Recently, online high schools in America have sparked (激发) a debate about whether or not taxpayers’ money should be used to support online education. Online schools receive the same amount of funding as all other public schools, even though they don’t have to pay for rent or school equipment. States should use their educational funds to improve education at real schools, not to support online programs.
Some students only use online classes to supplement their school work. They benefit from the social experience of a traditional high school, while still taking online courses.
However, about 90 thousand students in America receive their education only from online schools. 50 thousand of these students take courses at Florida Virtual School, the largest online school in the country. While this method of schooling helps students who live in remote regions, most school systems are upset that they are losing more students each year to these online programs.
Although online learning allows children to work at their own pace, these online schools have only one teacher per several hundred students. Often, teachers can’t give struggling students the help they need as they are unable to talk face-to-face with them, to find exactly what they’re having difficulty with.
Additionally, even though online schooling accommodates (顾及) students who live in more remote states, students in online programs may suffer in social situations because they will not learn valuable communication skills from their schooling. Similar to students who are home schooled, those who take only online classes won’t learn social etiquette (礼节), and will be treated differently by their peers.
Online schooling might be useful for places where there are not enough students for a real school, such as agricultural regions, but states should only spend taxpayers’ money on online schools in extreme cases.
小题1:What is the passage mainly about?
A．Whether students should study at online schools.
B．Whether online schools should be allowed to exist.
C．Whether taxpayers should pay for online schools.
D．Whether traditional schools should be replaced.小题2:According to the passage, online schooling _____.
A．is helpful to students living in remote regions
B．allows students to work together
C．makes it possible for students to get immediate help
D．develops students’ critical thinking小题3:According to Paragraph 5, the author worries that students at online schools _____.
A．might lose interest in learning
B．would play online games
C．could not receive teachers’ help
D．could not become fully developed小题4: What is the author’s attitude?
A．Taxpayers should not pay for online schools at all.
B．Taxpayers should pay more for online schools than real schools.
C．Taxpayers’ money should be spent on online schools conditionally.
D．Taxpayers should support online schools in different ways.
