» News
The Freedom to Homeschool
“It’s a free country.” You used to hear that a lot. Mind if I have the last piece of pie?“It’s a free country.” Mind if I smoke? “It’s a free country.”
Too bad it has receded from everyday lingo, replaced by the ubiquitous, meaningless, “Whatever.” Something has been lost. “It’s a free country” was more than just whatever, it was, “Yeah, I mind. But I ain’t gonna stop you.” Isn’t that where the rubber hits the road in a truly free society?
My wife homeschools our oldest daughter. We are among the relatively few American families to exercise this freedom. According to the National Home Education Research Institute, only about 2 million of the roughly 55 million school-age students in the United States are educated in the home. While we do it for mostly personal reasons, we are keenly aware that the practice is viewed by many (if not most) as a political act. As such, it is a contingent and precarious freedom. A sudden shift in the political atmosphere could imperil our right to educate our children at home. Gun owners have known this feeling for a long time. The Catholic Church became familiar with it recently.
Maudie N Mandeville
August 19th, 2012
“The minimal standard will include academic benchmarks as well as an assurance that children are exposed to and engaged with ideas, values, and beliefs that are different from those of the parents.”
How about ‘ideas, values, and beliefs that are different from those of the professors’? Now THAT would be ‘guarding against indoctrination’!!
Corky
August 19th, 2012
Funny, I used to think (20 years ago) that homeschooling was something “liberals” did. Now, I think it is becoming more and more necessary for conservatives. This is one more issue that we need to keep our eye on and not allow it to get steamrolled out of existence.
Nutjob
August 19th, 2012
I foresee this getting shutdown in the near future with the left using religion, non diversity, and intolerance as a legal loophole.
That or they’ll mandate that the kids have to be taught by a certified union teacher.
obfusecatenot
August 19th, 2012
We pulled our kids out of P.S. because of the bullies. The Unions and the District-the grown-ups are the REAL bullies who refuse to do their jobs and are gleefully speeding the U.S. Educational system to the bottom! Constantly “changing” and shifting procedures and policies so NOTHING can be tracked or evaluated. Look at the lack of actual teaching going on! My daughter attends college with a Palestinian who is a whiz at fooz ball-she casually asks how’d you get so good? This was my sport because in school we couldn’t go outside to play because of the tanks. No P.E., kinda like here but not, because he actually did something! The excuses need to stop! The teachers with a conscience just look at you and say,” there’s nothing we can do…..”, which means….(we’ve already sold our souls to the union devil).
Maudie N Mandeville
August 19th, 2012
The problem isn’t just teachers. It’s parent(s) too. A child should be tested before being allowed into 1st grade and if they don’t know their abc’s and can’t read ‘Dick and Jane’, they should be shipped over to the stupid school where NEA teachers don’t teach them (just like their parent(s)) and can’t discipline them (because of the parent(s)).
Note to stupid parent(s): If you had stayed in school, gotten married before sex, taken your child to the free library for 6 years, kept the TV off and the rap station, sat down with your child on the sofa and looked at the pictures and made up a story if you can’t read yourself, sat at the kitchen table helping them to write their abc’s,
your stupid misbehaving kid wouldn’t be over at the
‘Stupid School for Stupid Misbehaving Children’.
Genl Ripper
August 19th, 2012
Maude Near North Causeway Boulevard – damn straight sister! And their chirren wouldn’t need to come home on the Short Bus neither!