I somewhat disagree that online school is only for the privileged, but you are right about children needing parents in the home, and not everyone can do that. I’m still a proponent of it though. My two sisters were home schooled, but their home schooling was subsidized with free computers, and the school paying for Wifi, plus there was a parent in the home. I also submit that this is something that could work well for more advanced students, who are over the age of ten or twelve. I have a 14 year old niece who is being home schooled now.

My Mom and I had a lot of reasons to home school my sisters. In fact, we had more pluses than minuses, along with all the pros listed above, one of the major reasons was a reduction in the amount of social and emotional stress on my sisters, who couldn't seem to concentrate in school, and came home too stressed to be good company for the rest of us. We were all stressed out because they were stressed. Our house calmed down a lot after they were home schooled.

Those drawbacks you mentioned are a concern, but I feel like there are so many more pros to such a system than cons. Could one of the solutions be that children without parental supervision end up getting publicly schooled in a different way? You’d still have all the drawbacks of public schooling, but for a lot fewer students. (There’s also the question of fairness, as well.)

I also like the idea of students who would advance out of the system entirely, graduating early, and moving on to foundational college courses, while troubled students could take their time, and be given more attention.