on the kid and his support network.
