Is quality not better than quantity? Technology has advanced to be an incredibly efficient resource that educators have taken notice of and have attempted to integrate within online schools and online programs. However, although online schooling is a quick way to receive an abundance of information, it is not always a quality education students are receiving. Students benefit less from taking online classes at home because the assignments are not designed for retention and the students fall behind in course work.

Although students may groan and complain about schooling, it is abundantly clear that students absorb the majority of information and techniques they are taught in school; however, the same cannot be said for online schooling. When students attend school, the staff has policies and measures put in place to observe if students are learning or are in need of help. If a teacher finds that a student is struggling, the teacher can meet with that student and confirm that they understand the material. With online schooling, however, the monitoring of students is made extremely difficult without direct face-to-face contact. Some students are too shy or too stubborn to ask for help; with online teachers relying on weekly video conferences and students emailing them with their concerns, an entire group of students are isolated and continues to struggle. Some may argue that online courses should be able to record student progress through test scores and quiz grades, but without a teacher to watch for cheating, many students use the internet to look up answers and falsely increase their scores. Without the ability to directly observe students, online courses turn to creating more assignments for students to complete in hopes of catching where the student is lacking. This leads to an abundance of busywork that may sometimes hardly pertain to the subject being taught and costs hours of the students time. Many students sign up for online learning to have a flexible schedule but are faced with the harsh reality that the coursework within online courses takes much more time to complete than the work within a class taken at a school. This causes many students to adjust their mindset from learning information to getting the workload down and done as fast as possible as the expense of retaining the material taught. Suppose a mother decided to pursue an online education in order to earn a degree while taking care of her child. The projects and assignments that are piled onto the mother has potential to distract her from her child. Prioritizing the baby, the mom begins working on the material with the goal in mind not to learn but to finish the work so that she is able to attend to the baby. She may complete the course and earn the credit but ultimately she would not absorb any of the information taught to her as she was overwhelmed by the busywork. The ultimate goal of education is learning and retaining the information and skills taught; online education fails to accomplish that goal due to the busywork it presents and the lack of direct communication.

Although students like to deny it, procrastination controls a large portion of students' work ethic. Many students rely on schedules and due dates to stay on top of assignments and as encouragement to start working. However, many online courses are advertised as flexible and only contain one due date for when the entire course ends. Although it may seem like a blessing to manipulate scheduling and due dates, many students fall under the control of procrastination. Even in physical schools, students push off their assignments and projects to the last minute in order to play video games or hang out with friends, but as the due date falls closer, students employ the dread of a failing grade to kick start their work ethic. Supporters of online schooling may argue that procrastination is not a valid reason for disapproval in online schooling since both online and physical schooling produce procrastination. However, while physical schooling leads to small, short periods of procrastination, online schooling allows students to procrastinate the entire course over months. In addition, procrastination is increased with online schooling as the students' homes act as classrooms. There are numerous distractions and comforts (such as beds and pets) at a students' houses that encourage students to put off work that do not exist in a physical classroom. Suddenly, as the date for the course to end nears, students scramble to finish the work they put off for so long leading to sub par effort and work from the students. For example, high school students have extremely busy lives between classes, extracurriculars, and spending time with friends. If a high school student were to take an online course and did not receive any due dates except for the date the course ends, the student would have no stimuli to begin working on the course. This may seem like a gift at first because the student has more time to hang out with friends or study, but as the end of the course nears, there will be no time at all for studying or hanging out with friends. Online courses boast a flexible schedule, but it does more harm than good. Students push off working on assignments until the workload is too large and then panic to finish the material leaving behind less than average work.

Although technology has made great advancements for society and education, it cannot replace learning with peers and a teacher in a classroom. Online schooling observes a students progress through quantity not quality and encourages students to push off large amounts of work. Online schooling completely misses the goal of teaching and allows students to complete a course without retaining any of the material, a issue caused from lack of communication. In addition, by eliminating due dates, students procrastinate up to the last minute and turn in sub par work.