Is online learning only for students with involved parents?

The parents of students attending full-time cyber schools, by necessity, must play a much greater role in their children’s daily educational experiences compared with parents of students in traditional public schools, writes Michelle R. Davis in Education Week.  

Davis suggests this raises an important question: Does online learning exclude students whose parents do not have the time, resources or inclination to be involved?

The answer to that question may be key to reform efforts in many states where online learning is seen as an integral element to reforms aimed at helping at-risk and under-privileged students succeed. 

The Digital Learning Council has gone so far as to suggest that "all students are digital learners," arguing that "technology has the power to customize education for every student in America.. providing a customized, personalized education" that can put the best courses, best teachers and best programs in the hands of any student — anywhere.

But the EdWeek report suggests that stand-alone, home-study programs might not afford all students those same benefits, chiefly because "the ideal situation is that there is somebody there monitoring things to make sure students are sitting down working instead of gaming or using social-networking sites,” IQ Academy Wisconsin principal Richard B. Nettesheim said.

When University of Florida assistant professor Erik W. Black studied the impact of parents on virtual education for his doctoral dissertation, he found that "parent-student interactions do have predictive effect related to student achievement."

No surprise there. Parents are a key element to student success no matter how or where their children attend school. 

And so our question — for digital and brick-and-mortar reformers alike — is this: How do we help parents get involved? And how do we support students whose parents aren't involved?