Gail Collins always seems to write an interesting editorial piece for The New York Times. This one, entitled "Virtually Educated", is no exception. In it, she refers to a recent development in Tennessee, where students in one county were given the option of leaving their current school district to attend an online-only charter school run by the company K12 Inc.
What was interesting about this, and I really hate to bring in politics, was the fact that they picked, of all places in Tennessee, an area with a lot of poverty-stricken families. As Gail Collins points out, on the K12 website, the online school headmaster touts her school in this fashion: “online learning as an alternative to a violent in-school experience”.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Will this situation in Tennessee be a wake-up call not just about issues with our education system, but, more generally, social injustice and inequality? I honestly never thought of technology in schools being used in this manner, and am still trying to gather all my thoughts. I just found the editorial to be extremely interesting and enlightening--I just could not help but share it.
Justin, I am SO glad you found this article and decided to blog about it! I read it over and already see so many corrupted things. First, as you mentioned, they are targeting areas where the poverty rate is high; how is this equal? Even in the article, Collins says "Does full-time online learning really work for disadvantaged kids who may be alone at home all day?" I see a huge problem here. I can just envision students at home slacking because their parents are not at home, since they most definitely work, or because of the countless distractions around the home like food, games, internet, TV, movies, pets, you name it! Along with the inequality, comes the company. We only know how much money K12 Inc. is getting for each student, but we do not know how much they actually spend on each student. This already sounds fishy, and knowing that "company profits have been soaring" is also bringing to light the idea that we actually do not know what on earth is going on here. I do not like this at all! And targeting the poorer families also lets this "fishy business" go unseen because parents are not thinking about that, they are just thinking about not needing to pay for a bus so their kids can get to school or how they will be able to drop them off and pick them up with their job hours. I seriously think that every penny should go to the student, the school, the environment, the teachers, etc. so that students can efficiently learn and be in an environment which is not "falling apart", one that is "comfortable" to learn in. I do not think that a third party should be making profits from education, it's like stealing a students money. All in all, fantastic article!
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