Barriers in Education

The way I see it students have at least four options when it comes to schooling within our state.  Traditional "brick and mortar" public schools, charter schools, homeschooling, or cyber schools.  As with any form of education there are barriers within the traditional "brick and mortar" classroom.  Sometimes enrollment reaches so high a number that students "fall through the cracks."  They receive less and less face time interaction with their highly qualified instructor.  For one reason or another, several schools see high mobility rates of students coming and going throughout the year.  They may not thrive within the social hierarchy of the school.  The pacing of the course is dictated by the instructor and peers can cause continuous distractions which prove harmful to the educational environment.  Some schools have moved to attempt to solve these issues by trying a variety of programs such as computer assisted instruction, distance education, or competency based learning.  I feel that creating a blended environment for students is what would work the best.  Each student's situation is going to be unique, but if the majority of students are provided with the best approaches from differing educational pedagogues.  From my own experience I wouldn't want our educational system to be completely converted to digital learning.  There is still value to the "brick and mortar" classroom.  One of the biggest strengths I see to online content and curriculum is the possibility of the content repository.  Having access online to everything a student needs to be successful would eliminate many of the barriers found in a traditional classroom.  The biggest weakness I see is the asynchronous learning.  The time laps can be quite a hurdle in itself!