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If you're a parent, you've probably experienced a certain degree of fear at some point or another about your kids using the Internet. Maybe you peer over their shoulders while they check their Facebook pages, or try to catch glimpses of IM conversations they have with their friends. But do you worry about how they communicate online with their teachers? A new Missouri state law makes the case that you should.

Is the former Florida governor's online-education advocacy: A) a stealth attack on teachers' unions; B) presidential positioning; C) an effort to divert public money to private corporations; D) all of the above?

"One of the model laws promoted by ALEC creates vouchers for students with disabilities. ALEC is the far-right group that brings together big corporations and very conservative state legislators to figure out strategies to advance privatization and protect corporate interests. ALEC does not like public education, does not like regulation, does not like unions, and does not like teacher professionalism. It likes vouchers, charters, online learning, all as unregulated as possible, and teachers who can enter the classroom with little or no certification or training. ALEC pushes vouchers for students with disabilities as a way of establishing the legitimacy of vouchers, using the most vulnerable children as the poster children for their favorite anti-regulation, anti-government ideas."

As advocates for public education, The Learning Community has grave concerns about the RI-CAN school report cards that evaluate every Rhode Island public school based on faulty methodology. RI-CAN claims that their report cards "are designed to help families in Rhode Island access online information about their local schools" when in truth the report cards spread misinformation to concerned citizens. Instead of providing access to accurate data, RI-CAN summarizes a school's performance by using only one grade level's achievement on state standardized tests and mathematically incorrect calculations.  No efforts at holding schools accountable will succeed unless the measures used are fair and accurate. It is worth mentioning that we are expressing our strong opposition to the report cards despite the fact that The Learning Community ranked in the Top 10 schools in Rhode Island on 7 of the 14 indicators. The methodological deficiencies of the RI-CAN report cards render them at best useless and, at worst, harmful to our state's efforts to support the education of every child.

Several weeks ago, Chris Lehmann tweeted from the Ed Innovation Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, "Educators - if you don't see that there is a billion dollar industry wanting to take over schools using tech as the Trojan Horse, wake up." If I were to have one quibble with the metaphor, it would be this: the free marketeers are not hiding inside the horse, ready to jump out only after they are let in the gates of schools. They are riding right on top of the horse, shouting "Hey, this is a great horse! Let me tell you how we plan to use this horse to advance our free-market ideology in the education sector."

Ever since the debacle of Pineapplegate, it is widely recognized by everyone other than the publishing giant Pearson that its tentacles have grown too long and too aggressive. It is difficult to remember what part of American education has not been invaded by Pearson's corporate grasp. It receives billions of dollars to test millions of students. Its scores will be used to calculate the value of teachers. It has a deal with the Gates Foundation to store all the student-level data collected at the behest of Race to the Top. It recently purchased Connections Academy, thus giving it a foothold in the online charter industry. And it recently added the GED to its portfolio. With the U.S. Department of Education now pressing schools to test children in second grade, first grade, kindergarten - and possibly earlier - and with the same agency demanding that schools of education be evaluated by the test scores of the students of their graduates (whew!), the picture grows clear. Pearson will control every aspect of our education system.

The New York Times online indexes the article "$5 Billion in Grants Offered to Revisit Teacher Policies" as education. It probably should have been listed under politics. After three years of demonizing teachers as the problem with American education with its Race to the Top program, the Obama administration apparently now realizes it will need teacher union support and teacher and public school parent votes to be reelected. Suddenly, Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants to "work with teachers in rebuilding their profession and to elevate the teacher voice in federal, state and local education policy." Other than promising respect, the proposal is called the RESPECT (Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching) Project, the Obama-Duncan team is offering teachers very little. The title of the program is apparently taken from a top of the pop charts song sung by Aretha Franklin in the 1960s. What Duncan seems to have missed is that the song is actually a complaint because as a woman she is not receiving any respect.

This week I engaged in another online debate with one of Arne Duncan's press secretaries, Justin Hamilton, who readers may recall asked me to "correct" my commentary a year ago after President Obama inadvertently criticized our over-reliance on standardized tests. This time Mr. Hamilton took issue with a question I posed in advance of Duncan's latest Twitter Town Hall. I asked, "How can you say that we should not teach to test while NCLB waivers tie teacher & principal evaluations to test scores?" To this, Hamilton (@edpresssec) replied: "False. Waiver states using multiple measure not testing only."

Lamenting that millions of American children receive "a third world education," Mitt Romney on Wednesday called for poor and disabled students to be able to use federal funds to attend any public, private or online school they choose.

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has been mulling some big changes to federal K-12 policy if elected, including allowing federal funding to follow students-even if they want to attend private schools-according to a campaign document obtained by Politics K-12. Disadvantaged families and parents of students in special education could choose to spend federal funds at any district or charter public school, tutoring provider, or online course, according to the document circulated over the weekend. It outlines a series of ideas that have been considered by Romney and his advisers, which could be announced as early as this week. Under the proposal, students could also federal money at a private school, as long as that was consistent with state guidelines.

On Wednesday, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney unveiled his agenda for the nation's schools. It's a document that focuses extensively on expanding school choice-its centerpiece is probably a proposal to allow parents to use federal anti-poverty and special education funding for private school vouchers, as well charters and online courses. (See my colleague Alyson Klein's overview of the full plan.) I recently took another pass through Romney's proposals and looked in more detail at his vision of school choice. A couple takeaways and tidbits

Mitt Romney is out on the campaign trail, pushing vouchers and charters and online learning and for-profit schools and larger class size as the answers to our "failing" public schools. I wish someone would give him some actual facts to work with. Are our schools failing? No, they are  not.

A few weeks ago, the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) issued a review of the research on virtual learning. Several proponents of online education issued responses that didn't offer much substance beyond pointing out NEPC's funding sources. A similar reaction ensued after the release last year of the Gates Foundation's preliminary report on the Measures of Effective Teaching Project. There were plenty of substantive critiques, but many of the reactions amounted to knee-jerk dismissals of the report based on pre-existing attitudes toward the foundation's agenda.

The next big idea in "education reform" is online instruction and cyber charters. I know that teachers are doing wonderful, creative activities with technology, and there is no doubt that technology can bring history, science, and other studies to life in vivid ways. But there is a cloud on the horizon, and that is the growth of the for-profit cyber charters. I confess that it troubles me to think of children sitting at home, day after day, with no opportunity for discussion and debate, no interaction with their peers, no face-to-face encounters with a real teacher.

He is earning his teaching certificate through an online, for-profit alternative certification program, a nontraditional route to teaching that is becoming more common in Texas. Such programs, which can offer certification in three months to two years, are booming despite little more than anecdotal evidence of their success.

woke up yesterday morning to read Norm Scott's post on Education Notes Online about a new study of the effects of charter schools on achievement in New York City.  The study, by economists Caroline Hoxby and Sonali Murarka, finds a charter school effect of .09 standard deviations per year of treatment in math and .04 standard deviations per year in reading.  I haven't read the study closely yet, but I was struck by Norm's headline:  "Study Shows NO Improvement in NYC Charters Over Public Schools."  The effects that Hoxby and Murarka report are statistically significant, which means that we can reject the claim that they are zero.  But are they big?  That's a surprisingly complicated question. I'm going to argue that the answer hinges on "compared to what?"

n October, two Long Island principals posted online a letter detailing their concerns with a new state evaluation system for teachers and principals. They hoped other principals would sign it, and did they ever, starting on Long Island and rippling across the state. As of Sunday, 764 principals - including 31 from five Central New York counties - had signed the letter. Besides principals, scores of other educators signed, too.

An electronic billboard on Business Route 6 in Dickson City flashes an image of smiling students and teachers. The advertisement for the Mid Valley School District promotes student achievement and district accomplishments. At $900 a month, officials hope it saves thousands in lost tuition. As online charter school enrollment continues to grow, public school districts across the region and state are facing competition like they never have before. When students leave public school districts, their state funding follows them to cyber schools. Districts are now advertising, holding recruitment nights and thinking about public relations.

Many companies and individuals have jumped onto the band wagon of "ed reform" because of the dollars involved with everything from testing to "online learning". See the right hand column of this page under the heading of "Cashing in on Ed Reform" to get an idea of the money involved in these business endeavors. What these folks want to do in our state is take over the tax dollars that are used to fund education and make a profit off of our children with ideas and programs that are untested at best or have proven to be detrimental to our children at the very worst.

Five for-profit companies control the cyberschool market: K12 Inc., Connections Academy, Educational Options, Apex Learning, and Plato. These virtual charter school providers supply course material, keep track of student achievement and hire educators.