A Virtual Education

摘要

Ten-year-old Asiko Aderin is wearing headphones and staring into a computer screen, looking very much like an underage call center employee. It's a weekday morning-a school day-and this is what school looks like for Asiko and her two brothers, Ayomiro, 11, and Ayodeji, 8. Holed up in the basement of their family's Poconos, Pa., home, they watch lessons on a screen, typing answers to questions as their mother, Sharon Aderin, a former U.S. Army Reserve sergeant, hovers nearby. The children attend Agora Cyber Charter School, managed by K12, the largest U.S. operator of taxpayer-funded online schools and part-owned by billionaire Michael Milken.