Virtual schooling: Is the playing field level for real school districts and the giant virtual charters? state Board of Education’s consideration of proposals by 152 school districts and regular charter schools to offer digital instruction or virtual schooling. The state board is quite concerned about face-to-face instruction, class-size ratios and other strict regulations for these applications and the Education Department has been vetting the applications in great detail. Advertisement Fine. But I fear a double-standard, not only because the Education Department is so philosophical biased toward in-person instruction, at least for real public schools. The earlier appearance of this rigorous review had already prompted me to ask state board members directly if the rules will apply equally to real school districts — which provide far more in the way of facilities and extras than all-virtual schools. I have not gotten a straight answer as yet.