I was rather impressed with this article What Does 'Back to School' Mean for Home-Schoolers? by ABC News. It looks at ways that homeschoolers are dealing with going back to school, the students views on it, how homeschoolers are dealing with some of the criticisms toward homeschooling, and how more and more people are approaching it. I wish these kinds of resources existed when we had started. Since my mother was the first in our community to do it, i guess that that's not so surprising.
Some thoughts about homeschooling...
Public schools receive a certain amount (of money) for each student each day that that student is in school. That goes to paying for books, teachers, salaries, buildings, testing, etc. Why couldn't a percentage of that money go to the parents of homeschoolers to help them pay for school materials and the cost to them to teach their kids at home? Those parents still pay property tax that goes to pay for their child's education, and when the children aren't in public school the money that would be used to pay for their child's education doesn't go to the education system at all. So why shouldn't parents be able to utilize some of that money to improve their own children's education, while some of that money still being used to help the education system provide resources for the parents (ie gymnasium, playground, testing, etc.)? This would give the schools more incentive to help the parents rather than feeling like they are getting screwed out of the money that they need to run the schools. Both sides win and hopefully begin to be willing to cooperate more.
Also, as a therapist working with court ordered youth in an inpatient psychiatric facility, it greatly concerns me when i hear about "homeschooled" kids that aren't really being taught anything. I think that homeschoolers should have to have the same required testing as public school children. To have parents say, "I'm homeschooling my children" and then just letting their kids do whatever they want just doesn't work. It puts a bad taste in people's mouths about homeschoolers in general even when they are doing a good job, and is personally insulting to me as someone who was homeschooled for part of their education (4th - 8th grades). Well, that's more than enough for that rant.
Good article by the way.
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3 comments:
Point taken Mike
The reality though, is that if the parents would be buying textbooks that promote nazism, they are integrating that into all aspects of their kids lives.
I tried to respond to this earlier and could not clearly finish the post due to feeling very upset and insulted. So i will say this once and only once. NO ONE ON THIS BLOG IS OR WILL BE SUPPORTING NAZISM!!! And quite frankly Mike, i'm a little insulted that YOU made such a comment.
Understand all, i am not one to delete a comment because i don't agree with what the person said, but if i ever, ever find a post supporting Nazism here it will be immediately deleted with no appologies or regrets whatsoever! Do i make myself clear!?!
Mike, i appologise for snapping at you. I know that your intent was not to say that i was a Nazi or supported Nazi beliefs.
I understand your point and where you were trying to go with it. In a sense i agree with you, and in a sense i don't. I won't go into it and would rather let sleeping dogs lie.
By the way Mike, when are you going to get the option to let anonymous posters to post on your blog?
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