The Illinois State Board of Education has approved the state’s first virtual public elementary school, the Chicago Virtual Charter School. The Board acted against State Superintendent Randy Dunn’s recommendation to disapprove the Chicago schools application, as well as against the opposition of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, by voting a five-to-four approval. Though virtual schools already exist in the United States, they usually are high schools. Several states, however, prohibit virtual charter schools, such as Indiana, Tennessee and New York. South Carolina goes one step further by prohibiting any home-based instruction at its charter schools. Computers will replace teachers and/or reduce their role in education, eliminating many teacher positions. The one-on-one attention that students may receive in a physical classroom setting will be lost. Virtual students in the Chicago schools will not receive enough social interaction, stunting their socialization skills.

Proponents believe the Chicago schools new virtual institution may give some children a chance to succeed, where traditional schools already have failed. The state board’s Chairman Jesse Ruiz noted that he received many compelling letters from parents, pleading for an alternative approach for their Chicago schools children. Another issue that faced the state board is the current Illinois law on charter schools, which states they must be “non-home based”. It was for this reason that State Superintendent Dunn had recommended the new Chicago schools’ application be denied. This added more fuel to the Teachers Union’s argument against approving the school. State board members and proponents argued that the charter school laws were enacted in the 1990s, before lawmakers could have anticipated the growth of technology that makes a virtual school possible.