|
What I didn't know about these Virtual Schools is that they are chartered by the public school system. It's public school at home. Teachers may not even live within the district that pays them. Students may be going to these schools because of open enrollment that don't live within the district that pays for the school. I think I'd be upset also if I was a Union Teacher working within my district but seeing funding go to Virtual schools. Because it's public it's free for the parents to an extent, certainly not as expensive as if they were actually Home Schooling their children and footing the bill themselves and paying school tax on top it. The Schools even loan them Computers to use for online lessons. One of the other things I think that isn't fair to parents who live within the district and who aren't fortunate enough to have one spouse make enough money for one parent to stay home is this. They don't have the option of taking advantage of the program, they send their kids to public school yet some of their tax money that's supposed to be used for their district school goes to parents and kids in these Virtual classrooms. Parents and kids already fortunate enough to have one parent at home are using money footed by the less fortunate.
Personally I don't care if someone wants to home school their kid or not. Is it a better or worse education, are the kids better or worse adjusted socially, I don't know and don't care. It's the attitudes of some parents and these Teachers that try make it sound like if your kids aren't homes schooled they're at a disadvantage somehow. Those aren't even the issues here, yet they continue to ignore the real issue and keep spewing this rhetoric. Like I say it's all a straw man with them. "You want to close our Virtual Schools because the Union is a gestapo and my kids are doing doing better than if they were in a brick and mortar School." Maybe the kids do better in Home School but it's no case for ignoring the statutes. One of them is that your kid(s) actually attends the district school that charters it. Not just appears in Virtual reality to a School outside your own district.
This Wisconsin case will probably be a turning point for all public chartered Virtual Schools. It's interesting and conversation if anything. Plus I'd like to know if any of my tax money is going to one of these Virtual Classrooms, I'd rather see my school tax money stay at home and in my kids school. Not used to cater to families who are already more fortunate than me and could afford traditional Home Schooling, they need to go find their own money for that if that's what they want to do.
|