The [Oregon] House Education committee voted 8-2 today to allow Oregon’s two biggest online public schools to remain open at their current size next school year, but to prohibit them from growing despite parent pleas to let them expand.

The architects of House Bill 3660 defend it as a fragile compromise that accomplishes important goals for both fans and detractors of statewide online schools. They acknowledge it also leaves important issues unaddressed, including whether the parent or the school district should have the right to decide whether a student can enroll in a statewide virtual school and whether online schools should receive the same per-student funding as brick-and-mortar schools.

Those questions will be left to the Oregon Board of Education and the 2012 Legislature.

Online schools educate students using lessons delivered via computer to students’ homes. Students get free computers, textbooks and materials to use, and teachers contact them regularly via phone and e-mail.

Oregon Connections Academy, started by the tiny Scio School District and a for-profit corporation in 2005, educates about 2,400 students in kindergarten through grade 12. Oregon Virtual Academy, opened in fall 2008, educates about 450 students in kindergarten through grade eight under the sponsorship of the North Bend school district and the management of K12 Inc.

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From The Oregonian by Betsy Hammond