Court Case Home Education Magazine – Helen, Idoni.

Based on a short news item posted at the Home Education Magazine website in August, 2010, publisher Helen Hegener is involved in a lawsuit which was filed against homeschooling mother Heather Idoni, owner of Beloved Books, editor of The Homeschool Notebook, and manager of EasyFunSchool.com, brought against her by Mimi Rothschild, Howard Mandel, and Learning by Grace, Inc.

As part of Home Education Magazine’s 28-year-long commitment to keeping the homeschool community informed, the files and information on Learning By Grace, Inc. et al. v. Idoni are presented at this case-specific page.

Comments on the case are welcome, but Learning By Grace, Inc., et al. v. Idoni is an active defamation suit. Be truthful, respectful and please don’t spam.

No links or email addresses are allowed here do to legal issues. All comment links are no follow.

The National Charter School Watch discussion group (NCSW) is assessing the state of things six years after its founding by homeschooling mom Annette Jurczak in June, 2004. The group’s description explains in part:

We welcome those seeking information about charter school issues in their states and nationally, as well as those sharing information about charter schools. Objective discussion focused on the *issues* at hand and in the service of better understanding these issues, is welcome.

The discussion group’s membership consists of charter schoolers, virtual schoolers, homeschoolers and advocates of homeschooling. Annette posted on July 11:

“Much time has passed since this group was started, and much has changed over the years. So what are your thoughts? What have you learned as it relates to hsing and ps at home programs over the years? Do you think hsing is being negatively impacted? Do you think there has been any loss of homeschooling freedoms? Have your attitudes and opinions changed and if so, how?”

Join the group at the link above and join the discussion beginning with Annette’s July 11 post.

Interesting article about homeschool numbers and factors in homeschooling, from Oregon:

Douglas County boasted 727 homeschoolers last year, according to the Douglas Education Service District, which serves as a checkpoint for families registering each child’s exit from a school district.

After a boom several years ago, the number of students in homeschooling locally has plateaued, Shirley Pasley, the Douglas ESD’s secretary of student achievement, said Friday.

“It’s been pretty stable for a while,” she said. “Basically, it’s those parents that are going to continue doing it … there are some that do it for a while and then realize it’s pretty tough.”

Homeschool parents say each family has been affected differently by the economic downturn. Some have had to end their homeschooling as mothers returned to the job force to supplement the family income.

The county had the eighth-largest homeschool population in Oregon in 2008-09, according to the Oregon Department of Education. The ODE reported 19,070 students registered as homeschoolers that year.

Read the rest of this lengthy article at the link above

In a poorly spelled article (See: What’s in a Name HEM May-June 2010) on the Wenatchee World’s site (WA) the concern with blurring the lines between homeschooling and public schooling-at-home comes into clear focus:

Home-school definition, identity blurs with new programs

There’s more than one way to learn at home, but not all of it is home school.

Home school families say they’re trying to make that distinction clear as more students flock to alternative programs — online schools or school-sponsored programs where students stay at home.

The worry is that if these public school programs are widely accepted as home school, then independent home school will be assimilated under government control. They see the blurring of the lines as a threat to their independence.

The difference is who is ultimately responsible for the child’s education: The parent, or the state.

~~~
“When public schools, ALE [Alternative Learning Experience] administrators and parents call what they do home schooling and home-schoolers don’t respectfully speak up about the difference, we allow that redefining, graying and ongoing lack of distiction between public school and home schooling,” she [Janice Hedin] said. “Ultimately home-schooling will only be allowed through government home-at-school programs.”

Beyond the distinctiveness issue, of great interest:

T[he] issue came to a head in February when the House Ways and Means Committee proposed cutting all funding to elementary ALE programs, including online school, kindergarten to sixth grade.

Rep. Pat Sullivan, D-Covington, said the proposal was based on a 2004 study that said most ALE students would home school if their program were cut. State education officials say they do not know how many current ALE students came from a home-school background.

Read the article here.

This article from Wenatchee WA about school funding uses the term ‘homeschool’ very loosely.

The enrollment war is troublesome for districts trying to plan their yearly budgets. Methow Valley School District started the year with a $60,000 deficit because 15 homeschool families unexpectedly transferred out, said Superintendent Mark Wenzel.

The school district offered its homeschool students local support and oversight from teachers, plus a $300 stipend for curriculum materials. An online provider out-bid the district with a $2,200 a year stipend. About half of Methow Valley’s homeschool population transferred out.

Homeschoolers save the state and taxpayers money.

If you are interested in school funding woes in the face of online schools read about it here.

If you want to understand while I harp on ‘public-school-at-home’ being misrepresented as ‘homeschooling’, read that here.

It is tempting to just give this the Worst Headline award, but it is only Thursday morning:

Homeschool parents seek charter school in Medford

A group of parents who homeschool their children submitted an application today to found a public charter school for homeschoolers in the Medford School District.

Logos Charter School organizers say they want the K-12 school to serve as a guidance and resource center for parents and to allow homeschoolers to earn regular diplomas from the Medford district rather than GEDs.

~~~
The curriculum would be based on state standards, and students would be required to take the same state and local academic assessments that other Medford pupils have to take.

I can not address this group of parents’ decision to engage with public schooling. I do make the judgement that if you enroll in a Charter School and “curriculum would be based on state standards, and students would be required to take the same state and local academic assessments that other Medford pupils”, this is public schooling. Please don’t call it homeschooling.

Read the short article here. I hope we learn more.

A lot of issues come to the fore in this piece, which as I read, is at the top of the site’s “Most Viewed Stories” list ahead of ISU beating Nebraska, a plane crash, and a shooting of a mountain lion. That is interesting in itself.

Some excerpts from the piece that caught my eye:

Legislative leaders created “home-school assistance programs” two decades ago to keep the government’s foot in the door of what was then a controversial form of education.

Most of Iowa’s estimated 30,000 home-schooled students do not want the help. They believe the government has no place in their schools. But nearly 5,000 parents, including Fidei’s mother, appreciate the assistance.

~~~

“I think some people mistakenly think if there are no home-school assistance programs these children would come back to public schools, and that’s just not true,” said Mid-Prairie Superintendent Mark Schneider.

~~~

Home-schooled students who receive taxpayer support are not required to take standardized tests, like their public school counterparts.

The children also are not considered public school students in the eyes of the law, which sets Iowa apart from other states.

“We believe that home-schooling works best when parents are truly in charge,” [Scott] Woodruff said. “The defect of the home-school assistance program is that the public school is, in fact, in charge.”

That distinction has driven a wedge between Iowa’s “public” home-schoolers and their private counterparts.

Read the article here.

Ohio’s educational dilemma Times-Gazette 4/30/2009
Jim Surber

Of course, parents should have the choice to home-school, or send their children to public or charter schools.

The problem, as usual, comes down to money. All property owners (and renters indirectly) in Ohio, pay for public education through real estate taxes.

The remaining cost is paid by the state, again with tax dollars. The tough question is, should taxpayers’ money continue to be used to fund non-public educational institutions, many of which are operated for profit?

As I understand it, Ohio charter schools (on-line or not) are public schools.  (He was corrected in comments.)

Homeschooling is another alternative, except the parents oversee and are accountable for their child’s education.  Big difference, and it has been a huge controversy in and out of the Ohio homeschooling community.

He finished with this:

The governor’s proposal will require an answer by Ohio’s politicians to a difficult question: Shall taxpayers continue to fund private educational institutions, fully fund only those that are a part of the public system, or continue to fund both with higher taxes and less reform?

Are taxpayers funding private educational institutions?  I understood that private corporations were receiving a great amount of taxpayer funding, but it was done through the public educational institutions.

Mary Nix did a little research in Ohio and responded to a Times-Gazette article in her post last summer.

Funding losses are not Ohio homeschooler’s fault…..- The Informed Parent

It was reported locally that the administrator’s comments followed a remark about the loss of funding to private schools and home educators. Perhaps the local public school administrator is confusing those enrolled in a public virtual school with home educators? He or she wouldn’t be the first. Except for tax dollars paid by the parents of home educated children, Ohio home educators do not bring money into a district, nor do they take money away from it. They simply happen to live in the district. However, public e-schoolers who live in the district and are enrolled in a statewide e-school that originates somewhere else in the state or country do require local funds to leave a district.

Reading Mary’s clarifications at The Informed Parent and Valerie Bonham Moon’s post here (Public school administrator wants newspaper exposé of homeschooling), concerning the Times-Gazette publisher’s piece (In Defense of Homeschoolers),  it’s apparent that Ohio schools are in an unfortunate mishmash of inappropriate name calling.

Public School Programs Are Not Homeschooling- Alaskan Helen Hegener:  Home Education Magazine Editor’s Blog

Around this same time a whole new class of public school programs, often delivered directly into the home, gained acceptance and began increasingly targeting homeschooling families. These programs came under many descriptive terms such as charter schools, cyber schools, cyber-charters, eschools, Independent Study Programs (ISPs), dual enrollment programs, Blended Schools Programs (BSPs), Programs for Non-Public Students (PNPS), Public School Alternative Programs (PSAPs), virtual schools, community schools and various other names. But these public school programs also came with public school regulations, which imposed testing and accountability requirements in alignment with national education goals and standards.

Hat tip to Susan of Taffie.

More Students Hitting the Books Online. 21 August 2008, Las Vegas Now, Las Vegas, Nevada

Thousands of valley children head back to the classroom on Monday, but for a growing number of Nevada students, that trek takes them no farther than their own living room. Thanks to the internet and new online learning programs, the mystery and stigma surrounding home-school is quickly disappearing.

Until recently, parents choosing to home school their children felt isolated — alone not only in their belief that it would be a better choice for their family, but also because there were precious few resources to help them. But that’s not the case anymore.

In which century was this piece written? 

“Mystery?” 

Results 1 – 10 of about 9,050,000 for homeschooling

“Stigma?”

Results 1 – 10 of about 133,000 for colleges admit homeschoolers

“Isolated?”

Results 1 – 10 of about 478,000 for homeschool support

“Precious few resources?”

Results 1 – 10 of about 718,000 for homeschool curriculum

How hard was all that?

As for “NCA,” well, it seems that active marketing of services is accepted by state bureaucracies everywhere.

The following article popped up because of the inclusion of one of the subjects of the article having homeschooled her kids. Otherwise, the article isn’t about homeschooling, but focuses on telling prospective employees how to implement online school programs. I’d say ‘teacher training,’ but I’m grumpy about mystiques lately.
(and it’s not just ‘teachers,’ the ‘homeschool mystique’ makes me grumble, as well, and don’t even get me started thinking about the power structure between medical people and ‘patients’ — the dental floss company I use refers to me as a “patient,” for crying out loud)

Teachers Go to School on Online Instruction, 11 August 2008, Education Week News, Bethesda, Maryland

A university professor who put her retirement on hold to become part of a new approach to education. A former teacher returning to her passion after home-schooling her children. A classroom veteran deciding to work at home so her child could attend half-day kindergarten.

Those educators were among more than 800 teachers, from 23 states, who gathered at a swanky conference center here last week with the goal of sharpening the skills they will need to teach this fall at schools partnering with the online education provider K12 Inc.

I don’t think I’d have blogged the piece if I hadn’t read the article and seen:

A session of about 50 elementary-grade teachers spent an hour rehearsing the initial telephone call that an online teacher must make to speak with the parent of each student. The presenter of the session told teachers to be diplomatic in setting ground rules for home instruction and to avoid seeming to read from a script. She advised them how to disarm parents who raised various procedural objections.

That just makes for a bad taste, although I know it’s SOP from an organizational standpoint. Manipulating the customer is status quo.

I suppose part of my reaction to this was primed by another website I read earlier today. On an email list, a mother wrote in to ask whether anyone else had accessed a limited-availability web link in order to received a free text. I was intrigued by the concept, and clicked. I found that the blog offered a variety of materials, some new, some old, but only for a single day. I wondered what the ‘gimmick’ was and continued clicking.

In the FAQ, the site’s writers advised that people taking advantage of the free “homeschool” materials (there’s that mystique thing again) were not allowed to share them with others. I read through the various entries and noticed that a number of the materials were ones I knew were in the public domain. If materials are in the public domain, they are copyright-free. You can share them with the entire town and the outlying counties for all anyone cares. I searched for some of the titles, and found them freely available — you just have to know to look for them.

• George Washington’s Rules of Civility
• Aunt Mary’s Primer
• Grammar Land
• The Nest in the Honeysuckles

I suppose rather than putting a copyright notice on the free texts that are still under copyright, it is easier to have a blanket prohibition against sharing any of the materials, and to limit availability at the site to create perceived scarcity. It’s also a way to get repeat ‘customers.’

In reference to the blog, offering links to materials is a service to people looking for interesting stuff. I think that’s a good thing. Saying that no one other than you can share public domain materials is selfishly disingenuous.

In reference to the training article, providing a paid-for service to parents who want to have their children learn at home is a good thing. Setting up the parents, aka ‘learning coaches,’ to be second bananas in their own homes is a power play. Yes, it’s probably the price of using a publicly-funded program, but the precedent leaves me queasy. Compulsory attendance laws followed the popular use of schools [page 3, footnote 4]. Publicly-funded “Pre-K” is following the popular use of day schools for little kids. What will follow the popular use of in-home publicly-funded education programs?

I ignored the free materials site earlier today, and then I almost ignored the article about training employees of online public school programs. Individually, they were ho-hum. Together, the micro-trend niggled. I hereby release my inner niggle.