We are watching here as well. The Lauren Davis match was the best match I have seen in a long time.

I think the difference between Jamaica and the inner cities in the US are that many times in Jamaica, the tourists are specifically targeted. In the inner cities, most of the murder rates are the result of violence among the residents of those inner cities. My H and I went to Jamaica over 20 years ago. Even back then, we were advised not to leave the resort because foreigners were often the target of kidnapping or other violent crimes. Jamaica is beautiful, but we won't be going back.

I think you would have an extremely difficult time finding enough qualified instructors to offer the type of learning experience you are suggesting. I think one of the reasons that most of the foreign language textbooks in the US are written in English is because the instructors would also have a difficult time working in a text that was written mainly in the foreign language. Many of the schools in the US are struggling getting all of its graduates to be fluent in English. Learning a second language is extremely low on the priority list.

I think it is extremely difficult to learn to speak a foreign language if you don't have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the language. Immersion is much easier in Europe when many times you can drive a few hours to another country to get that immersion experience. Here in the US, especially in the rural Midwest, the chances of running into someone fluent in a foreign language are extremely slim.

I agree. When my kids were younger, I took them to the doctor when it was time for an immunization shot or they were sick. I did not take them in for a yearly "well check." Two of my kids would go years in between doctor visits.

I was looking into their calc-based physics classes a few years ago. I decided against it mainly due to the cost and instead use MIT OCW. I do know someone else who did have her kiddo take physics with SOHS and had a great experience. The instructor was excellent. This was a few years ago now,though.

Yes, but in the grand scheme of things it is not that expensive - usually about $25 per child. However, my state permits me to substitute standardized test scores for the evaluation if I would rather go that route. Beginning in middle school, my kids take the PSAT at my public school to satisfy the yearly homeschool requirement.

This is how it works in my state, too. I would have an issue with this regulation if we didn't get to choose the evaluator because we could potentially have to deal with someone on a power trip or bias against homeschoolers. As it is, if I didn't like the evaluator, I would simply hire another one that shared my same philosophy.

A similar thing happened to me. My kids were accused of being truant, but I did have proof of sending in my paperwork: There was a long pause on the other end of the line when I asked the truant officer for his fax number so I could send him a copy of the letter that his office had sent me when they had received my paperwork. He then told me that faxing the letter would not be necessary and I never heard from him again. I now send my yearly info certified mail.

What type of standards to the athletes have to meet? Is there a certain benchmark that they have to reach on a standardized test or something along those lines? Are there certain classes they have to take? In my state, the kids have to maintain a certain gpa to be eligible to compete, but each school gets to determine its grading criteria. Homeschoolers can also participate on the public school team without submitting any grades to anyone. So my state athletic association requires a certain a certain gpa, but nothing that would be standard for all kids across all the various schools.

When other posters have said that their state doesn't supervise private schools, I wonder if they are only speaking about the educational component while you are including the building and fire code compliance as well? The private schools in my state are not supervised by the state board of education - they are supervised by the parents who are paying the tuition. In order to stay in business, they have to provide a quality education or the parents will enroll their kids elsewhere. Now these schools still have to pass various building inspections, but these inspections are not conducted by the state board of education. Other government agencies are responsible to ensure the physical structure is in compliance with state laws.

Can you get a copy of the test and review the answers that were missed? I tutor quite a few students to help them prepare for the SAT. Here is a list of issues that I commonly see: 1. The student has trouble with the non-calculator section. Typically, these students have been using a calculator in their classes since elementary school and have a difficult time arriving at an answer without the aid of a calculator. 2. The student doesn't read the question carefully enough. The math on the new SAT requires quite a bit of reading. I have quite a few students who can perform the math, but misread the question. 3. Careless mistakes. The most common one I see is forgetting a negative sign somewhere.

Is there any evidence that high regulation states have better educational outcomes or less cases of child abuse?

My state has the following regulations: Each year, a homeschooling family has to file a letter of intent, yearly test results or evaluation results conducted by a certified teacher, textbook list, and a signed statement that the students will be taught subjects as outlined by the state. However, I don't think any of this helps me better educate my kids, nor would it prevent anyone from abusing their kids. The only benefit I can see is that when a person who is clueless about homeschooling asks how I am qualified to teach my kids, I tell them that I have to submit information yearly to the state in order to homeschool. Thinking that information is submitted to the state every year reassures these individuals that my kids are getting an acceptable education. The reality is that these regulations do nothing to ensure that I am actually educating my kids.

We had never had a problem with them until this fall. This fall, there were swarms of them on all of our window screens. Some of them were getting into the house just from all of us opening up the doors. I read that they don't like the smell of dryer sheets. I rubbed dryer sheets all over my window screens and within a few hours, the swarms had left. I also read that if you leave a wet towel our over night, that the bugs congregate on the towel and then you just throw the towel away. I didn't try that since the dryer sheet worked, but I would have tried that if we would have had a problem with them in the house rather than just on the outside screens.

I feel that both a scheduled and unscheduled visit would violate my constitutional rights because there would not be reasonable cause for search in either situation.

For those of you in favor of requiring a yearly home inspection in order to homeschool, how would that work? Would the visit have to be scheduled in advance, or could the authorities arrive at your door-step unannounced? Who would conduct the inspection? Under what circumstances would a family fail the home inspection? What happens if the family fails? Do they have to stop homeschooling? Is there an appeal process?

Would that be in violation of the 4th amendment?

According to the statistics cited in the Washington Post article, the majority of abused kids are NOT homeschooled. Why should homeschooling be outlawed when the public school system isn't able to prevent these situations either? We would all like to find a way to prevent child abuse. More regulations or outlawing homeschooling are not the answers.

You can definitely self-study for APs. There is a lot of material available to the student who wants to self-study without taking an actual class. The exams are given the first two weeks in May, with make-up dates for each exam later in the month.

From the article: “We’ve seen so many cases that for us, the Turpin case is not that abnormal,†Coleman said. “It fits this pattern we’ve been tracking for a long time.†To be sure, she said, the vast majority of home-schooled children have parents who create a warm environment at home and provide a fine education. She was happily home schooled, as were other staff members of her organization. The California case, she said, is “not the norm.†But, she said, the lack of regulation and enforcement by states allows home-schooling parents who abuse their children to hide them. While children who attend regular schools are abused too, research shows that home schoolers account for a disproportionate number of abused children. A 2014 study by University of Wisconsin pediatrician Barbara Knox and colleagues found that in 38 cases of severe child abuse, 47 percent of parents had never enrolled their children in school or pulled their youngsters out when abuse was suspected and told authorities they were home schooling. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that 3.3 percent of U.S. students, ages 5 to 17, or about 1.7 million, were home schooled in 2016." The author of this article doesn't think that starving and chaining your kids to furniture is not that abnormal? What "pattern have they been tracking for a long time?" The author's own cited statistics don't support her assertion that homeschoolers account for a disproportionate amount of abuse cases. The University of Wisconsin study found that the majority of the kids in the study they researched were NOT homeschooled. The majority of the kids were enrolled in traditional school yet were still abused. Regulations didn't help these kids, so why do some people think that more regulations will help prevent these abuses in the homeschooling community?

I agree. I would be surprised if any homeschool in CA has been inspected this year by a fire department, even though the law specifies that an inspection must be completed. I don't think more regulations will prevent these types of tragic events from happening. The states simply don't have the manpower to enforce them and the abusers will always find a way to fly under the radar.

So it looks like the state dropped the ball by not following the law already on the books. It would be interesting to see if any private schools/home schools in the state have been inspected as required by law. I would not want to be the fire marshal right about now

Arctic Mama, Since you are new to the state, I want to make sure that you know that you don't have to keep attendance logs, charts,etc. If you go the portfolio route, you should keep a few samples of your kids' work from the beginning, middle, and end of the year. You do not have to assign a letter grade. If you decide to go the route of standardized testing, you don't have to keep any of your kids' work. Fwiw, once my kids hit middle school, I opt for the standardized testing. I don't send in a copy of the official test results, I just type up a document in Word stating the composite score and send that in with my curricula list for the upcoming year. Good luck homeschooling in Ohio!

Wow, I had no idea, either. Here is a blurb from a recent article: Yet, across the country, 2 in 5 high schools don't offer physics, according to an Education Week Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Education's office for civil rights. The numbers are worse in some states than others: In both Alaska and Oklahoma, about 70 percent of high schools don't offer the course. Florida and Utah are close behind, with nearly 60 percent of high schools lacking physics. Iowa, New Hampshire, and Maine do much better, with only about 15 percent of schools not offering the subject. A closer look shows that the problem is associated with school size: Nationally, the high schools that offer physics have an average of about 880 students. Those that don't offer it enroll an average of just 270 students. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/08/24/2-in-5-high-schools-dont-offer.html There is a map at the bottom of the article that I can't paste. Some of the numbers illustrate the different experiences of Creekland and Heigh Ho: 24 % of high schools in PA don't offer physics, while 46 % of high schools don't offer it in NY. I am shocked that the percentage is so high for NY. 37% of high schools in Georgia don't offer physics.