Alex Zercher loves learning. His problem is school. In sixth grade, a classmate threatened to kill him. He then spent two years in a "very scary" middle school, where fights were common and unruly classrooms made studying impossible. Zercher could have dropped out. Instead, the Plymouth, Minn., 10th grader plugged into Hopkins Online Academy, a cyber charter school launched this fall by a high-achieving district 10 miles to the south. Zercher now sleeps late, attends class in pajamas, and delves into subjects like astronomy as deeply as he pleases. True, he can't socialize in the halls or get instant responses from teachers. Still, says Zercher, "all in all, I'd rather be online."

The school-choice movement has gone digital, and students nationwide are booting up, logging on, and connecting with teachers, peers, and knowledge in powerful new versions of Horace Mann's "common" school. Click by click, these online pioneers are breaking down the barriers of geography, time, and talent that have determined academic opportunity and quality in America for more than a century.

Personal touch. Some 50 virtual charters-from school-district efforts in tiny Midland, Pa., which last year opened an online option for students who previously were bused across the state line to Ohio for high school, to Kansas's statewide Electronic Charter School-now serve thousands of housebound, home-schooled, or rural students. That's up from the 30 that Center for Education Reform policy analyst Neal McCluskey identified a year ago. In today's virtual schoolhouses, teachers and pupils interact as easily as-and often more productively than-they do in conventional classrooms. But there's no virtual back row to sleep in, nor any way to tell a goth from a jock. "I have more contact with my online students than I ever could in my classroom," says Danielle Franc, who teaches 13 Pennsylvania fourth and fifth graders enrolled in Pittsburgh-based PA Learners Online Regional Cyber Charter School, one of Pennsylvania's seven online charters. Along with "asynchronous" E-mail discussions, students must log on at specific times for real-time classes that Franc conducts from home using a whiteboard and an audio-chat system that lets everyone hear her and ask questions. Franc also has her pupils-seven with special needs-scan their stories so she can check handwriting and spelling. She then will "get on the phone and grill them" if online tests indicate a kid is struggling. "You can't contact me enough," Franc tells her students.

As with any new product operating under old rules, cyberschools have their share of setbacks. Funding disputes, including the refusal by school districts to pay for home-schooled students they never had to serve before, delayed the opening of Pennsylvania's Einstein Academy Charter School this fall. Then, in late October, the school's charter was revoked. Critics of E-learning often question program quality. And technology, which schools generally pay for, remains a hurdle. Maintenance, server upgrades, and power outages are common enough that PA Learners principal David Martin wants to add "cyber snow days" to next year's schedule.

It would take a megameltdown to propel Chantel Tillman, a home-schooling mother of three from East Stroudsburg, Pa., back to the local system. As students in the Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School, her 5-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter study a rigorous curriculum developed by former U.S. education chief William Bennett's K12 Inc. "They'd still be cutting out triangles in public school," says Tillman. "Now, they're learning about Picasso and listening to music by Mozart."

Plug-and-play education it's not. Successful E-learning demands the self-discipline to work independently, a trait many children may lack. A supportive home environment and involved parents also are key. Still, for students like Alex Zercher, cyberschools offer a welcome alternative to the blackboard jungle. What's not to like about an online biology class with just three students? Zercher says he can always ask a friend to invite him to the prom. But right now, he's busy pondering viruses-the human kind. His E-schooling itself has been entirely bug free.