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Online learning has become a popular way for many college students to earn a degree, but it is also making its way into many primary and secondary schools as well. With the rising popularity of cyber-charter schools nationwide, some public school districts are turning to cyber-education as a means of competing with other schools in their areas. But is online education the answer for public schools today? The answer depends on who you ask.

What is Cyber-Education?

According to , an online school, cyber or virtual schooling takes place on the Internet, rather than a traditional classroom. Students go online from anywhere they choose, allowing them to keep up with school work from home or on the road. Access to teachers is completed through phone calls, online through conferencing, or face-to-face in some instances. Teachers that work in cyber-schools are state-certified and oversee virtual classrooms, where students often have the opportunity to interact with their instructors and peers.

While cyber-schools maintain a sense of structure in their virtual classrooms, there is flexibility in education that is not seen in a brick-and-mortar classroom. The success of students in cyber-education rests more squarely on parents, who must ensure students remain focused even if they are doing their learning from the comfort of home. However, unlike homeschooling, parents do not act as instructors in the cyber-school experience.

This video from SUNY offers an overview of online learning.

As Los Angeles students headed back to school after Christmas break, a new sight greeted them – the presence of additional police officers in schools throughout the city. In response to the Sandy Hook tragedy in Connecticut, the Los Angeles Unified School District has beefed up patrols and police presence to ensure the safety of the students and faculty inside Los Angeles classrooms. While the decision has been a welcome addition by many, some are voicing concern about the presence of additional armed security inside school buildings.

This video looks at some of the security measures commonly found in public schools.

The New Plan

reports that the police are adding patrols to around 700 elementary and middle schools in the Los Angeles school district. In addition, Los Angeles police officers have been instructed to “adopt” a school, which means the officer will make regular beat checks to that school throughout his or her shift. The hope is that this new procedure will give schools throughout Los Angeles a larger police presence that will discourage those who might be thinking about committing violent acts against a school and the students inside.

“We won’t be there all the time, but nobody will know when we will be there,” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck told . “I don’t want anyone to think they can walk into

Student truancy is a problem for many school districts across the country, impacting student performance and even the amount of funding schools receive. Some schools in Texas think they have found a way to address the problem directly, by requiring students to wear special badges that allow school administrators to monitor their whereabouts. While school officials call the new tracking cards a boon to student safety and attendance, some parents and students have voiced concern over whether schools are going too far in violating student privacy.

Monitoring Programs Introduced in San Antonio, Austin

The reports that the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio has distributed the special ID cards to all of its students as part of a pilot program dubbed the “Student Locator Project.” The identification cards contain a microchip that allows teachers and staff to track students while they are on school property. Currently, the project is underway at two Northside schools: Jay High School and Jones Middle School. The program impacts around 4,200 students between the two schools.

The new tags use radio frequency identification technology (RFID) for the tracking mechanism. In a notice sent out to parents, district officials stated the RFID tags would be used to make schools safer, identify the location of students, and increase school revenue. The cards are to be used as general student identification cards as well. ID cards must be presented for various functions on school campuses, such

The District of Columbia is a popular place for charter schools, with these institutions taking in about 41 percent of the city’s public school students. However, that percentage appears to be a tenuous one, as reports of high numbers of expulsions have recently begun to surface. With expulsion rates significantly higher than the rest of D.C. public schools, some educators in the city have begun to question the motives behind the actions. And while charter schools are disputing some of the data, no one seems to know for sure exactly how many students are kicked out of the city’s charter schools once they enroll.

Numbers are In, Concerns are Raised

The recently conducted an in-depth piece on how expulsion rates at D.C. charter schools compared with the rates of other public schools across the city. The report was based on data released by the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which showed charter students were expelled at rates as high as eight percent in some charter schools. Charter schools expelled approximately 72 students for every 10,000 in the schools. At the same time, other public schools in the city expelled one student for every 10,000.

Not all of the charter schools in D.C. expelled students, leaving those that did with even higher percentages. Another article reported that Friendship Collegiate Academy-Woodson, a charter high school, expelled eight percent of its student body during the 2010-2011 school year. In addition,