It is hard to tell whether the reporter characterized the Idaho IDEA program as homeschooling, or if someone else had the idea.
Idaho Distance Education Academy, 27 April 2008, KPVI-TV, Pocatello, Idaho
A new type of home-schooling is growing in popularity here in Idaho.
The Idaho Distance Education Academy, or IDEA, offers home-schooled students with public school services …
What makes IDEA different from other home-school programs is that it partners parents with a certified teacher. …
Students are required to take state standard tests, just like any other public school …
The Parent Handbook agrees with me that enrollment in IDEA is not homeschooling, it is public schooling.
Idaho DEA Parent Handbook 2007-2008
page 7
Choice of curricular materials and resources – The I-DEA online catalog offers a wide range of curriculum and materials. Each item aligns with and supports the Idaho State Content Standards. (As a public school, I-DEA is prohibited from using public funds for the purchase of doctrinal curriculum.)
[emphasis added]
Not a foot-stomping biggie, just a reminder that came to me courtesy of the news reader.
HEM
Helen
Tracy
mark
marynix
ann-lahrson-fisher
valerie
sandi
david
Why are homeschooling and public schooling mutually exclusive? All I-DEA parents teach at home. They just materials supplied by the public school system, because these parents want state-approved curriculum, they want their kids to be tested and they want to be able to call on a public school teacher for guidance. But if you ask any of these parents, they will tell you they are homeschooling.
Thanks for the comment.
The difference of opinion about what is or is not ‘homeschooling’ is deep-seated, and has been a bone of contention for some years. The controversy was crystalized in the We Stand for Homeschooling resolution.
Some people see the core of homeschooling as family-based, independent education of children coupled with academic freedom. Other people see the core as the liberty to choose whichever educational resource best suits their needs. The two views do not seem to be synonymous although they share the common feature of parental choice.
You ask, “Why are homeschooling and public schooling mutually exclusive?” From my point of view, the difference rests with ultimate authority (while accepting that neither method is ultimately ‘ultimate’ — there’s always some kind of ‘but what about …?’ factor). Who gets the final say-so? At the moment, with homeschooling (independent home education) still an active model for homeschooling, parents do have the final say-so, if only because they can choose to unenroll their children from public programs, which is what I think is the point of view of the ‘parent choice’ proponents.
[It is telling that I have to indicate that homeschooling means independent home education. Before the rise of public school at home, homeschooling needed no modifiers to say whether the at-home education was independent or publicly funded.]
If the parents can choose any other schooling program from homeschooling to public schooling with all the shades of gray in between, then those parents do have to ultimate say-so in how their children are educated. This is a conversation we, as a society, have not considered, much less discussed. Are children owed a public education if their parents choose it, or are the children owed a public education of their choice? These are two different things.
The problem with the shades of gray, cafeteria-programs model is that the taxpayer-funded programs are all offered by the state. If the model of the independent home education style of homeschooling is replaced by the cafeteria-style program choice model, then schooling will return to the way it was before homeschooling reappeared as an educational method: the ultimate authority will again lie with the state for the majority of children.
No laws will have to be passed to regulate homeschooling (independent home education) out of existence, parents will just choose to do the state’s work for it by using an at-home ‘program.’ The ‘mutual exclusivity’ is that either parents have the ultimate authority to choose their children’s education, or the state does.
The parents involved in I-DEA may say they are homeschooling, but their children are public school students.
I agree, IDEA children are public school students. But they are also schooled at home. Again, there’s this presumption that to be a “real” homeschooler, you must reject the public school system. I don’t see that’s necessarily the case.
You say it’s about parents exercising authority and choice, but what if their own family-based decisions lead them to the conclusion that, for their family and their particular circumstances, they actually WANT their kids to be tested, they want officially-approved curriculum, they want to have a teacher on call for help. Aside from that, the instruction occurs in the home, with parents doing the teaching.
Whether it’s the imprimatur of the state or some religious or ideologically-based authority, the curriculum has someone’s stamp of approval on it. Why is choosing the state over some other authority any less valid? As for your concerns that public-education-supported homeschooling somehow hurts traditional homeschooling, I just don’t see the evidence of that. Indeed, wouldn’t a more inclusive interpretation of homeschooling welcome delivery of public school resources into the home setting when parents choose it? You could just as easily argue that would only strengthen the right to teach at home, with or without the help of the state.
What if a traditional homeschooling parent just to happens to pick curriculum that is identical to what the state would pick for its own students? Does that make the parent any less pure? It seems rejection of the public school system is a core part of your definition of homeschooling. The world has changed.
Similar Educational Options, Yet Chemically Different, 4 May 2008, National Charter School Watch Blog
Pardon? Many homeschooling parents don’t use an already-compiled curriculum, but make it up as they go along. That is how I homeschooled my kids. I ‘followed history’ from The Big Bang (and other beginnings) up to the present. We didn’t use textbooks (other than Saxon math), but rather used ‘real’ books, audio tapes, and video programs (this was pre-Internet for us, and pre-Fancy Internet for anyone). I sought no one’s approval, or even anyone else’s structure because no program included what I, and my kids, wanted to learn about. Some people are even looser than that.
Homeschooling doesn’t always equal ‘school at home.’
It already has. Years ago the very word ‘homeschooling’ meant an independent education that was not tied to an organization or system. Independence was implicit. Nowadays, if one means independent home education rather than public school at home, the viewpoint must be spelled out.
The harm was caused by the co-opting of the term ‘homeschooling’ by programs that were seeking customers. ‘Homeschooling’ was sold to parents so that now that genie is out of the bottle. It is only through the underlining of the differences between homeschooling and public school at home that the independent meaning of homeschooling has endured as long as it has.
That’s like saying would baseball be a more inclusive interpretation of ball-stick games if it had flags and holes like golf. If parents want to choose public school at home, they’re free to do so, just as they’re free to enroll their children in either public or private schools, or to homeschool.
Why does homeschooling need to be made more ‘inclusive’ of methods that would swallow it? Why shouldn’t the public school at home programs label themselves as what they are instead of co-opting homeschooling?
No one is saying ‘don’t choose those other programs’ if that’s what you want. The U.S. is still (our version of) a free country. What some of us are saying to the purveryors of the programs, though, is ‘find your own terminology and leave ours alone.’
Uh, yeah?
Hanging On To What Makes Homeschooling Distinctive, November-December 1997, Home Education Magazine
No, the world is still the same. Parents and children still live together in families. What has changed is the selling of homeschooling. Non-homeschoolers who want to profit from the model, or to “recapture” homeschooled children, have sold their programs to parents as if they were homeschooling.
I used to have the opinion that homeschool was homeschool and “school at home” was still public school. I have never considered on-line charter schools homeschooling, but IDEA is VERY different. First I have been homeschooling for three years(no state help, until this yr and only one). We recently found out about IDEA and I decided to enroll my kindergartner while still homeschooling my oldest. We do EXACTLY what I did before with the exceptions of paying less out of pocket and the required testing. We still have the same schedule, and a lot of our curriculum has stayed the same, I pick the curriculum I would like my daughter to use from the list of IDEA approved curriculum. I do ALL the teaching, her teacher does very little, mostly the paperwork, her assessments, and support. I would consider IDEA closer to “homeschool” than on-line. Whether we will continue with the IDEA next year or not is still up in the air. I think IDEA is an excellent choose for those parents that want to “homeschool” but are scared (and yes it is a little scary taking that leap), it can give them a taste without the full commitment.