I don't see why this should be controversial. The classroom is a notoriously inefficient and ineffective vehicle for teaching. If online learning works for you, use it. If it doesn't, go back to the traditional classroom or find something better. And who cares if a class is offered by a for profit company, a not for profit, or a government run entity. I'm typing on a computer made by a for profit company. I like the fact that it works.

I would appreciate it if Mr. locate would interview someone experienced in online education instead of some silly muckraker.

I always knew that I should not have children, so I did not. Every single day that goes by the pile of crap just gets higher and higher, hence, I'm ever more certain that I was right.

Good Luck.

My concerns regarding privatizing public schools are as follows:

1. Isolation: If a child gets up from his bed and doesn't go to school, but stays in his room to go "online" to class, how is he supposed to learn socialization? There are also great problems with this...what if a child is abused at home and he has no where "to go" for people to be able to report it? What if the child is hungry and really needed a public school's "free lunch" program? What about that inspirational teacher that helps a kid want to make a difference? Sports? The arts?

2. Where are the parents in all of this? Don't they have to work? They cannot be "home" monitoring their children.

3. Play. Kids already no longer play outside with one another at home. The school play yard is often the only place kids play together and get exercise. If kids stay in one room and "go to school" on their computer...our children will be fat, sick and isolated.

This cannot be good for our future as a Country.

This sounds like a good adjunct program, but lacks interpersonal connection to another human who is the teacher. Also this seems for those with the privilege that there are not absent parents who HAVE to work to pay the bills. And the single parent households, what of them? Even high school age students need the stability of interaction with adults. We have too much addiction to technology with increasingly limited skills in connecting to other people.

PS-- Bill Bennett did NOT want to see the public schools wired for the internet. Now we know why!

New form of money making for the Capitalist Class . What does the Obama Administration think about this trend ???

K-12 Inc. was founded by 1980's Education Sec'y Bill Bennett.

Our mostly private colleges are the best in the world. Our public schools are terrible. It sounds like he's just complaining about online schools.

I develop online education for adult audiences. 2 generations of my family were elementary school teachers. I love education, teachers can't be replaced, but there still is a place for online learning for kids. Study aids for kids who's parents are not available to help, online collaborative projects to connect students allowing them to help each other after school... Are there public schools developing their own technology to do it their own way, instead of farming the whole project out...?

I took some classes towards a Masters in Educational Technology for certification in School Media Specialist (the new school librarians). I found the online classes challenging but sometimes frustrating because of a lack of interaction with other students and teachers.

Doing this with middle-school and high school students is just nuts. Makes no sense whatsoever. We have to stop letting wealthy corporations make our laws and define our culture. It's really getting scary.

My biggest concern is this, won't privatizing public education do the same thing privatizing the prison system and healthcare system? Private schools will eventually find money in student failure?

Also Naomi Klein sited in her book Shock Doctrine how most schools in New Orleans were converted to private.