Three educators face off on the subject of the transformative power of technology in schooling in general, and virtual schools in particular, in this very illuminating debate published in ‘Education Next’ by the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. John Chubb of Edison Schools and Stanford University political scientist Terry Moe argue for the transformative power of today’s technology, while Larry Cuban, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University and author of Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom takes a more skeptical view.

On the subject of adoption of technological change in education, Chubb and Moe suggest that by catering to constituencies that are underserved by the current system of public education in the United States (and elsewhere as well), virtual schools not only make a strong case for their existence, but that they will also flourish because they do not “compete” with regular schools in those niche spaces. This is already being evidenced by the growing trend of homeschooling that is being fueled in no so small part by the affordances of technology, the internet in particular, that support learning outside of brick-and-mortar schools.

This view appears to be supported by this article on homeschooling shared here.