Indiana University and the University of Missouri soon followed suit. Many programs borrowed ideas and even class formats from the Orange County venture, which has a national reputation in the budding dot-com education industry as the Silicon Valley of Virtual Highs. Former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett is equally impressed. The success of the Florida program inspired Bennett to develop his own, private cyberschool, K12, due to open this fall, offering homeschoolersonline courses from kindergarten to high school. Jason Bertsch, K12 vice president, says that the company is targeting the growing trend of homeschooling.
Many traditional educators are suspicious of that figure.
They are far more troubled when they imagine legions of pale, insular teenagers languishing in front of computer screens instead of developing social, athletic and study skills the old-fashioned way. The American Federation of Teachers officially opposes full-time online learning. The Alliance for Childhood, an advocacy group of parents, teachers and psychologists, warns that too much educational technology is unhealthy for children. Julie Young, executive director of the Florida High School, says her school has had to overcome similar reservations. She works in Orlando on the fifth floor at the county school headquarters, as close as the cyberschool comes to having a single, solid headquarters.