Quality of Online Schooling Debated

Compared to spending eight hours in classrooms, the idea of staying at home, surfing the web and still earning credits for class seems very appealing.
Due to budget cuts, a growing number of middle schools and high schools have resorted to providing online courses to make up for failed classes.
According to the Sloan Consortium, an organization dedicated to integrating online and mainstream education, in the ‘07-‘08 school year, an estimated one million students took at least one online course, a 47 percent increase from two years before.
Online classes have shown “some improvement” for college students, but the actual educational value is disputed.
Opponents of online learning argue that students can easily use Google or Wikipedia to find answers to questions.
“It sounds fun to stay at home instead of going to school,” said senior Genesis Reyes. “But I doubt you would actually learn anything.”

Shannon Li, News Editor