by SAM PIZZIGATI The Gilmer Mirror

Virtually, Anything Goes with Online Education

State officials are allowing tax dollars to underwrite K-12 virtual disasters.

BySam Pizzigati

The sounds of September: school bells ringing, loose-leaf binders snapping open and shut, sneakers squeaking on gymnasium floors. Next to apple pie, what could possibly be more American than these familiar sounds and the local public schools where we hear them?

But times change. Blackboards and chalk no longer grace every classroom. Even pre-kindergarteners in the best-equipped schools gather around interactivesmartboardsand tap away on tablet computers. With the Internet, we can share lessons across borders.

In the new Information Age, are local public schools becoming obsolete? Do we need a new model for educating our young? Some sort of revolution in teaching and learning?

Questions like these demand thoughtful and patient democratic deliberation that we're not getting. In today's deeply unequal United States, we're rushing to an educational future that profits our awesomely affluent few at the expense of the rest of us.

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Virtually, Anything Goes with Online Education