I think a smart tv is a horrible idea. Given how expensive they are, I want a tv to last ten, twenty years. Are Hulu, Netflix, Amazon streaming all going to work in ten years on a ten year old TV? I doubt it. Is there going to be some new service that you'll want that won't work on an old TV? I'm sure there will be. Now that we have things like Chrome keys and the like, which cost less than $50, I'd rather buy a new one of those every few years, and plug it into my "dumb tv", than rely on a single, integrated device.

In this article the New York times talks about how high school guidance counselors have, on average across the nation, 478 students! Some admit to reusing the same text for letters of recommendation over and over for many students, just changing the name of the student. So, for those stressed about performing the role of counselors for their college-bound students, I'm sure that I can do a better job with no experience, and plenty of hours to apply to the task; than an expert, who could just allocate one or two hours per student.

I would try to read between the lines a bit. If the subject tests aren't recommended at all for non-homeschoolers, it sounds like they are just trying to see external validation of grades. If you can show that in other ways, say, from DE, outside classes, etc., I would think that the subject tests aren't that mandatory, and go ahead and apply.

The "weeder class" may not need to fail a student in order to weed them out. I was talking with an instructor at our local Big State U, who teaches one of the weeder classes for a particular major. At this school, students are admitted to the school without regard for intended major. However, there are four to five times as many students interested in her major than the school has capacity to teach to graduation. This school's solution is to require a GPA of 3.5 in four introductory classes in order to be accepted into the major. The instructors have been told to grade such that only the top quarter or so of their students make this GPA. While this may seem draconian at first blush, after thinking about the problem, it does seem like the most fair solution -- to accept students into the major based on college level work done at that college, not based on high school work or other factors they may have difficulty assessing. So, in some cases, not only is the administration aware of the weeder classes, but was instrumental in their creation.

The NLE intro exam covers less than a half a year of high school Latin, (and way too much culture/history, but that's just my opinion). Taking three years to cover something that could be covered in half a year later strikes me as a waste of time, when the child could be reading, studying science, or playing in a ditch. Again and again, I see Moms here whose students are burned out on Latin by ninth grade, having taking intro upon intro, and never gotten to the good stuff. And don't just trust what I have to say, but consider this quote from the Lukeion folks, who have forgotten more about classics than I'll ever learn:

I think the "baby steps to Latin" approach just wastes a ton of time that could be spent usefully doing all kinds of other age-appropriate stuff. All of the elementary age Latin programs take years and years to cover what a few weeks of high school Latin covers. So, my approach is 1) Wait until 7th or 8th grade, when they are ready to study Latin seriously, at a serious pace. 2) Start a high school level program then, with something like LNM or Wheelock.

In this case, there was just one powerpoint talk assigned, so any feedback from the talk (which was a large part of the whole grade) is probably not useful for, say, a multiple choice final exam. My guess is the instructor is an overscheduled adjunct who doesn't have nearly enough time to grade all of his assignments in any meaningful way, and who provides minimal feedback on them anyway. It would be interesting to know who many classes he is teaching, and at how many institutions.

Clearly, this is unprofessional and horrible pedagogy, and worth bringing up with the administration. My bigger concern would be the quality of grading. If a big part of the grade for the class is a live presentation, shouldn't that be graded immediately after the talk is given? If he hasn't given a grade for the talk, it is probably because he hasn't graded it. How can you possibly give a fair grade to a talk weeks and weeks after it is given, especially if you have to do a whole classful of them? Maybe your fear (hope?) that your dd is being confused with someone else isn't so off the mark. However, I don't entirely understand what she would do differently if she had gotten the grades on time, to "remedy the situation". Consider just the PowerPoint presentation. Let's say she knew the grade was a "C" immediately after she finished giving the talk. What would she do to "remedy" the grade? If this is the only talk, there's nothing to be learned by a grade that would help a future talk. Or, conversely, if she had gotten an 'A'.

Lots of good info here: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/531947-ticket-to-ride-board-game/

A rough budget would be useful, but my Mom loves the Oxo "good grips" kitchen tools, as they are much easier for her to use as she gets older, and they are a kind of "little luxury" she'd never buy for herself.

It is easy to come up with subject after subject that should be required, but at the end of the day, you need to make a reasonable schedule. I'd ask your brother, if programming should be required in 9th grade, what subject would you drop to fit it in? I don't think there's much argument that a 9th grade schedule should have math, science, english, history, foreign language, fine art and some PE, and maybe an elective. There's a full day right there.

If your thesis is that the classics are completely wholesome, with no shock or questionable substance, you might want to re-visit Homer and Shakespeare.

So... 6 credits per quarter, and 3 (4 ?) quarters per year would yield enough credits to graduate in two years. To me, that sounds like a full time load for an MA/MS, and I wouldn't be at all surprised for a full time graduate student in any number of fields to have 40-60 hours a week of work.

I can't wrap my mind around half-quarter terms, but maybe a better way to slice the pie is to think about full time vs. part time. Are you a full time student, expecting to finish your degree "on schedule"? If so, it would not be unreasonable to assume at least 40-60 hours a week for all activities. Are you half time? Maybe half that much is reasonable.

It varies way too much. Are you talking about a terminal masters? A professional program? A research degree? On one end of the spectrum, I've heard from education students, who have trivial amounts of coursework e.g.: read 100 picture books in the course of a semester. My friend who earned her Spanish Language MA had to read some like 100 spanish-language novels. Executive MBA programs may have work ranging from about the same as undergraduate to several times more, but are designed to co-exist with a 40 hour workweek. I've seen MFA students never leave their studio for weeks on end. And if you doing real research, or fieldwork, it can be all-consuming for an unending amount of time.

Isn't this more true for Science and Math fields than others, though? Take the French example -- clearly, a very experienced, and perhaps native French speaker is going to be the best person to teach someone French. But what does it mean to be doing "active research" in the field of French grammar and vocabulary?

For $47k a year, I'm going to want experts to teach. And there's been lots of times in my education where it was very useful to have a teacher who knew more than the class covered. One who could say things like "We're learning X now, but it's really just a simplification of something else which you'll get to later".

Note that this is surely a production licensed from the original copyright owners, and all the jokes and text come from them. In fact, it may violate the licensing agreement for the school to change any of the text. A quick google search shows that the homeschool joke appears in the broadway version.

I think many colleges focus on covering their assets (ahem), and minimizing legal liability, rather than doing the right thing. I know of several that enforce dry campuses very strictly, but know very well that underage drinking happens all the time at frat parties and other off campus events. They turn a blind eye as long as the legal liability falls elsewhere.

If the schools in question require supplemental essays, there may be some hard decisions about whether time is better spent honing existing essays, or writing a new one for a new school. From the perspective of the college, I have no idea how they are able to manage their yields effectively.

If you think there's a good likelyhood to switch to Lukeion halfway through, it's going to be a lot easier if you start with Wheelock. The order of grammar in Henle is a bit different, and the vocab is a lot different, so switching books is going to be more work than you might think.

First, I'd spend some time fiddling with skype and your camera to make sure that the lighting is good, the camera isn't looking up her nose, and the background isn't too distracting. Then, especially if she hasn't interviewed before, and if she's willing, I'd role play some typical interview questions with her. Nothing too difficult, just so she gets some experience with the process. And if she's really game, I think it would be useful to role play with her as the interviewer, and you as the potential college student.

Is he getting enough sleep? Just recently, mine started to need a lot more sleep, and if that doesn't happen, well, all of a sudden, I've got a different kid.

Keep at it! Language acquisition is a lot of work. Also, I think that a lot of monolingual Americans use the term "fluent" a bit too casually. I like the levels that the Europeans use when measuring language learning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages Perhaps you would feel better about your progress if, instead of measuring it against the mountain of "fluency", measured against these more intermediate goals?

If the font can be added to e-readers, it might be easy to switch all books on the device to use the font, it could be an enormous benefit, and very practically useful.