Three Smart Rules for Home School Regulation, by Jay Mathews, an education columnist for The Washington Post, is an article homeschool advocates should read, as it presages an attitude which we’ll likely be seeing more of in the coming weeks and months:
Homeschooling is the sleeping giant of the American education system. There are at least 1.7 million children being taught at home, a rough estimate because good data is hard to find and the number has been growing about 9 percent a year for the last decade.
Home-schooling parents and their concerns don’t show up often in our debates over public schooling. They are too busy getting through the day, both making a living and teaching their children. We will likely hear more from them as they serve a larger and larger portion of the nation’s schoolchildren.
Some public school educators I know are uneasy about this. They don’t know home-schooling families well. They worry those kids are being ill-served by well-meaning but inexperienced parents. There is potential for more battles over regulating home-schooling.
Referring to Robert Kunzman’s new book, “Write These Laws on Your Children,” Mathews writes:
Kunzman admits, however, that political and education leaders in the future may not be so tolerant of what they might see as homeschooling excesses. Anticipating future clashes, he comes up with three rules for regulating homeschooling that he thinks all sides could accept as a way to protect both the families’ freedoms and their children’s futures.
Home-schooling regulations are only justified, Kunzman says, when (1) vital interests of children or society are at stake, (2) there is a general consensus on standards for meeting those interests, and (3) there is an effective way to measure whether those standards are met.
Kunzman offers only one possible regulation that meets all three criteria: he thinks home-schoolers, like regular school children, should be tested for basic skills in reading, writing and math.
Homeschool advocates might want to start sharpening their pencils for what could be increasing attempts to use Kunzman’s book as the catalyst to further increase regulation of homeschooling. For further discussion and commentary you might check out the HEM Networking group or your state or local homeschool support group’s communication network.
HEM
Helen
Tracy
mark
marynix
ann-lahrson-fisher
valerie
sandi
david
I can´t believe that this is happening in US aswell. It´s happening in England right now, and in Sweden the goverment wants to forbid homeschooling. In Germany homeschooling is already forbidden and families suffers threats and fear for authoroties wanting to make them give up homeschooling. And now this? A worldwide wave of mistrusting homeschooling? I hope american homescoolers are many enough to figth it back.
Yeah, Whoever is at the helm seems to miss one important point.
We left the public system and we are not interested in their methods.
We are worse than serious christains.
We do not belong to any church because they all say obey the government.
The bible is more about government than silly rituals that accomplish nothing.
Kennedy overestimated himself when trying to eliminate the money changers and was killed, Lincoln tried and hmmm a bullet found his head also, Jesus .he turned over the tables and He got nailed up too any time anyone messes with the bankers they get hurt.
We sill people get all hung up on political parties while the bankers sit back and reap.
Why do we not see it is the ones who create the money hat rule, its not bush or ohbama these guys are bought and paid for.
follow the money.
The government owns us!!! Unless we say no thank you.
kevin
This continues to be a very pressing issue. Yet, for all of the opposition’s shrillness, they can not dispute the efficacy of homeschooling academically. Homeschoolers beat the socks off the national average ACT test scores.
http://www.examiner.com/x-8274-San-Diego-Christian-Examiner~y2009m8d29-Homeschoolers-score-higher-than-national-average-on-ACT
I am a single mother who was finally able to homeschool thanks to a public cyber school here in PA called Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School. They use K12 curriculum, and it works great for my situation. http://www.k12.com It is free, because it is techincally still public school, but I get to see directly what my children are learning, and talk to them about lessons that contradict our values and beliefs. My children do spelling, literature, language skills, and handrwriting during the day at the babysitter, and we cover history, science, math, music, and art in the evenings when I am home with them. I have to pay $500 a month out of my own pocket for childcare, but that is a small price to pay for the well-being of my children.