Baltimore County Should Invest in Online Education

The Baltimore Sun:

In an increasingly wired (and wireless) world, an online presence is becoming indispensable for institutions ranging from businesses to nonprofits to government agencies. Grasping this new reality, Baltimore County education officials last year wisely launched a pilot online education program that served 106 students – almost all of them previously home-schooled.
This initiative deserves to be made permanent. The county executive’s office disagrees and denied a $2 million request for online education in the 2008-2009 school budget, blaming poor economic conditions. That reasoning is understandable but shortsighted.
Unless the school board can find the funding in its current budget to keep the program, it stands to lose state dollars when some – perhaps most – of those 106 students return to home-schooling in the fall. Worse, it would also lose the opportunity to become a pioneer in an area that will doubtless play a major role in the future of education.