Free Public Online Charter Schools

We’ve been intrigued to discover several major schooling institutions that specialize in providing online education, often free, for K-12 students. The first is called Connections Academy—it is free for those in the US, although you have to check for the specifics related to your state. An international companion school system is International Connections Academy. Although not free for international students, this school system does offer relatively low cost, high quality education for those learning from abroad. In a similar vein, Agora Public Charter School at Home (K12 Online Schools), also offers free high quality online education for K-12 students.

All of these institutions have years of online teaching experience. We should note that Connections Academy gets their materials and platform via Pearson, the publisher. Of all publishers worldwide, Pearson has impressed us as having the most visionary and high quality educational materials that take advantage of online advances. The quality and the economy of scale that an outstanding publisher like Pearson can provide can take learning, and online learning, to a whole new level. (This is probably one of the few times you won’t hear us grumping about textbook prices.)

Interestingly, we understand that the Governor of Pennsylvania has been trying to shut down cyber schools by mandating that students can only attend a cyber school within their own district—meaning that all the years of expertise developed by institutions like Connections Academy and Agora go to waste so as to keep schools from having to compete by potentially losing their students to other schools. This, of course, prevents parents from having choice.

Worse yet, many online charter schools that were poised to move forward beautifully in the midst of the pandemic were forced to halt their usual teaching plans so as not to outdistance regular brick and mortar schools. This is a travesty.

On a more positive note, no schooling system is perfect. But if you are a teacher looking to get away from spending your days disciplining students, you may wish to think about teaching at an online charter school. There are no physical fights to break up online, and unlike a face-to-face class, you can mute a miscreant with the click of a button. In fact, many troubled students who struggle with brick and mortar schools find the online world to be much more conducive to allowing their inner lives to flourish—the bullying and nastiness that can be so harmful for some sensitive students are far more difficult to get away with online. Online charter schools provide a great, safe learning environment—far more so, in many cases, than do many brick and mortar schools.

Online cyber schools have also figured out how to teach younger children. An important element is that K-6 children generally need to have a “responsible adult” to help the children on the side. You may think “well then, that’s only for wealthier families with a stay-at-home parent.” But that’s not true at all. Many young online students, for example, from inner city Philadelphia, have an older sibling, grandparent, aunt, or uncle as their responsible adult. In fact, most parents, rich or poor, are deeply invested in their children’s education and are willing to go the extra mile to help them succeed. Families also have mentors paid for by the schools.

If you want to promote your child’s sense of mastery of their own learning journey, even while they receive a quality education, check out the online charter schools.