Idaho’s governor is pro-homeschooling, but the Superintendent of Public Instruction isn’t

The author of this piece bends the reader forwards and backwards with all the objectivity.

Keep ‘Em Home, 20 June 2007, Boise Weekly, Boise, Idaho

Homeschooling, that oft-misunderstood anomaly of Idaho education, has a good friend in the governor’s office for the first time in a long while.

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Otter described homeschooling as a fair extension of what President George Washington meant when he discussed, in his first inaugural address, the “sacred fire of liberty” that was “staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

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In April, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that Idaho was in the bottom five for per-pupil spending, about $6,028 per student. Only Utah, Arizona, Oklahoma and Mississippi spent similar amounts.

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One reason Luna might want more students in the state’s public schools is that Idaho doesn’t really have a clue as to what sort of education students are getting in their homes. Luna said the state of Idaho doesn’t have any methods for tracking students individually, much less those students who aren’t enrolled in public education programs.

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But gaining the freedom that Idaho homeschooling advocates have was a hard-fought battle, one that some advocates say they’re probably going to have to fight, in some form, every year.

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Sherri Wood of the Idaho Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said her organization does not oppose homeschooling per se, but she questions the ability of all parents to take over a child’s education.

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“They’re pretty isolated,” Wood said. “They don’t have any of those socialization skills. Employers want students who aren’t just skilled in academics. They want them to get along well with other people.”

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For now, homeschoolers in Idaho remain defiant, but perhaps more comforted knowing that Idaho’s chief executive is such a fan.

One of the commenters at the site said, “I was surprised that Boise Weekly would post such a positive article on homeschooling,” but the feeling I got from the article, was Boing! Boing! Boing! back and forth like one of those punching-bag toys.

A counter-point to this type of article that pits homeschooling against the Professionals is at YouTube: Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society on The Pinky Show (hat tips to Mary and Jen).

Scary School Nightmare

[The schools] school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed — the more “treatment” there is, the better are the results. Or, “escalation” leads to success. The pupil is thereby schooled to confuse teaching with learning, schooled to confuse grade advancement with education, schooled to confuse a diploma with competence. His imagination is schooled to accept service in place of value.

Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work is mistaken for the improvement of community life, police protection is mistaken for safety, military poise is mistaken for national security, the rat race is mistaken for productive work.

Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavor are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools and other agencies in question.

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I wanted to find out where the idea came from that all over the world people have to be assembled in specific groups of not less than 15, otherwise it’s not a class. Not more than 40, otherwise they are underprivileged. For yearly, not less than 800 hours, otherwise they don’t get enough. Not more than 1100 hours, otherwise it’s considered a prison. For four-year periods, by somebody else who has undergone this for a longer time.

How did it come about tht such a crazy process like schooling would become necessary?

Then I realized that it was something like engineering people. That our society doesn’t only produce artifact things, but artifact people. And it doesn’t do that by the content of the curriculum, but by getting them through this ritual, which makes them believe that learning happens as a result of being taught.

posted by Valerie

Tags: Deschooling Society, home education, homeschooling, Idaho homeschooling, Ivan Illich

This entry was posted on June 29, 2007 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Compulsory Attendance, History of Homeschooling, Reasons to Homeschool, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.