A lot of homeschool parents are considering online accredited homeschooling for next year.  It pays to consider what the reality is behind the marketing image that is portrayed.  Many online schools are accredited organizations with a classroom mentality -- which means that you have extremely limited flexibility with your homeschool.  Let me go over an advertisement for a popular online school for you point by point:  

* A Free Homeschool Portfolio Review — Students transitioning into (this school) receive a free homeschool portfolio and/or transcript evaluation.
 
Sounds like they will be sitting in judgment over your homeschool to see if you have been a "good" or "bad" homeschool parent.   In reality, a loving parent is in the best place to judge their own homeschool and curriculum choices.
 
* A Well-Written Homeschooling Curriculum — (this school) courses are accompanied by high-quality textbooks and course materials. Our broad array of courses complements other curriculums and homeschool programs. You have the option to enroll in a full four-year program or in individual courses.
 
That means you can't use what you have already been using – even if it had been working well.  Any online classroom will have limited options for curriculum – the curriculum you use must be approved by them
 
*  Valid Transcripts — Credits earned at (this school) are accepted by major colleges and universities. (Students can earn a (this school) high school diploma by successfully completing 21 course credits, but all credits do not need to come from (this school).
 
This is trying to convince you that your own homeschool transcript is somehow NOT valid.  That's not true - my homeschool transcript was accepted everywhere my kids applied.  The truth is that YOUR transcript is valid too, and it is also accepted by major colleges and universities. 
 
* Autonomy and Independent Study — Students set their own schedule around family, work, and community commitments.
 
That doesn't mean you can set your own yearly schedule.  You have to finish by a certain month or you "fail" and you can't just drop classes - at least that is some of my clients who have come from such school have told me.  In other words, it may not be as autonomous and independent as an independent homeschool.
 
* Teacher Support — Our certified teachers are subject matter experts so parents don't have to be the experts when it comes to things like complex Chemistry equations.
 
That's trying to tell you that if you homeschool regularly that you DO have to be an expert, but that's not true.  We don't need to be "teaching" our children, we want them to learn how to learn.  These are completely different approaches with completely different goals.  The best homeschool is the one which produces mature, self-motivated students who have the ability to teach themselves.  This is a life skill that cannot be fully replicated in a classroom setting.  

* An Affordable Program — The (this school) Family Plan makes it affordable for families to enroll more than one child.
 
Over four years of homeschooling high school, these programs can cost THOUSANDS.  They have GOT to be kidding, if they think that's affordable – especially in this economy! 

Accredited online schools are one of the many valid choices homeschooling parents can make.  I worry parents are being pressured with untruths (like those implications above.)  I worry that parents will look at these and think they are "more than" what they can provide at home, which they aren't.  I worry that parents will think these are a perfect solution, when there really IS no perfect school, and everything will have pluses and minuses.  
 
In my opinion, these kinds of programs can limit the flexibility we have to independently homeschool our students.  They imply a kind of inadequacy in parents that can make them less confident.  Worse, they can lead to a "failure" in the homeschool that parents will attribute to homeschooling itself, rather than attribute the failure properly to the program itself.  

If you would like to read more on this topic, here is an article about "accredited vs. official" transcripts.
http://www.thehomescholar.com/blog/the-difference-between-accredited-and-offical-transcripts/645/. 

Here is my husband's article about the different schooling options available to parents: 
http://www.thehomescholar.com/article_archive/2008_09_5corners.php
 

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