Just recently, a local school district as started offering Online Classes for students, K-12, completely free. From what I've gathered, they provide everything you need so that a student can learn from home.

PROs:

• This may help keep our schools from overcrowding
  
• You can do some online some traditional courses
  
• Extremely flexible for special needs students - accelerated learners, those with medical problems, etc.
  
• Parents can homeschool certain classes without running into trouble with scheduling.
  
• No classroom related distractions: ie friends
  

CONs:

• Hampers social development
  
• Babysitter: I can't wait for this headline "child, 8, burns down house while mom steps out"
  
• Distractions at home
  
• One parent needs to oversee what's going on
  
• Potential standard of living problem: right now, students can receive free/subsidized meal plans in our public schools if they need it.
  
• "Cure All" to any problems a student may have with a teacher
  
• Harder to track who's taking that test...the student or the parent.
  
• No hands on activities with direect oversight: sure, you might dissect an owl pellet, but you'd do it alone. Some labs just will be impossible to do at home, such as liquid nitrogen demonstrations.
  

Overall, I'm for this type of program. I never struggled in school beyond what was my own fault, so I don't think I ever would have benefited from online classes. However, I did have a friend who had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and I think it would have helped her keep on pace with her studies while she was battling it during it's hardest times. Some of the problems listed above can be avoided. For example, social development is often times not a problem for home schooled children who are involved with scouts, 4H, sports teams, etc.

Do you think online classes would have helped you in K-12? Do you think this technology should be shunned? Honestly, as long as the option remains that students can either do classroom or online work, I think its a good idea. I am a little afraid, with Colorado's explosive growth, of when our schools will become overcrowded. That can hurt everyone involved. And of course, some people learn very well online, especially visual learners.

I think there's two sides to the issue here.

First I think it's a great way for special needs people, people who live far away and have difficulties reaching the school or have any special problems that would have them benefit more from an online curriculum. For the rest of the children, I believe the regular school system would work just fine. The basis I took for this are online colleges, they just don't have the same quality of education as regular colleges which can devote more educational resources to the student other than online material and books that the online courses could provide.

If such an online system is implemented, one way to fix the problem of a parent taking the test for the student is either having the student go to another location, like a school, and have him take a supervised test there. Another solution would require high speed internet access and it's based upon live video stream. You could have a single person supervise a number of students take a test via feed.

A problem I see is hampering social development with the child at such a critical age. It's the age in which he learns how to interact with people and the world and if he's closed up at his home all the time it would just make it real hard for him once he graduates high school. You could make him to extra curricular activity like sports, but not all parents are willing to do this. How many of your school friends didn't do any type of work? At least at my high school, I'd say that about half of them didn't really do anything special outside of school except go out with friends acquired via school. Also you won't have laboratory equipment or specialized classes for the student, they'd just be taking all your basic classes and that's about it. If the student really likes something, like programming, he'd either have to learn it by himself or wait until college.

You do have a lot of distraction at schools, but I think the problem is more with the students themselves and not the system. Parents also get a lot of the blame. The system has been the same for decades, children have the same learning capacity and they learn the same way. Teaching methods have gotten even better but you see more and more problems at school, so what's the problem? It's a number of issues but I think that they can be summarized into two blocks.

1) Students think they can't be punished.
I remember back in pre-school (1991-1993) that if I did something bad the teachers could punish me and that it would hurt. In nap time they'd place me outside the classroom where it was hot (Puerto Rico averages 90 degrees all year long). They could hit you with a ruler, stay inside the classroom for lunch and recess for a week and various other punishments. I knew that if I broke a rule, I'd be in for it quite badly, so my trouble making days were over by kindergarten and I just behaved and focused a bit more on learning. Now if a teacher does what my teachers did to me they'd get sued, lose their license and jobs. Now they can't really discipline their students so you've got students who do whatever they want. This bad behavior doesn't let the students focus on learning, especially in the elementary levels.

2) Students think they have better things to do.
We've all seen it, people texting during the middle of class. They put more attention to their iPod that heir notebook. There's so many distractions that the time focused of learning is reduced. Some even have the attitude that the dumber you seem, the cooler you are, which is a destructive attitude within itself.

Some ways to fix it are just building more schools. The less crowded the school is, the less people the student has to worry about and the less distractions there are. Also give teachers more authority to see as fit. Disciplining a student by beating him is wrong, but there is nothing wrong with hitting with a ruler (up to about 4th grade) or any other kind of punishment. We need to discipline them and today there's not very much a teacher can do. Psychologically, the student will connect the action with the punishment and will cease to do the action if he does not like the punishment. Punishment has to be immediate and something the student does not like. Not this "don't do it again" or "you have detention a few days from now" doesn't work most of the time.

Online school and regular school both have their advantages and disadvantages and should be decided upon an individual basis per student.

There's no argument for lack of social experience. Just put them in camps and shit. Their schedule lets them be flexible enough for that.

Heaven forbid parents actually do any parenting.

There are many cases where a psychological disorder can make an online education easier and more emotionally positive for a student, but where the lack of social development found in online programs would be crippling. I'm such a person -- if my education'd been online, then the worst of my past social/psychological problems would likely exist to this day.

I'll admit, however, that personal experience is a dubious argument. Just thought that this post could raise an interesting viewpoint that more experienced debaters could elaborate on if they so chose.

EDIT: I'll elaborate. I used to be emotionally subhuman, incapable of compromising, and lacking in morality. I happily used violence and coercion to get what I want because I didn't know otherwise. I was extremely inflexible and overall less than a person -- and certainly not a good sub-person. Without a decade and a half of social experience, I think I would still be that way today. I mean, hell, I only started growing out of that primitive psychology during freshman year at high school. If I hadn't had actual real-world social experience, I wouldn't've learned things like processing body language, or even empathy and guilt.

Cobb, you were just odd.

I think that the social argument isn't strong enough to turn this, because parents have options if they child is socially incompetent. A curriculum where they could speed up if they feel like it (with "friendly" encouragement from their parents, of course) is good. Less time traveling to and from school is less time wasted. Everything else, it just depends on the implementation.

The one part where I'm strictly against this is the elementary school part. I have a four-year-old sister who's going to 1st grade in two years (I think), and I honestly don't want parents to think that teaching six-year-olds online is a viable option. That's where I would use the social argument to full effect. After elementary school, go ahead, use the internet.

I am against this type of program because I do not think that it is at the same level of traditional schooling because you sorta lack the teacher.
Cons:
Online schooling lacks the interaction that is required for the real world.
These students will never get to share learning experiences.
You do not have a teacher right at hand. (if you ask a question it will take time to get an answer back)
The flexibility can actually hurt you if you are not self-disciplined. (Since you can go to class at anytime, you may feel like you can go to work at anytime)
You have to pay for internet and books?

This can be extended towards online degrees which are not accepted as high in regard as someone with a degree from a traditional college.

Oh man, making me pull out my notebook huh? I wrote a huge amount on an idea to reform the school system to the 21st century. I start by pointing out the obvious problems to me of regular schooling:

1) The likeness of schools to the business model. It is ever more present that schools are churning out graduates, and all that matters is getting good grades and graduating. There is a lack of focus on the actual education of the student. Rather than trying to reinforce what they don't know when they fail, we penalize them for it. This is not education; it is a weeding out process.

2) No thought of individualism. Classes are organized to teach large swathes of people at once. Different people learn at different rates. It makes no sense to move at a single pace while some struggle and others take easy street.

3) No standardization. I don't speak of standardized tests or required courses - I mean standardization. Everyone across the US should have the opportunity to get the same classes. Yet, some schools have many, many more than others. For example, my school did not have French, despite my wanting to learn it

There are more o/c, but those are the ones that really stuck out to me, do with them what you will.

Your examples do not really work for a K-12 situation. It seems more towards college. I am not sure how you are penalized when you fail. The reinforcement is to retake the whole class again. If you do not retake it then you may not understand the new information that is built on top of the old information.

Honestly, my high school system was ridiculous with its requirements. If you got expelled or dropped out of any of the high schools, you went to a remedial sort of high school. If you showed up for class, you pretty much got full credit, and you were allowed to graduate. Not to mention, my sister graduated without completing like five grad requirements. So there is no penalty for failure. In College there is. Have I whined about how my degree program considers it a failing grade if its a 73% or lower?

The only argument I care to rebut is BeeR's "build more schools" argument. The problem is that Colorado is running out of room to build. There's a lot of areas we can't build, or if we are building, it is slowly choking itself. There's an entire area that may be out of water within the next decade. No one seems to care yet.

Not to mention, there have been a lot of schools to go up recently. Overdeveloping is taking its toll on those too.

My fault, I didn't specify what I meant by fail. By fail I did not mean that one failed to achieve a passing grade. What I mean is if they say, get a C on a test because they missed 25 questions. It is clear they do not know the information to the level they should. Every person is capable of answering all of the questions right. It is mostly because they don't study relentlessly for it. Now, the point is that they're stuck with that C. Sure there are retakes, and those are all fine and dandy. But studies have shown that we remember information better when we fail, so why not try to reinforce this? Granted learning takes time... Which is why I throw down the business model likeness. We're concerned about getting these students out on time.

You're speaking idealistically and unrealistically. It isn't efficient to teach students one by one. If people are slower at learning, currently, there are remedial classes; faster, there are usually AP or Honors classes. If there aren't? Then you're probably in a tiny school where opening another class for a small percentage of the students isn't worth it. I definitely don't want tax money spent so several kids get 1-on-5 time with a teacher.

Same about standardization. It's not worth it to give a school of 50 students an astronomy class just because a school of 3000 has one. The school of 3000 can fill it, a school of 50 can't. All schools fulfill a core curriculum - everything beyond that is extra that's applied when it's worth it, when students have interest in it, etc.

So first off...it varies district to district...I took Japanese from another school one year, and then I got high school (and college) credit taking a semester of it from a local community college.

Also, if all classes are available online to any student in the state, isn't that better than them not taking the class at all?

Online K-8 shouldn't happen. There's really no reason for it (what's stopping them from going to school or being homeschooled traditionally?), and kids that age aren't self-motivated in terms of learning, anyway. Online school for grades 9-12 is more viable, since some students actually will put the work in, but it's still far from right for everyone.

A more "communist" type of school system could work if there was a way to make it viable. Some schools could have 5000 students and others don't get past 500. Some have a lot of extra classes, extra personnel and extra space, while others just have your basic classrooms and teachers. If we could say give each public school a set 2500 students and $50 million, it would be great because each school could offer the same education regardless of where you live.

Individualism is very hard to promote. There is no doubt that it will increase the academic performance of students, but how many teachers have the time to make such an individualized program. I know these are not your 100 person college class, but still, even with 20 or 25 people it's hard to do. Imagine having to do an remedial/average/advanced tests and a lot of other things. You'd essentially need 3 teachers to give one class. If we had enough teachers for this it'd be great, but from what I've read/heard in the news there is a lack of teachers in the country.

As for weeding out students. It's the same model that universities use. If we reinforce what a student has failed, how far back are we willing to go in terms of time. Instead of doing a 10 chapter class, you'd give 7 chapters. It's hard to leave some people behind, but not everyone is willing to learn, some just want to cruise with a barely passing grade.

You're thinking too conventionally. Pull yourself out of the box.

Gee. How helpful. What practical, obnoxious and pretentious advice.

You didn't even respond to me yet.

*sigh*

I was hoping you guys could come up with a solution as well to expand the predicament. I do not want to reveal my idea lest it will taint other people's originality with my visions causing similarity between concepts. To cultivate the best option one must take a look at a diverse range - this means using each person's individuality to its largest extent. Thus, the only advice I can offer is to think outside of the box.

As to a response to your post... I was merely pointing out flaws in the schooling system, not a solution. Do you agree then, that they are primary flaws within the schooling system?

Not major ones that can be practically corrected.

And, what you both have a solution you don't want to share lest you spoil our imaginations, and you have no solution?

I suppose I shall post my solution. At the least the time allowed would be enough for the mind to at least begin thinking of pieces of solutions, which the insight gotten from that can be used to critique my work.

This will take some time, but I will post it.

Like everything, it would be awesome for some and abused by others. I spent 10+ years of my life "learning" from teachers who were incapable of challenging me, thanks mostly to my parents who had me reading on my own and doing multiplication by age 5. Then, put me in the same classroom as kids who don't even know the alphabet or how to count to 10 and I'm expected to be entertained? It's not necessarily always the teacher's fault, due to class sizes and limitations, but in a system where I could have pushed myself rather than approaching every assignment as something tedious that I already knew, I probably would be vastly more advanced today, and undoubtedly less lazy. Like so many online communities like this, I'm sure there's dozens of people here who fit the below quote, and every one of us would have had more success in such an environment where we could challenge each other rather than seeking fulfillment and true peers in pointless games.

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
- Calvin Coolidge

In this day and age, saying there is no social aspect online is foolish. You could mandate 8-10 person video chatting or debate as a curriculum requirement and you're already halfway there. I'll agree that it's more limited for now, but I have to rely on a stereotype and say that the people who would thrive in an online primary school would be the ones who tend to be socially awkward to begin with. With VR in 10-20-50 years, that excuse will be obsolete, anyway, and so putting a rudimentary system in place now to build upon seems prudent.