At its best, online education can allow far-flung students to study subjects and gain access to materials they would not otherwise have. At worst, it can be yet another way to divert scarce funds away from public schools and towards for-profit ventures that may be less successful than the schools they seek to replace:
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has touted online learning as a school-choice solution for rural America, saying that virtual charter schools provide educational options that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
But in Pennsylvania, an early adopter where more than 30,000 kids log into virtual charter schools from home most days, the graduation rate is a dismal 48 percent. Not one virtual charter school meets the state’s “passing” benchmark. And the founder of one of the state’s largest virtual schools pleaded guilty to a tax crime last year. [...]
Rural district officials also complain that virtual charters have pulled millions of dollars from cash-strapped public schools because of how they were set up. Under state law, districts send funds directly to a charter using a rate roughly based on what it would cost the district to educate the student — sometimes $30,000 or more for a special education student, even though district leaders say they can provide an online program for a fraction of that cost.
In the 2009-2010 year, $261 million went from districts to virtual charters — $81.3 million of it out of rural districts’ coffers, according to the Center for Rural Pennsylvania.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2008—The Cowardice of Sarah Palin:
I suppose it should go without saying that if Sarah Palin has been reduced to speaking to hard-right audiences, but can't do any nonpartisan interviews because they're confident she'll blow it, and can't appear without John McCain because he may have to bail her out if things get dicey, and generally can't do anything but stay in her little anti-media box, coming out twice a day like the little bird in a cuckoo clock to yell a few phrases into a crowd and leave again, she's all but useless to her own campaign. Her favorable ratings have been diving. She's still got Troopergate in the works. There's still gawd knows how much embarrassing tape from her Katie Couric interview, which is probably going to keep being dribbled out from now until the election. So far, she's been making her most indelible American impressions on the pages of the National Enquirer.
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