Virtual school, real education

I saw the future of public education the other day, and it reminded me how stuck Seattle is in a stone age.

Some educators, parents and kids were in town to describe what it's like to go to a virtual school, a public K-8 school that exists in minds and computers, not in any building. It's the Washington Virtual Academy (www.wava.org). It's a public school, so there's no charge. Anyone in kindergarten through eighth grade anywhere in the state can attend, if they have access to a computer.

It's one of the fastest-growing schools in the state. Run out of Steilacoom School District south of Tacoma, enrollment is projected to nearly quintuple this year, from 55 students to 250.

There's no reason it, or online schools just like it, won't eventually "house" thousands of kids across the state.

Today it looks a lot like publicly financed home-schooling. Many of the students were home-schooled before they signed up. The typical setup is a parent at home with one or two kids, working through math, reading, science and art lessons assigned by a teacher.

It's called an online school, but much of the work occurs off the computer. The math texts and vocabulary sheets looked standard, though there's some cool interactive software.

Most of the allure is that kids work at their own pace and get highly personal instruction (usually from Mom or Dad.)

But according to state laws governing online schools, there's no reason it has to be Mom or Dad.

I could organize a bunch of families to sign up, put some computers in my basement, hire a tutor or set up a schedule of parent volunteers and voilą! — I'd have a customizable yet publicly funded school in my basement.

The kids must work through a basic curriculum, in this case one provided by Steilacoom schools. The usual standardized tests are required. The public teacher monitors the work remotely but need not ever meet the kids in person.

Beyond these state requirements, however, my little school could be whatever it wanted. We could talk in Spanish. Play instruments three hours a day. Advance to eighth-grade math even if we were in third grade. Go play ice hockey.

It's essentially a charter school, a concept state voters rejected three times. They have arrived via cyberspace anyway.

Even if you stay in brick and mortar schools — maybe you want your kids in the same room with some great teachers — online schools still allow you to customize. Don't like the way your school teaches math? State law says you can remove your kids from math class and give them an online course instead — at state expense.

You can see where this is headed. Kids — especially kids of means — will no longer be students of any one school or grade. They'll be roamers. They might take reading, gym and band at a local school, eighth-grade math and science at one cyberschool and third-grade Japanese at another. They can shop around for the best.

You won't hear much talk in Seattle schools about this new era. We're too busy arguing about 100-year-old buildings and bus routes to think about all the possibilities of schools that don't physically exist.

Danny Westneat's column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.