Dropping out, hiding out and looking for answers, 21 June 2008, The Age, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The Other tells of two friends, seemingly opposites, who bond as teenagers through their passion for the outdoors. The narrator, Neil Countryman, is a public high-school student of working-class stock who follows the relatively conventional path taken by Guterson – graduating from college, marrying young and becoming a high school English teacher.

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Guterson made the case for home schooling in Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense (1992) and he doesn’t think parents’ emotional involvement with their children precludes them from being effective teachers. “That’s far less of a problem than what we see in public schools, where there’s no emotional relationship for the most part between most students and most teachers,” he says.

Nor does he believe that it’s important for children to socialise every day with other children their age: “In many institutionalised educational settings there’s a kind of neurotic social engagement that’s competitive and cliquish. It’s not really normal to take a whole lot of people of their own age and just force them to be together all day.”

I think “neurotic social engagement” is a fine counterpoint to “ethically servile.”

UK Education system needs to value informal learning says Futurelab, 18 June 2008, PublicTechnology.net, United Kingdom

Dr Leila Walker, Senior Researcher at Futurelab, comments: “Research indicates that students gain many benefits from participating in learning activities and experiences outside of school, from clubs such as Brownies and Scouts to general social interaction with both peers and adults. Such benefits include higher aspirations, greater self-esteem and specialised knowledge, skills and competencies.  …

Political segregation: The Big Sort, 19 June 2008, Economist, UK

And the home-schooling movement, which has grown rapidly in recent decades, shields more than 1m American children from almost any ideas their parents dislike. Melynda Wortendyke, a devout Christian who teaches all six of her children at her home in Virginia, says she took her eldest out of public kindergarten because she thought the standards there were low, but also because the kids were exposed to a book about lesbian mothers.

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[Bill Bishop, the author of “The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart”] goes too far, however, when he says the “big sort” is “tearing [America] apart”.  American politics may be polarised, but at least no one is coming to blows over it.  “We respect each other’s views,” says Mrs Wortendyke of the few liberals in the home-schooling movement. “We hate each other cordially,” says the liberal Mr Balis.

Six paragraphs about people in favor of homeschooling; fifteen against homeschooling from people who haven’t ever homeschooled; four relatively neutral.  No verbs needed because nothing happened in the article.

Home schooling: Beneficial, or not?, 29 May 2008, Daily Mississippian, Oxford, Mississippi

Think back to your past memories of your classes in school. Remember those group reading lessons, tumbles on the playground during recess, feeding the class pet, lunch breaks with your friends?

What if all of those days at school were spent at home with your family? Would you give up those memories for the chance to be accepted into a better college or to have avoided exposure to peer pressure?

These are reasons why many parents choose home-schooling programs for their children. Because there are currently over 2.4 million students home schooled in the U.S, home schooling is possibly the fastest growing form of education.

The following article at WebMD uses the ‘recent unpleasantness’ in California as its jumping-off point. A glitch for the article is that the decision was vacated and is to be re-heard. Because the decision has no legal force, relying on opinions in the decision nullifies the article opinions based on the decision.

Should Homeschooling be Illegal?, 4 June 2008, Healthy Children, WebMD

The California Court of Appeals recently decided a case which could have a major impact on the legality of homeschooling in California, and perhaps all over the U.S. The ruling involved the statutes that mandate – quite reasonably – that all children in California be taught only by persons with the state teaching credentials to do so.

I don’t think that was the crux of the problem (outside of the alleged abuse within the family). The problem, I believe, is that the family used the Sunland academy, and the academy was supposed to use credentialed teachers. By transferring the teaching to the uncredentialed mother, the private school was not complying with the law about tutoring.

In Re: Rachel L., pages 12 – 13 (bold added)

[footnote] 4 In support of the parents’ home schooling, Terry Neven, Sunland Christian School’s administrator, submitted a letter in which he stated the school is a private school and the two younger children are enrolled there. The letter fails to mention that the children do not actually receive education instruction at the school.

[paragraph in text] However, the parents have not demonstrated that mother has a teaching credential such that the children can be said to be receiving an education from a credentialed tutor. It is clear that the education of the children at their home, whatever the quality of that education, does not qualify for the private full-time day school or credentialed tutor exemptions from compulsory education in a public full-time day school.

California Decision Vacated, 29 April 2008, A to Z Home’s Cool

The appellate court, however, stated in its February opinion that it did not believe that private schools could permit homeschooling. The judges seemed to think that the state legislature had clearly thought about homeschooling when it passed the private school laws and had decided that the only way to teach children at home was under a separate statute about tutoring, which requires a state teaching credential. The court, of course, could not change a law or pass a new law; only the legislature could do that. But it was interpreting the law in an unfavorable way.

The Governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction and all of the statewide homeschool support groups have gone on record as stating that the court’s interpretation was incorrect. The statewide groups were preparing to appeal to the state Supreme Court for help in rectifying the situation, but in late March, the appellate court decided to rehear the case itself.

But now, back to the WebMD opinion: “The ruling involved the statutes that mandate – quite reasonably – that all children in California be taught only by persons with the state teaching credentials to do so.”

What is reasonable is that all children whose education has been delegated to people paid at public expense be taught by credentialed teachers. People who are paid with public funds, who teach other people’s children, and who do so as a public service should be competent. The parents of the children pay to have this done (as do all of us).

The idea, though, that no child should “be taught” by anyone without a credential is un-doable. Taught what? Taught when? Does this rule out mom reading Hop on Pop to a child while pointing out how the words are pronounced? How about Aunt Susan teaching little Madison to knit and telling her how to increase and decrease stitches. Or maybe Uncle Rick explaining to Jordan that when the acidic vinegar saturates the alkaline baking soda that the chemical reaction causes the fizz? Maybe Grandpa Dave drove Angel and Kelly out to a national monument and described the event the monument commemorates. So far the grownups have “taught” the children something about reading, counting, science and history.

Reasonably there is oversight of people paid at public expense who are entrusted by the parents with the safety and well-being of the parents’ children. There is no oversight of the parents by the teachers (other than being mandated reporters of suspected crime, which is another subject).

The WebMD article continues, but taking the entire piece apart would run quite a ways down this blog. Luckily, Dana worked through the part on amateurs and the need to rescue all children from their parents, and Scott at “All in the Family” took on six topics, so I don’t have to mention them.

Still, there are the topics of:

• whether homeschooling parents are “talented”
• “parentectomies” to “allow [children] to transcend their parents’ narrow views and ambitions”
• the s-word
• academic quality
• “lax” states
• “tight regulations”

Some references to touch on those topics:

• Cradles of Eminence
• “Selected Current Citations to Inform Research on the Subject of Homeschooling” from the Ohio Home Education Coalition (OHEC).
• Problems with Legislation to Prevent “Unqualified” Families From Homeschooling
• Research shows teacher qualifications not a variable in student outcomes
• In a Class by Themselves, Nov/Dec 2000, Stanford Magazine
  

This guest post by MaryAnna Cashmore at Tammy Takahashi’s Just Enough and Nothing More can be filed in the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ folder.  Click over to the site to get an explanation of all the contradictions.

Are YOU a Stereotypical Homeschooler?, Just Enough, and Nothing More

Homeschooling has been in the news a lot lately, and this has brought to light the fact that there are quite a few contradictory stereotypes out there regarding homeschoolers. Here are a few that I’ve seen (with maybe also a little artistic license taken by yours truly). But judge for yourself; are YOU a typical homeschooler?

1. All homeschooled kids are brilliant.

2. All homeschooled kids spend all day outside playing.

3. All homeschooled kids are well-mannered.

4. All homeschooled kids are kept at home all day to protect them from evil outside influences.

5. Homeschooling parents are the well-educated, financially elite of the community.

6. Homeschooled families pretend to be educating their children

7. Homeschoolers could be child abusers who are using homeschooling as a ruse

8. Homeschooling parents pressure their kids too much,

9. Homeschooling parents take their kids with them to run errands, use the kids to get chores and farm work done, and then call it all “curriculum,”

10. All homeschoolers are anti-evolution and anti-tolerance.

11. Homeschoolers are maladjusted and anti-social,

12. Homeschooled kids are out to make homeschooling sound like so much fun

13. Homeschooled kids are sort of like the Amish.

14. Homeschoolers are trying to make the statement that they don’t need anyone,

15. Homeschoolers are hippies.

16. Homeschoolers are extremely devout fundamentalists

17. Homeschoolers only associate with each other.

18. Homeschoolers think that homeschooling is the only good educational option,

19. Homeschoolers don’t know anything at all about public school.

20. Kids who are homeschooled have an unfair advantage when it comes to having more time to practice their sports training for competition, musicianship, dancing skills, etc.

I try not to pick on schools, but with the almost constant inclusion of ‘the s-word’ in most mainstream articles about homeschooling, I am amazed at the seemingly willful blindness of what I’ve heard (with my ears) referred to as ‘knocking the corners off’ kids, ie, socialization in school.  Homeschoolers are asked whether their children will be ‘properly socialized.’  If this incident is an example, who the heck wants them to be ‘properly socialized?’

Students vote autistic 5-year-old out of class, 27 May 2008, ParentDish.com

It sounds like somebody has been watching too many reality shows. Namely, Wendy Portillo, a teacher at Morningside Elementary in Port St. Lucie, Florida. She turned her kindergarten classroom into a cruel version of Survivor by allowing her students to vote a fellow student out of the class.

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After returning to Ms. Portillo’s classroom after a recent visit with the principal, his teacher decided to punish him with humiliation. She had Alex stand at the front of the class while his fellow students listed off what they didn’t like about him. After informing him that they found him “disgusting” and “annoying”, the class was instructed to vote on whether or not Alex should be allowed to stay in the class. By a 14 to 2 margin, they voted him out.

Video interview with Alex Barton’s mother.

The state attorney found that there was no evidence of emotional abuse.

I wonder if the teacher is as unaffected by the response to her actions as she expected a child to be?

There are, of course, other aspects to this incident.

• Whose education is paramount?  A group’s, or an individual’s?
• Is classroom disruption a new ‘normal?’
• How can special needs children with behavioral difficulties be best helped while respecting the needs of their classmates?
• Is teacher attitude towards difficult behavior more of a factor than the behavior itself?
• Does the inclusion of special needs children in classrooms after the adequate education of classmates and staff, provide daily instruction in empathy, politeness, and helpfulness for all classmates?

It is one thing to give a child with special needs a normal environment.  It is another thing to expect the child’s behavior to not be a difficulty without adequate education of staff and classmates.  Until large organizations get ‘socialization’ to equal ‘civilization,’ many parents will choose to do it themselves.

Courtesy of Debbie Schwarzer, the legal chair of the HomeSchool Association of California.

What it takes to be a homeschool parent, 1 May 2008, abc7 News, KGO-TV/DT San Francisco, California  (video report)

Homeschooling an option, 29 April 2008, The Justice — The Independent Student Newspaper of Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

There are many ways people homeschool and many types of homeschooling. While there are homeschooling environments that imitate regular schools with strict schedules, in which the parent teaches a set curriculum to his or her children, there also exists a homeschooling method, unschooling, in which children decide what to learn and when to learn it. Unschooling focuses on the learning and education of the individual rather than pushing a curriculum on the children.

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Homeschooling is becoming more popular today due to bad experiences with traditional schools or just because parents think it’s an excellent option for learning. From my experiences I agree with this assessment and would not want to give my future child anything but the best education, which, in my opinion, is homeschooling.

A ping-pong article. The people who homeschool support homeschooling. The experts aren’t so sure about it. Assertion then rebuttal; pick a side. Rinse and repeat.

More children going to school at home, 20 April 2008, Miami Herald, Miami, Florida

… Statewide, more than 55,000 students are home-schooled — a 34 percent increase since 2001 and a remarkable number, experts say, considering that the practice was illegal in Florida a little more than two decades ago.

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Over the past decade, the trend has given rise to a multimillion-dollar industry. Co-ops and support groups abound. Online, virtual support groups and lesson plans are just a click away.

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For years, home education has been a subject of intense criticism. Teachers unions across the country have blasted the practice, saying that parents are underqualified to teach their children.

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Psychologists have also raised concerns about socialization. But Monica Dowling, a child psychologist at the University of Miami, said that educating children at home does not necessarily inhibit social development.

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”Most people think that we don’t have any friends and we don’t get out much,” said Loren Pizarro, 18, a spirited and well-spoken teenager from Davie. “That’s totally not true. We have a lot of fun together.”

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Experts caution that home schooling is not for everyone.