Customization is the critical safety valve that I have not seen at any other online provider: I am not boxed in if I'm dissatisfied with course content. Teachers often have good ideas on their own for customization, because they do have experience with other gifties, but they're open to a well-reasoned argument for customization from parents, as long as the rigor is there.
Okay--the customization thing DOES exist at Connections, but understand that being a public school (charter schools in most states) they aren't going to advertise the fact or put it in writing-- a lot of their non-gifted clientele would instantly twist that to get out of topics in science or social studies (ahem) that they don't want their kids covering. {sigh}
Those people DO regularly do things like exempt their kids from reading assignments like To Kill A Mockingbird, though. That's pretty much system-wide.
You just have to be a squeaky wheel. There are mandated check-points, but a lot of the rest is highly fluid, and open to additions, substitutions, etc. But it's usually at the individual teacher level-- so you have to negotiate it. On the other hand, families are VERY definitely seen as "customers" by the model, so if you're not happy, they will do whatever they can to MAKE you happy.
