Don’t really get the home schooling thing. If the public schools in your neighborhood are lacking in some manner or you’ve got some sort of religious issue with public schools, why not just send your kids to an appropriate private school? If cost is an issue, most private schools (religious or secular) offer pretty generous scholarship packages.

California also has a court case pending on this issue. The University of California System is trying to bar any high graduate from acceptance if the kids were not taught certain subjects (propaganda of social thought and evolution as fact). Specifically they are targeting the private Christian schools and their curriculum. In other words, it’s okay to go to a non-indoctrination center (Christian school) so long as you still receive the indoctrination.

Friday, August 08, 2008

A California court upheld the right of parents to homeschool th……

pressto: It’s not about qualification, it’s about curriculum. Want a taste of what passes for important at the WEAC national convention? Here ya go:

(see post #15)

There are just too many fascist qualities in that list of tenets for me.

Have a look (on an empty stomach) at the publication “Radical Teacher.”

http://www.radicalteacher.org/about.asp

Lots of antisemitism and other “good” clean Democrat fun!

MM: “Homeschoolers are a threat to their turf, a threat to their funding, a threat to their long-held and fiercely protected monopoly.”

How stupid could the NEA be? Homeschooling kids amount to something like 1.5% of all school-aged children. We’re not taking away that much money from you idiots. Why don’t they attack the private schoolers? Because most of their teachers are also NEA indoctrinated.

Tre, #10: “parents can only homeschool if they agree to teach the same looney, leftwing, liberal curriculum that the public school teaches.”

Not exactly correct. We HS as long as we teach the same subjects. We don’t have to teach the same curriculum, thank God.

bit-boy, #29: “With the internet, DVD of text books, and a little government funding national home school by grades would be such rich educational experience. Why such has not been yet developed is beyond me.”

This sort of thing is available in many school districts, and is precisely why many of us HSers don’t like it. Because it involves teaching state-approved curriculum (have you ever really looked at those textbooks?). What’s more, once you accept any funding of any type, you also must accept things like state tests, teachers visiting your house, and the like. No thanks.

Dakine, #39: A HSing family that we know, with no money problems at all here in sunny central California, sent their two girls to a very expensive Catholic school nearby (Melanie Griffith’s kid goes there). $32K per year. They withdrew their girls after her 8-year old came home asking what a “b**w job” was, because a boy at her school asked her for one. They also got disgusted at the comments they’d hear in the morning when they dropped their girls off; kids making fun of other kids because of their clothing.

What I’m saying is, private school is not always the answer, despite scholarships and financial aide. And besides, if you can do a better job educating your kids than private or public school, why not HS?

For the record, we’ve been homeschooling our kids for eight years. Our youngest (of 4) is starting kindergarten. We homeschool for the following reasons, not necessarily in order:
1) Better education (we follow a classical model)
2) Vacation whenever we want (e.g. we other families can’t go on vacation)
3) We move too often (we’re a military family, and thank God we won’t be in CA much longer)

For anyone reading this who is considering HSing or had just started, I’d like to put in a plug for the Home School Legal Defense Association. We’ve had to use their legal assistance twice in our eight years, and in a relatively HS-friendly state (FL). Well worth the $100 a year.

Don’t really get the home schooling thing. If the public schools in your neighborhood are lacking in some manner or you’ve got some sort of religious issue with public schools, why not just send your kids to an appropriate private school? If cost is an issue, most private schools (religious or secular) offer pretty generous scholarship packages.

And if there isn’t a suitable private school, then what?

Up until recently, homeschooling was the only alternative to private school. And, today, most parents are not satisfied with the level of education received at either option.

So – a pointed question – why do parents not have the right to decide how their children are educated? With rare exceptions (and everything has exceptions), 99% of parents who homeschool have their children’s bests interest at heart. And – as evidenced by the winner of that spelling bee (last year, I believe) – homeschool kids are neither unsocialized nor stupid.

Not every place is an urban setting.

When I was in grad school I had a 2 year old and wasn’t even thinking about what we were doing for school. I had two good friends who were homeschooling their children. I thought about it, researched it and we are starting with our now six year old this year. We’re in New Mexico though, not California. One reason we chose the job here was for the really nice homeschooling laws.

I read Atheling’s link about German homeschooling of today…it looks like the Germans haven’t learned much from their Nazi period.

In the realm of fantasy, but I just re-read the 7th Harry Potter book. One of the first things the villain does is make school attendance compulsory so his followers can, among other things, teach the young wizards that Muggles are no better than animals and need to be oppressed by magic peoples.

Sound familiar? Art imitating life, that.