Virtual Charter Schools and Home Schooling By Carol Klein

Due to extraordinary technological breakthroughs in the 1990s, Richards (2000) saw this information-rich society as providing: (a) the World Wide Web, a source of contemporary information, which is almost certainly the biggest revolution in communication since the printing press; (b) the sophistication of broadband communications which will facilitate access for the home educating family to educational resources; (c) virtual reality which can create rich educational experi-ences (e.g., the ability to walk through an Amazonian rain forest); and (d) a rise in multimedia, including the CD-ROM which is uniquely geared to the needs of the individual learner.

These technological advances have added impetus to the movement providing effective tools for parents to educate their children, stimu-lating opportunities for their own learning with great flexibility, and availing a network for communication with others of like proclivities and lifestyle choices (Trejos, 2000). Though these advances did not stimulate the movement initially, they have helped to propel it to its current status (Wyatt, 1999).

As stated earlier, the World Wide Web, as well as many other new technologies, affords the home schooler access to a vast domain of contemporary learning resources. Some of the reasons that parents have sought this resource are as follows: it provides a means to tackle difficult subject matters that would otherwise be left untouched (Yarnell, 1998), it supplies online courses in particular subjects parents do not feel qual-ified to teach, or it helps to fill in gaps in vital skill areas that parents perceive need to be filled (Trejos, 2000). Online curriculum, courses, web sites, databases, academies (or cyber schools), and a host of other interactive learning activities are tools and resources now available to enhance the education of the home schooled student.

Some voices warn that the purpose of home schooling, bringing together the parent and child, could be thwarted by too much time spent using technologies. Michael P. Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association said, “I think [the online courses] are great for supplemental activities.