Did You Know...

The Associated Press reports on the rise of homeschooling:

Almost 1.1 million students were home-schooled last year, their numbers pushed higher by parents frustrated over school conditions and wanting to include morality and religion with the English and math.

The estimated figure of students taught at home has grown 29 percent since 1999, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the Education Department.

In surveys, parents offered two main reasons for choosing home schooling: 31 percent cited concerns about the environment of regular schools, and 30 percent wanted the flexibility to teach religious or moral lessons. Third, at 16 percent, was dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools…

Predictably, the report can’t resist lapsing into the myth of superior public school socialization. It quotes the hand-wringing Ted Feinberg, executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists:

“At some point, children are going to have to interact with the rest of the world,” he said. “If they haven’t had the opportunity to build their emotional muscles so they have that capacity to interact, how effective are they going to be outside their cloistered environment?”

Yeah, we wouldn’t want those cloistered homeschooled kids to miss out on such invaluable, emotional muscle-building experiences as this or this or this or this or this or this or this.

Ok, I’ll stop for now…