Missouri? That’s a bit of a surprise. If anything, I’d have expected a state like Connecticut to jump on the virtual school concept (Connecticut’s educational spending, from what I’ve heard, is usually quite high compared to most states). But according to USAToday’s story (Link), Missouri is giving the idea some serious consideration. From the short article:

Supporters envision an Internet-based school used by a variety of students — the sick, disabled and home-schooled, those failing in a traditional classroom or those needing a more challenging curriculum. Students could enroll full time in the virtual school or take just a course or two.

Just to be clear, there’s nothing here that suggests the implementation will be immersive in the sense of a 3D virtual world classroom – just “virtual” (which I take to mean “online”).

This gets me to wondering what Missouri’s legislature would think if they saw the potential in spaces like Second Life, where residents are developing their own educational systems. Then again, maybe some of them are residents. That raises some interesting questions, but let’s not go there.