<p>I could put this thread under the homeschooling category, but sort of wanted feedback from parents who may be out of the homeschool network: My son’s friends (in his sport, not in his school) are all leaving their public high school and going to online homeschooling. Can someone explain to me how colleges figure out which ones are “good ones” and which ones are sort of Mickey Mouse school? He said that his friends are LOVING it because it takes about half an hour daily, and then they can go and do whatever they want. Their grades are better, he says, because its so much easier than our public high school. I read about homeschoolers scoring so highly on SAT’s, getting into Harvard, etc. but somehow I doubt these kids would be. (I told our son not to get any ideas about it but I think he realises that its not something we’d ever consider). How do they do a frog dissection online? How about foreign language conversation? Is it that each state has a certification of the programs? I think this one in particular is Christian based, but not sure. How do the adcoms figure it out?</p>
<p>Wow, I can’t imagine that anyone can learn much in half an hour. What are their parents thinking. Home schooling can be good but it has to be done well. This sounds just like you said - Mickey Mousey (sorry Mickey!).</p>
<p>I think that a better term would be online charter schools. I guess that some could look at this as online homeschooling but the programs that I’ve looked at have state funding which makes things different from traditional US homeschooling (traditional in the sense that parents typically don’t get any government funding for their programs).</p>
<p>I have not seen any of these programs personally but they are advertised and discussed on my state homeschooling list. I therefore can’t attest to the quality or lack of quality of such programs. Some of them are administered out of community colleges. We had an ad for a calculus class for $100 that was taught out of a community college using an online medium. This is probably a “real” college course. I would assume that colleges would look favorably on Stanford’s Virtual High School program.</p>
<p>Suffice it to say that this is a controversial area in homeschooling.</p>
<p>Milton Gaither has a review of a book on virtual charters. Gaither is a homeschooling researcher and you can find his review at his blog (which I can’t link to of course). I think that his review might give you a hint at the issue of virtual charters and homeschooling.</p>
<p>There are definitely some online schools that are very fishy, or that are diploma mills. I use Keystone National High School. The first thing I’d look for is the accreditation. First and foremost, the school needs to be regionally accredited. Second, I made sure the school was registered with the BBB. I’m not sure if that’s a big deal or not within (private) online high schools, but in my family it was a must. Then, see if you are able to check out the online learning center or class before you join.</p>
<p>I go to an online high school. There’s a list on my school’s website of the colleges to which online schoolers (which are NOT technically homeschoolers, although it is easier to refer to them as such) have been accepted. It hasn’t been updated in some time, but there are some notable names on there (Yale for one, and now Stanford). As for how much time I spend in school per day… I take 6 or 7 classes a year, usually at least 50% AP and the rest honors (if available) or regular. Five days per week, I spend 5-7 hours on schoolwork. So a little less than the average school day, without homework, is my workload. That’s for four AP classes and two fairly demanding regular classes (they sounded like blow off classes but they really aren’t).</p>
<p>In my experience, some classes are better than others, and some take up more time than others. AP Statistics takes a max of 2-3 hours a week, whereas AP World History can take between 15 and 20 hours a week. AP Economics isn’t the most well-written class (too textbook based in my opinion). The same could be said of AP Environmental Science, but all of the regular and other classes I’ve encountered have been excellent. I recommend taking a language on Keystone. It’s a lot of fun.</p>
<p>I can’t really attest for the ease, since I’ve yet to encounter a difficult class, ever (with the exception of calculus, but I only took regular calculus so it was the subject, not the class). There is a lot of reading and there is a LOT of writing. However, I can’t say I’ve written any lengthy research papers. I certainly wouldn’t compare Keystone to a particularly good private or suburban public school, but it’s better than what my rural school had to offer (and certainly what inner city schools have to offer). </p>
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<li><p>I was sent a lab kit with each of my science classes. No frog dissection (I would opt out anyways) but everything necessary for the labs is included, and there are plenty of videos within the course. AP Chemistry students, for example, receive a microscope with their science kits. AP Environmental Science students don’t really need anything other than their back yard.</p></li>
<li><p>My foreign language (Japanese) was awesome because the recordings were of a native speaker. We didn’t have any kind of native speaker at my old high school. Anyway, you have to record assignments all the time to send them in for grading. Additionally, there are required live lessons in which you’d have to converse in the language. As for daily conversation, to my knowledge, it would have to be supplemental.</p></li>
<li><p>My high school is registered as a private school in Pennsylvania. I really like it, but it’s definitely not for everyone, and I wouldn’t recommend it if the local public or private school is fairly good (not an option here). All of my classes have fewer than 10 students, and our guidance counselor has less than 50 students. All of the tests are open book, but if you think that makes them easier, you’re crazy. However, that would definitely be something to check if you were to look into distance learning.</p></li>
<li><p>Websites and reputations are extremely informative.</p></li>
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<p>As BCEagle said, online high schools are not the same as being a homeschooler in the traditional sense. The student is a full-time student of the school. My kids were homeschooled and we did one year with a distance charter school (public), but they were younger then, not high school age. We didn’t continue because we’d gotten accustomed by that point to our independence and having to complete assignments and check in with a teacher and all that was just a hassle without a significant reward.</p>
<p>I do not know anyone personally who has stuck with one of those programs, but I read about kids here on CC that have done them. They seem to be a good option for a number of kids. I can’t speak to the one your son’s friends are doing, but although when my kids were younger we often spent very little time on “school” in a day, when they were high school age the time committment went WAY up.</p>
<p>My kids instead ended up with a combination of taking a few selected classes at the local high school, classes at the college near us and independent study. My son took foreign language at the high school and my did Latin by means of a distance learning course from Univ. of AZ. Of course, Latin has no spoken component – or at least just a kind of academic version of it – that was not an issue. The Spanish my son took at the high for 3 years was pathetic… but maybe my standards are too high. My daughter did biology at the high school and they never dissected anything. That class was a total waste of time.</p>
<p>Anyway, I agree there are better and worse online schools. But if kids really don’t want to be in school, I don’t think it’s a bad idea for them to have other options. Some options are probably weak ones, but having that freedom of choice is really critical to me.</p>
<p>A lot of the kids we know/knew who were in a sport used Laurel Springs. I think it is a combo of home and online schooling. You have access to accredited teachers, do the work online and go to a local high school to test (as I understand it). We also knew some homeschoolers who used them as a guide and hired a teacher to monitor, full time, the kids.</p>