The Friendly, Neighborhood Internet School

[Commentary] A local Internet school sounds like a contradiction in terms: the Internet lets you discard geography and forget "local." But the idea is simple.

A one-classroom school, with 20 or so children of all ages between 6th and 12th grade, each sitting at a computer and wearing headsets. They all come from nearby. A one-room Internet school might serve a few blocks in a suburb, or a single urban apartment building. Each child does a whole curriculum's worth of learning online, at the computer. Most of the time he follows canned courses on-screen. But for an hour every day, he deals directly, one-to-one over phone or videophone with a tutor. Ideally there's a teaching assistant on an open phone line throughout the day, each assistant dealing with a few dozen students. In early years, parents will need to help here too. And each child needs a mentor who advises parents on courses and keeps track of the student's progress. The wealthy conservative foundation, think tank or consortium that spends liberally to get this idea off the ground will probably provide mentors, in early years, from its own staff.

[Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale]