Emerod's Weblog

A public school advocate writes, „To me Home School children are a product of parents that are trying to shelter their children from real world woes. In reality these parents should allow students to attend public/private schools to prepare them for the work force.“

The only place in the real world that is run like a public school is a prison. Get real–Indiana has a 29% public school dropout rate. Are those kids prepared for the real world? Yeah…a real world where their parents don’t care about them and authority figures treat them like garbage.

From Michael H. Romanowski, a professor at the Center for Teacher Education at Ohio Northern University in Ada („Revisiting the Common Myths about Homeschooling,“ Clearing House; Jan/Feb2006, Vol. 79 Issue 3, p125-129):

Abstract:

Quote:

Regulation

Another public school advocate writes, „After all, most laws/rules are made for EVERYONE because a few people can’t behave decently without them. Those who obey laws naturally because they have decency and sense aren’t affected.“If homeschoolers sound a little paranoid about regulations, it’s because of the history of the laws. In the past in the US (not in Indiana), it was mostly illegal to homeschool. Not „bad“ homeschooling, but any homeschooling, period. No testing, no screening; it was just plain wrong.

Even where it was legal, the presumption by the police, social workers, and courts was that by not submitting your child to the public school system, you were, by definition, guilty of something. And by golly, they would find out what it was, no matter what.

The laws are gone, but the attitude is not. The first reaction of everyone is „What are you hiding?“ There is no exception–everyone, on first hearing of the concept, before hearing personal stories, always reacts the same.

Is it because there are no problems with public schools that might make someone reject them? No. It’s because if there are problems, you’re just supposed to suck it up, stop whining to the school board, the principal and the teachers, and just get out of the system as soon as you can.

To anyone with a brain who cares about their children, this defeatist attitude is unacceptable. And as long as ignorant journalists, social workers, and police continue to sensationalize the bad examples and typecast homeschoolers, all legal restrictions are unacceptable. They would just be used as an excuse for people to act on their prejudices.

Here’s a proposal for your school board:

• All public school teachers must be highly qualified: Each year they must pass a subject area test from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, as well as the final ISTEP exam for the year, or they lose their license. No exceptions.
• All public school teachers must undergo a mental health screening each year, including a polygraph examination regarding their sexual and violent tendencies. Their home computers must be completely reviewed twice per school year for any pornography, legal or not. These are completely reasonable requirements for anyone working every day with children. All violators face unconditional suspension without pay on first offense, termination thereafter.
• All public school children must complete a grade-level ISTEP each year, something currently not required. Those who cannot pass after taking it twice must be transferred to a private school with higher average scores. Their allotment from the state and county (approximately $6000) must go directly to the private school.
• All public schooling parents must volunteer to participate in a school event or serve in some capacity. In addition, they are required to meet four times per year with all their children’s teachers and ensure that a detailed IEP is followed. Failure to meet any of these requirements will result in immediate expulsion of the student.

Would you teach in public school under these conditions? Would you send your kids to these public schools?

Most conservatives who support public schools want higher standards for them. Most liberals do not. I point to the whining about the NCLB, arguably the most hated federal legislation ever applied to public schools–and all it involves is standardized testing. Every time conservatives try to improve public school standards, the „liberal militia“ swoops in to protect the bottom-feeder teachers and administrators.

Public schools are considered off limits because they have to accommodate everyone–essentially a form of welfare. If that’s what the majority of people in a school district want, so be it. But it is pure hypocrisy to claim that public schools both serve the lowest common denominator and represent a standard for excellence.

Ironically enough, the people targeted by restrictive homeschooling regulations are generally not the politically active religious conservative homeschoolers, who tend to be very involved in church and community service and tend to prefer structured curricula with advanced scope and sequence models. They also have a close affinity with and powerful political representation by HSLDA, the lawyers who would be handling most of the cases brought to light by this legislation.Rather, the homeschoolers caught up in the net would most likely be the unschoolers, who, although a very disparate group, tend to favor more liberal viewpoints. I don’t personally agree with them, but I unequivocally stand behind their parental rights to direct their children’s education.

Another item from Michael H. Romanowski:

Myth #4: Most People Homeschool Only for Religious Reasons

The stereotypical view of homeschooling families is one of a conservative Christian family who homeschools in order to pass on Christian values to their children and protect them from the world.

Reality

Ironically, the contemporary homeschooling movement began sometime around mid-century as a liberal, rather than a conservative, alternative to public education (Lines 2003). Possibly as many as ten thousand families in the late fifties and early sixties viewed school as too rigidly conservative and pursued a more liberal educational philosophy at home (Lines 2003). Because of judicial decisions considering formal school prayer (Engel v. Vitale 1962) and school-endorsed bible readings (Abington School District v. Schempp 1963) as violations of the First Amendment, conservative Christians became concerned that schools were becoming too secular and slowly families began to enroll their children in private schools while others began homeschooling. Lines points out that “in the 1980’s as the school culture drifted to the left, conservative and religious religious families were surprised to find themselves in a countercultural position” (2003, 13–14).

However, religious and conservative families are not the only ones homeschooling their children. Romanowski argues that one of the unique aspects of the homeschool community is that it appeals to “a demographic diversity that includes virtually all races, religions, socioeconomic groups and political viewpoints. There are conservatives who consider public education too liberal, liberals who consider it too conservative, and those who are driven by religious convictions” (2003, 82). Both the political left and right of homeschooling are active today.

Criticism

I will venture to say that homeschooling may not „cause“ all of the good results Romanowski cites. Many critics claim, on the contrary, that homeschooling is primarily chosen by the most capable, attentive, and financially stable parents, and that these factors more strongly determine a child’s success than the educational method or setting.

Sometimes such parents choose a particularly superior public school system over others, and real estate agents know that this is a major reason for choosing a home location. Yet, it is not unusual for the best-performing public school districts in the state of Indiana to have an unusually high proportion of homeschoolers, as is the case in Hamilton County. Frankly, some of those homeschoolers couldn’t care less about the political or religious questions and they put their kids back into public school after a few years of personalized accelerated instruction.

Homeschooling is, frankly, a purely democratic symptom of social disintegration, loss of respect for institutional authority, and a consumerist attitude toward social goods such as education. It is running parallel to other, similar trends, such as the declining influence of printed newspapers and the Big Three TV networks. To compensate, people are building up new social and information systems.

It would be more honest and coherent to cite homeschooling as one of many warnings of the decay of old social institutions, and to then go on to attack the problems that still need to be solved as those institutions are reconstituted.