California says "No" to homeschooling

But when you have a situation where the average teacher has 30 kids (for one year) and the average parent has maybe 3 kids (for life), the average teacher is likely not going to be as vested as the average parent.

 

I have 100+ kids every year. That doesn't mean I'm NOT vested. Of course it would be impossible for teachers to be as vested as parents for each of their students. But that doesn't mean we don't try.

 

What is this word "vested" that people are using? What does it mean? If we interpret it as 'interest', then I guess we can agree that most (not all) parents are interested in their children's academic success. Whether parents are more concerned than the teacher whose career it is to teach, is hard to say.

But is 'interest' the appropriate variable here? It seems pretty airy to me, until it's fleshed out with something more substantial.

Do typical parents have the subject matter competence (and the patience) to teach the K-12 curriculum?

Do working parents have the ability, after eight hours of stressful work and a nasty commute, to spend hours working with their kids every day, for years on end? (And what are those kids going to be doing while mom and dad are at work?)

Returning to "vested", I'm sure that virtually all parents want the best for their kids, in the abstract. But what's going to happen when its time to turn that into practice? What's going to happen when parents have to sacrifice to do it, when it cramps their lifestyles?

"Vested" needs to be weighed against cut-corners and incompetence.

 

I'll be fully vested in my pension plan in 13 years, that's all the vesting I'm doing.

I love my children.

 

A great article from Time regarding the California ruling:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1720697,00.html

 

This is such a generalization. I think you should be more carefuyl. I'm sure you have no shortage of students who are unprepared who have been in traditional schools all along. Would you condemn traditional schools so readily? Are their parents idiots too? As anecdotal evidence on the other side, a couple of recent national spelling bee champions, as well as winners in the math olympiad have been homeschooled. I guess we're even now, and their parents must be a different kind of "idiotic."

 

"Education is about far more than mastering a curriculum content. Home-schooled kids are denied that. " Denied what? You haven't said how education differs, or is more than, curriculum content, though perhaps we can all make guesses about what you mean. If you want to make arguments based on anecdotal evidence, then go ahead, but it means next to nothing. We can trade anecdotal shots all day.

Since you don't know of any success stories, here's one: google "Reid Barton math olympiad" and you'll see that one of the country's finest young mathematicians was homeschooled and is now getting his PhD at Harvard.

 

So, with 100 kids per year, you can invest more time, love, and attention in each individual child than the parents, who might have 3 children (and for life)? Hmm.

 

I WAS talking about traditional schools. You all seriously need to step foot into a public school for a few days and try to teach these kids. Deal with their parents, try to work under ridiculous legal restrictions and ignorant administrators, and you all would completely understand what I'm talking about. As I said in another post, if ALL students had the love shown them that homeschool parents allegedly give, public schools would have no problems because every student would enter Kindergarten ready to roll with their education. But that is not the care, and it probably never will be.

And as for "being even", I wasn't aware I was competing with anyone over this.

 

I never said I could invest more time than all the parents. But I will say that in the hour a day I see some students that my 60 minutes with this IS more than their parents spend with them all week. Many of my parents have multiple jobs to provide for their children, which is admirable, but unfortunately its result is their lack of time spent with them. So for these students, yes, I may spend more time with their children than they do. When I attend their wrestling tournaments, band concerts, or any other extracurricular activity, I'm putting in more time than their parents. Is it for life? No, because hopefully they pass my course and move on. But that doesn't mean they are forgotten or ignored in the future. I will continually see them in the halls and in town. I will write recommendation letters for them. I'll continue to be supportive when I see them.

Once again, you all should be a public school teacher for a bit and you'd understand just how difficult it is for not only us, but the students who come from more difficult home environments.

 

Well, one pathetic commentary about our society is the way that we have transformed the school system into a glorified baby-sitting service rather than a vehicle for the imparting of that knowledge which is deemed useful to society.

 

Yes, but keep in mind, it wasn't the teachers who turned education into a baby-sitting service. That was the government and the parents (and everyone else) that elect our leaders.

On a side note, my mother actually runs a day care. Her prices are actually lower than many of the big name day cares in the area. Still, if teachers made per child what my mother made, we'd be pushing 70-80 grand a year. Am I making that? Nope. Are we making what others who have advanced degrees make? Nope.

You all can chew me out over this until the cows come home, but I'm going to continually stand up for my colleagues because I believe what we do is important, and I'm tired of people in our society spouting off jargon about how teachers are stupid and that WE are the ones failing our children. Education starts at home, after all.

If we didn't want education to be a baby-sitting service, our stupid government should implement measures to offer educational experiences for students other than reading and math. Not everyone is going to college. There should opportunities for vocational study. But when it comes down to budget cuts (because, apparently funding education is not a priority) vocational programs and electives are the first to go.

My county is the 3rd richest county in Virginia, and yet our school division is one of the LOWEST funded in Virginia. The state recently withdrew 1.2 million dollars from our funding because their records show how rich the county is, and they believe the county can afford to fund the schools, which is TRUE. Yet our board of supervisors won't get off their butts and raise the money via taxes, which the citizens who buy their multimillion dollar houses on the water, can definitely afford. As our result, my school continues to have mediocre programs, school buildings that are falling apart, and high teacher turnover rates. Who would want to teach in my division when the county next door has a brand spankin' new middle and high school or that other county next door pays a good 6-7 thousand dollars more.

It's stupid politics. Stupid, stupid, stupid politics. But despite it all, I love my students and what I do, and I love doing it in my home town.

 

>>


Be nice, he's only been a parent for 6 weeks.....ask him next year.

 

Insinuating anything about my present or future parenting skills is an immature ad hominem attack on my character. That's low.

 

Right, but you were referring to home schooled kids who had moved on to public school (yours). You insisted that they were unprepared and that when you met their parents you found them idiotic. My point is that there are a ton of kids that you can pick out of any class who are unprepared, so I don't know how you can draw the conclusion that homeschooling is the problem. The problem is confounded by lots of other variables. And I have taught in public school, so I know what you're talking about when it comes to the problem in general.

 

What Matt is describing as the problem in public schools is exactly why some students are better suited to be taught at home.

The problems that I perceive to be there have been confirmed time and again.

 

Matt: I never said that it was the teachers' fault for transforming the educational system into a glorified baby-sitting service. Please note that my signature line states that I hold an undergraduate degree in history. I hope that it will not come as any big surprise to you that I had actually planned on becoming a history teacher or history professor someday (thopugh, for reasons I choose not to go into, I never achieved either goal). I hope you will not be too terribly surprised if I tell you that I think teachers ought to be allowed to concentrate on imparting information in their fields of expertise (teaching!!!). But you're certainly free to believe that I'm attacking you, if that is what you wish to believe.

 

Of course I know you're not attacking me personally. As a fellow "history person" you are probably familiar with some of the sketchy past our country has. I believe that this past is a HUGE reason we're having the problems we're experiencing today.

Here's a prime example. Black students perform far below white students. That's documented all over the place. Why? I believe it all goes back to Brown v. Board. While I completely agree with integration, I believe the way it was handled was ridiculous. To take a group of people and treat them like crap for years and year, and then to suddenly throw them into the mainstream and expect everything to be alright is ludicrous. It's like taking one child and not teaching him anything, and taking another child and teaching him everything, and putting the two in the same classroom and expecting them to perform at the same pace. It's not going to happen. There has to be a "catch up" phase, and I believe that's what's going on now. We have to fix all the problems our ignorant hate mongering predecessors caused.

And now we're faced with issues of political correctness. I teach all honors courses. There are requirements for admission to these courses, but the school "ignores" those requirements to allow several black students into the course. I do have other black students in the course who met the requirements, but have been told that there has to be more so it appears "even". As long as the students work, I don't really care, but to believe that every course has to be evened out in terms of race is a bit silly too. I don't believe that's the way to fix the problem. We need to address the problem rather than sugar coating it.

I could write more, but it's midnight and I definitely need to get some sleep. Feel free to respond, Ted. I'd like to hear your take on this in regards to our educational history.

 

update from HSLDA e-lert service

From the HSLDA E-lert Service...
======================================================================


March 11, 2008

An update to HSLDA Members and Friends on the California Court of
Appeal Decision on Homeschooling:

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell comes to the
defense of homeschool families. "The California Department of
Education policy will not change in any way as a result of this
ruling. Parents still have the right to homeschool in this state," he
said.

After the Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District in Los
Angeles ruled on February 28 that parents had to be credentialed
teachers to educate their own children the statement from O'Connell is
encouraging news for the homeschool community.

"O'Connell has it right," said Michael Farris, Chairman of HSLDA. "But
the court decision must still be overturned before homeschool freedom
can be restored in California."

The Court of Appeal ruling shocked the homeschool community because in
one sweeping decision it effectively outlawed homeschooling.

"We hope the statement from O'Connell puts the brakes on any
enforcement action," said Farris.

HSLDA will be pursuing several legal options, including seeking review
by the California Supreme Court and petitioning the same court to
depublish the opinion in order to return California to being a state
where a family can legally homeschool in California without fear.

"We have just started the legal battle to restore homeschool freedom
in California," said Farris.

To visit HSLDA's Info page on this court decision, which has the legal
status, link to the decision, and info on legal grounds for
homeschooling in California, use this link:
http://hslda.org/elink.asp?ID=4890

Ian Slatter
Director of Media Relations



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I taught school in the public system for about 2 years and I will say that its just not black students that this happens to. I have seen the same thing happen to hispanics and other races also.

Most of school is watered down, I have seen the honor AG students whine about actually being given challenging work and its really bad when a parent reports a teacher for giving an AG class homework over the weekend.

I would say about 50 percent of the problems with the public school system is the parents, the other 50 percent is administration.

The sad thing is the same thing is beginning to happen at the college campuses. Some of the campuses where I am an adjunct you hear horror stories from English, Math, and Science faculty. Students come out of high school and can barely read or write sentences, do basic algebraic equations, and have no clue that H20 means water. But colleges are increasingly having to offer remedial courses and in some cases what used to be a 2 year degree is taking 3 to 4 years due to all the remedial courses students are having to take.

As for homeschooling, I believe that every parent should have a say on how their children are educated. I am not a parent, but I attended courses in college with a friend who was homeschooled her entire life. She was exposed to such a wide range curriculum and she had graduated high school at the age of 16 and had attended college courses ever since then.

My brother was homeschooled his last 2 years of high school and he also finished at the age of 16 and is now enrolled in a 4 year university and doing quite well.

While homeschool is for some students and families, it may not be for all students and families, same thing goes for the public schools.