Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Online Stanford high school for only $12,000 a year

Currently our public school system fails to help talented and gifted children develop their potential. Cheri Pierson Yecke wrote about this in her book: The War against Excellence: The Rising Tide of Mediocrity in America's Middle Schools. Jan Davidson, Bob Davidson, and Laura Vanderkam in Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds also wrote about this problem. There are a lot of factors, but the result is talented and gifted children tend to be ignored in most public schools.

So it was exciting to read that Stanford will be offering an online high school for gifted students. It is just getting off the ground. They are targeting "students who are home schooled, American children living overseas, students in small or disadvantaged schools that offer few advanced courses." Applications will be accepted next month, and it will start in the Fall.

I was very surprised to read that Stanford will be charging around $12,000 per student. And this is after a $3.3 million gift from the Malone Family Foundation of Englewood, Colorado. The amount seems way too much. But maybe this will be a vanity thing. Parents will be able to brag their children went to Stanford High School.

I've heard that some online schools charge a couple thousand a year. Are there any online high schools that are charging close to the $12,000 mark?

(Hat tip: EDUPAGE)


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