(cross posted at YU 2.0)

Thanks to Leslie Salley, who tweeted about this...apparently, in Memphis, a place very near and dear to my heart and my hometown :) , the city (public) schools are putting place graduation requirements which include taking a certain amount of online courses. (See HERE for the article, HERE for a blog post with info about online course requirements in others states as well).

Now keep in mind that this appears to be a fully online course of study (for these particular classes), NOT a "regular" class enhanced by online discussion on a Wikispace, or something like that.

My questions for this esteemed group (please respond in the comments!) ...

1) Has anyone had any experience with online courses in their schools? Would you be able to comment about your experiences, how it went, pros, cons, etc?

2) Do you think that this is something that would/could work in our day schools? Perhaps this could help cut tuition costs? Perhaps it could allow smaller schools to offer more courses, even if only one or two students are interested in a particular offering? How would you set it up to ensure that there is real learning going on, on par with what would take place in a 'real' classroom setting?

3) Finally, after asking the "would/could" question, here comes the "SHOULD" question: Should this be pursued in 
our schools? Is there educational value in having a mixture of classroom and online courses? Or would you view the advent of online courses as, at best, a "b'dieved," a necessary evil that has to be tolerated in order to lower costs, etc.?