The Sioux City Journal posted a Brent Hoffman column this morning: THE REGULARS: Growing number of American parents choose to homeschool:

Make no mistake, homeschooling works, and it works not because of governmental bureaucracy and accreditation standards, but in spite of it. It works because it places responsibility for the education, nurturing and growth of children squarely in the hands of the parents.

When you consider that homeschool parents spend an average of $500 to $600 a year on each student in comparison to $9,000 to $10,000 for each government school student in the United States, the academic results are astounding. Essentially, homeschool parents are paying less to educate their own children than they spend to educate someone else’s children in the government school system. (more…)

The Athens Banner-Herald posted A day in the life of a homeschooler.

The Ginnel and Johnson families were spotlighted in the article by Allie Jackson.  This excerpt presented  the more serene aspects of homeschooling. (more…)

Despite many Virginia homeschoolers‘ efforts and a Commonwealth Education Poll determining a good majority of Virginians (67%) favor allowing homeschooled students to participate on public school teams, Virginia’s Senate Education and Health Committee voted the bill down in an 8-7 vote.

19 year old Josh Henderson testified at the hearing.  He will be leaving soon for spring camp with the Los Angeles Dodgers, after his 16th-round 2012 Major League draft pick. Homeschooled, Josh played for a Suffolk Baptist school as a younger teen. He made a plea for the homeschool community.

From the CBS DC site: Senate Panel Sacks ‘Tebow’ Homeschooling Bill Again:

“I just want you all to give these guys a shot,” he said, gesturing toward about a dozen young children queued in the committee room aisle awaiting a chance to speak.

The Virginian-Pilot reported a rather impertinent response from a Senate public servant to Josh’s father:

‘Tebow’ home school sports bill sacked in Va. Senate By Julian Walker

When addressing the committee, Steve Henderson – Josh’s father – explained that he and his wife educated the two youngest of their six boys at home because it was the best choice for them, not a knock against public schools. He made the case that parents and students contribute to the state and thus shouldn’t be denied access to services.

“We pay our taxes, too,” the elder Henderson said. “There’s no difficulty in taking our money.”

“You pay taxes that also go to purchase an F-22 fighter, that doesn’t mean you get to fly it,” fired back Senate Minority Leader Richard Saslaw.

The Virginian-Pilot also pointed out the other opponents:

Opposing the measure were representatives of education interest groups, including the Virginia Parent Teacher Association, the Virginia Education Association, the Virginia High School League and the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. They said creating special dispensation for homeschooled students is unfair to public students who must meet standards homeschoolers don’t face.

Despite the VHSL claims of formation of a “small, elite group with separate and lesser standards”, the Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers pointed these facts out in their press release:

This year’s homeschool sports access bills specifically state that homeschool eligibility is subject to the policy of each local school board – there would be no mandate on public schools.  Qualified students would only be eligible at the public school in their residential attendance zone (no “team shopping”). They would have to be bona fide homeschoolers, presenting documented proof that they had homeschooled in compliance with Virginia’s home instruction statute for at least two consecutive school years, including the two years immediately prior to seeking participation (“dropouts” would not qualify).  Homeschoolers would also have to provide proof of two years of satisfactory academic progress, either through standardized testing scores or via professional academic evaluations approved by the local public school superintendent. Other eligibility rules required by the Virginia High School League (VHSL) would also apply.

In this case, it appears the special interest, big spending lobbying groups won.  But the homeschooled children in the hearing room had a contemporary, hands-on civics lesson in their state’s Capitol.  That experience meets exceptional standards of usefulness.

Let Home-schoolers Take the Field 
Washington Post Editorial Board

A BILL THAT would allow Virginia students who are home-schooled to play on public-school sports teams has cleared the state House and is now headed to a Senate committee, where a similar measure died last year. Our reservations about the so-called “Tebow Bill” have been rooted in a belief that issues about athletic eligibility, student activities and what constitutes a school community shouldn’t be usurped by Richmond.

It is clear, though, that the group entrusted with helping to make those determinations needs to revisit rules that have become too rigid. Local school districts that want to include home-schooled students are barred from even trying.

The editorial concludes stating the sponsor, Delegate Bell,  would introduce the bill again next Session, if it doesn’t pass, as he “believes that a generational change of attitudes is occurring about home-schooling in which the lines are being blurred and it’s only a matter of time before his bill is approved.”

Read more here.  The comments pertaining to the editorial are abundant.

The Miami News Record - Powered by the News Record and You! posted an article from a mom who started home educating her kids six months ago. Kristen Hoover offered her experiences getting started, along with the results so far.

The ABCs of homeschooling: laughter, learning, bonding and togetherness

When we remodeled one end of our house into a classroom, our son learned how to hang sheetrock and lay laminate flooring. Our daughters are becoming quite the seamstresses, and that 11-year-old can make a mean pan of brownies. All of us are greatly enjoying our latest quest to find the perfect bread recipe. We’re already obsessing over seed catalogs and planning our garden. We used after-Christmas sales shopping to teach percentages. A trip to the hardware or grocery store is most likely going to involve a math lesson. I ran into a friend in Sears a few months ago who told me she had just seen my kids in the shoe department, and the oldest was quizzing her siblings on how to calculate the price of a pair of shoes that were 30 percent off. Of course, we are studying the curriculum required to graduate, but more importantly, our kids are learning how to function in this big ol’ world — most of the time, without a calculator.
As far as the socialization that the masses seem so concerned about, well, most importantly, we’re not concerned about it at all. Our kids are very involved in their youth and children’s groups at church, we have friends who homeschool, and we are also part of a homeschool group in Miami (MAPLE: www.facebook.com/groups/maplehomeschool/) that meets once a week. The kids still hang out with their public-school friends, and our oldest, contrary to the thinking of the total stranger who told our 16-year-old daughter that homeschooled kids won’t ever marry, is dating a wonderful young man (public-schooled, no less) and goes on dates and everything. Our kids can carry on conversations with adults, are polite and well-mannered, and seem to function just fine in society.

One family’s example of living and learning.

The Fall River Herald News Editor in Chief, Lynne Sullivan, wrote an editorial noting: Homeschool families think ‘Outside the Box’ to keep kids thriving

I have a few friends who homeschool their children, and I’m always amazed — at their patience and at their persistence. Somehow I just think that I would never be able to teach my own kids. Would they listen to me the way they listen to their teachers?

I had the same doubts when I started homeschooling.  Watching the kids read, explore and grow helped me learn I didn’t need to teach so much as keep resources laid out in front of them to grab.  They filtered out what didn’t work and soaked up what did.
From the article:

Several states, including Georgia and Alabama introduced “Tim Tebow” bills allowing homeschoolers to participate in public school sports and other activities under the school control.  Both Georgia’s and Alabama’s bills failed in 2011, as did Virginia’s in the past legislative session.

But, in Virginia’s current legislative session, a “Tebow Bill” - HB 1442 has passed out of the Education Committee and is on its third reading in the House.    [Update - HB 1442 passed and will be moved over to the Senate.]  CBS DC covered the companion bill currently in the Senate Education Committee, SB 812, that will likely be stricken from the agenda since HB 1442 is moving along.

A Georgia media outlet reported this in reaction to a school official’s inference homeschoolers shouldn’t be allowed to “cherry pick”:

Are homeschooled students missing out? – WLTZ 38 | Columbus Georgia Regional News & Community

But for Joseph and his family, that’s okay.

“As homeschoolers, I have kind of pulled out of that anyway, not for anything negative, but I have made a decision that we need to find our own activities,” Joseph’s mom, Dorothy Bryant, says.

Joseph says he doesn’t need a school to pursue his other love, theater.

Most public schools are limited to a handful of sports for each gender- basketball, volleyball, baseball, football, soccer, softball and a couple of others.  But many of these school associations that control the extra-curriculars have also pulled in Quiz Bowls, theater and other activities not just requiring a strong, coordinated body.  Fortunately, the schools do not have a monopoly on community theater or a variety of other fun activities such as TaeKwonDo, archery, shooting sports, ballet or other dancing.

One thing for sure, the Virginia homeschooled kids interested in this issue are getting a hands-on, up-front experience in how our government works.

I had to laugh when I read the Buffalo News article about New York’s Iroquois School Board policy decision to exclude homeschoolers from their public school activities.  I’m a bit ambivalent about mixing the two in my state – noting that too many Illinois local school board policies create over-compliance demands for participating homeschoolers, but this reason given by School Board President Lowrey is a tad ridiculous.
Iroquois home-school policy stands on no extra activities By Eileen Werbitsky

Lowrey said a poll of faculty club advisers showed that some clubs run activities during the day, which would put home-schooled students at a disadvantage. In addition, the school district’s attorneys advised against changing the policy.

Good one.  If clubs run their activities “during the day”, homeschoolers couldn’t possibly attend. Hello role, meet reversal.

Homeschoolers are out and about, not penned away in a room with windows you’re not supposed to look out.  The homeschooled kids could attend, if they were allowed by the school board.  And of course – if the school district attorneys allow it.  Which they didn’t.

There might be good reasons they don’t want private schools participating in public school extra-curriculars, but some of the reasons given in this article are certainly not about the kids.

The Ipswich Queensland Times talks about homeschooling.

More families join home-schooling boom by Geoff Egan

“We feel that as humans we’re always learning so we don’t do book work as such.

“We take our kids out and to museums to learn all the time.”

Similarly, mum Bec Draper said she chose to educate her children from home after seeing a lack of support for autistic children.

“Three of our children have high-functioning autism spectrum disorder, which means they are eligible and expected to attend mainstream school,” she said.

“Whilst the idea of ‘inclusion’ is a fantastic one, the practical implementation of this approach is just not working in our school system, at the moment.”

The comments discusses support of special needs in the schools, along with the usual problem of bullying.

A New York Times’ reporter, Mark Oppenheimer, offered an article about Mary Pride and her homeschooling family’s history.  It focused a great deal on their technology influences and her religious background. Many homeschoolers did seem to be right on that techie cutting edge ‘back in the day’. Even now, multitudes from the homeschool community head into computer engineering, programming, designing their own websites, blog, businesses or what have you on the internet.

From the article: Mary Pride A Christian Pioneer of Home Schooling Looks to Its Future“

Yet in her embrace of technology and the Internet, Mrs. Pride is a total Webhead, as befits the wife of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate whom she met when both were working “at the key-punch room in Raytheon,” the military technology company.

All their computer hardware and tested software helped create the 1992 Prides’ Guide to Educational Software.  The guide was reviewed in Whole Earth Review, PC Magazine, and from Wired Magazine’s first issue in 1993:

Crash Tested Homework Review:

Bill and Mary Pride have eight kids, all of them home-schooled. The Prides are into using computers for class work, so they have a computer room stuffed with a Mac, Apple IIGS, Amiga, a 386 clone, various CD-ROM devices, Nintendo, a Miracle Piano system, and so on. Add five or six kids to the room at any one time, and you have a homeschooling arcade. In between lessons, Ma and Pa and their computer-savvy kids have evaluated every piece of educational software known to be on the market. The kids are ceaseless and merciless testers. Somehow the Prides found time (and a vacant computer) in this madhouse to compile their evaluations in a humongous and amazingly complete atlas to all educational software available for personal computers and CD-ROM platforms.

All was not well during that time in the homeschool community though.  This older New York TImes article shared one example of a growing chasm in the homeschooling community.

On-Line Courses Have Given a New Impetus to the Home-Schooling Movement By Louise Yarnall

Technology enthusiasts like Mrs. Pride, the publisher, counter that the elitists are the anti-computer home schoolers — particularly those affiliated with the so-called unschooling movement, which rejects most packaged educational programs in favor of more free-form learning activities guided by children’s interests.
“I think unschoolers sometimes exaggerate the benefits of doing everything yourself,” she said. “There is a reason I don’t pump my own water and build my own well and make my own electricity and grind my own wheat.

I feel to limit yourself and say, I have to do it all myself, is a mistake.”

Maybe her perspective has changed in the last several years, but I think Mary Pride misunderstood the unschooling philosophy. It’s a shame, because there are many religious homeschoolers who do ‘get it’.  I’m assuming we’re now in the healing stage, as I’ve seen many a homeschooler defend all homeschooling styles now.  What fits for each child is the right way to go.

Then there was this from the same 1998 article:

In regions where home schooling is so popular that it threatens the financial health of public school districts, some school leaders have used computers to lure home schoolers partway back to the fold. In 1997, an Alaska school district seeking to raise funds to build a public boarding school developed a program that offered home schoolers the use of new computers (for a $200 refundable deposit), free curriculum supplies and support from an expert teacher if they would enroll in the district. The families kept home schooling, but their enrollment allowed the district to qualify for more state aid. The program attracted 2,000 applicants, far exceeding district estimates, and the extra state money helped pay for the new school. Similar programs are in place in Washington State.

I happily remember the growth of on-line homeschool networks, bartering and support. But the “collaboration of homeschoolers and school” seemed  frustrating for homeschool advocates with the time spent explaining to new homeschoolers ‘public school at home’ versus independent homeschooling.  The schools didn’t seem to be cooperating with those explanations nor lessening the confusion.  Wish they were more creative with our public schooled kids’ education than they are trying to suck money out of every little free crevice.

This is an exciting prospect, this open source education idea:

“Distance learning is coming on gangbusters,” Mrs. Pride said. “EdX will be very interesting. And what Harvard and M.I.T. are doing. And the MOOC initiative. …”

The 1998 NYT article noted Mary Pride’s thoughts about her son, who suffered from chronic health issues:

“Fifty years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to finish his own education or have a job.” Mrs. Pride is convinced that the home-schooling movement will grow because technology makes families more comfortable with the prospect of teaching their own children.

Approximately 15 years later, education at home is growing and some of the reason might be the networking technology opportunities.  But most of all, I think it’s because many families learned it’s great fun spending time together living and learning.