Many areas of Australia have been remote learning for decades, and it has worked out great.

[MoonRiver]

When we visited there, around 20 years ago, I learned about this. As I recall the outcomes were excellent, with more remote learners going to college than their in-school cohorts. I just remembered about this and thought I would post some info.

When I was 13, my father, brother and I took the long trip from Melbourne to visit my aunt Pat and her family in the Northern Territory. We traveled by car and train, allowing us to truly grasp the size of Australia. And yet, nothing prepared me for the vastness of the cattle station where my aunt and her family lived.

At around a million and a quarter acres, their farm was larger than Rhode Island. They were a three-hour drive from the nearest town and a seven hour drive from Darwin, the nearest major city.

Pat raised eight children on the station. Their schooling — from kindergarten through high school — was done remotely, at first via correspondence with a school in Adelaide, and then via two way radio when the School of the Air became available to them.

(The New York Times wrote a story about these types of schools in the Northern Territory in 1997, well after Pat’s youngest child graduated.)

It was Pat I thought of this week when my own son’s school sent an email detailing plans for distance learning during term two, starting next week, as part of a statewide move on the part of Victoria to slow the spread of coronavirus.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/world/australia/australia-remote-learning-schools-coronavirus.html

[exboyfil]

1. My daughters took some classes from the North Dakota School for Distance Education

The expectations on the students were higher than our suburban school in Iowa. My youngest daughter did Life Sciences in 6th grade (completing the 7th grade requirement) and Biology in 8th grade (completing the HS Biology class usually taken in 10th grade). This allowed her to take Anatomy and Physiology and Microbiology in 9th grade at the high school (these are Junior/Senior classes). She was one of the most prepared students for those courses. She also CLEPed out of College Biology 1 and 2 and took college Soph/Jr level college Physiology and Anatomy classes in 11th and 12th grade.

The ND School for Distance Education has been around a long time addressing the needs of the very rural families who live significant distances from schools.

[MoonRiver]

3. Thanks for that and congrats to your daughter!

Remote learning CAN work.

[TheBlackAdder]

2. Funny, it's supposedly great for all of those At-Home Schoolers. But, now it's not?

[MoonRiver]

4. Yeah, I'm not understanding that discrepancy at all.

[TheBlackAdder]

5. I don't think these goobers thought that position out well enough. Kind of destroys those programs.

[SheltieLover]

6. It is inconvenient

Because Putin has ordered mass death & chaos.

Why anyone would listen to trumputin is beyond me.

[Thyla]

7. Definitely it is a good system...

And it is regulated so any child doing one of these programs will be studying the current Australian curriculum which is fairly good too.
Some of these schools will accept international students as well but it is easier and cheaper if you are an Australian citizen.

School of the Air is a treasured institution, things are much easier these days with the internet. It used to all be done via 2 way radio.

[MoonRiver]

8. I'm sure the internet has changed everything there.

When we visited it was School of the Air, which was beloved by all.