I'm not sure I agree with the above. I mean, today in the US it isn't as rigorous, but there's no reason it couldn't be just as rigorous as engineering, maybe even more so. For example, consider teaching third grade math word problems. Sure, being able to do the problems yourself, as an adult, is straightforward. But if the student isn't getting the right answers, does the teacher understand all the possible ways a kid could be misunderstanding the problem? Can she diagnose what the kid isn't understanding, and re-present the material in a new way? Seems to me, this could be much more challenging that simply answering a straightforward engineering question like "how much steel do we need to put in this bridge so that it won't fall over?"

The difference between middle school and high school foreign language is often the pace, not the content. When Cambridge is used in High school, typically, the first year finishes both Unit 1 and Unit 2. Second year is unit 3, and third year unit 4. This is the North American Cambridge books, which are divided into 4 units. I've heard of many middle schoolers using Cambridge, but at half the pace -- covering Unit 1 in the first year, and Unit 2 in the second.

I'm not familiar with Galore Park, but the AP Latin exam requires a honest year's worth of reading and translating a fixed set of texts. Without having worked through those lines, there's almost no chance a student could score well on the exam. The Latin SAT II is another story, however. Students can do well on the SAT II without having studied a fixed text. As other have said above, I'd focus on the SAT II, and get a test prep book, and a sample exam, and see how he does, then plan from there.

I don't think that parental expectations of their own homeschooled children are too high, if that's what the question is. I've found that homeschoolers are all over the map. I'd be hard pressed to come up with a single expectation that applies to all or even most homeschoolers. If anything, there's the common expectation that homeschooling will be better for their children than some aspect of public school. Maybe that aspect is Math, or overall academics, or maybe it is the ability to be on a competitive gymnastics team, or to train for the national spelling bee. Maybe it is character education, or lack of bullying or maybe it is the self-development that unschoolers crave. And, as far as expectations the public school have, they are neither too high nor too low, in my opinion, they are just wrong: the expectation is that their students will score a certain level on standardized, multiple choice tests in reading and math, and nothing else really matters. My personal expectations have little to do results on such tests.

Lingua Latina is a fantastic reader. I doubt that all of the first book will be too easy, and even if so, the second Lingua Latina book, "Lingua Latina: Roma Aeterna" certainly won't be too easy. I particularly like the 2nd book, it provides a lot to read in a somewhat simplified version of authentic Latin authors. For example, it has a simplified prose version of a bit of the Aeneid, which is very fun to read. There's also all kinds of old out-of-copyright free readers from the 19th century you can find on the internet, but I'd start with LL.

I assume that you, yourself are not a student here -- I'm curious if non-students are even allowed to be in the library? I know when I went to school, only students were allowed in the libraries, though only the bigger libraries on campus actually checked everyone's ID on entry. I suspect even at the smaller libraries, staff might ask to see ID if they found someone doing suspiciously non-student-like activities, such as reading to one's child. I would investigate other, public places on campus. Maybe there's a cafeteria that is relatively quiet at that time?

Looks like a copy of a Frank Lloyd Wright design that was never built: http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Books-about-Frank-Lloyd-Wright-3291193.php

I will warn you, though I love my CSA, it kind of requires a different way of thinking about eating and preparing food. Depending on the CSA, you may need to switch from thinking about "what am I going to make for dinner tonight", to "OMG: I've got 20 pounds of kale to eat by Wednesday".

Doesn't the NCAA only care about "core courses" for the minimum required GPA, and isn't PE excluded from those "core courses"?

Ah, I was thrown off by this quote: "After she calmed down, she drove back to ballet and came home by another route." So, she called in for help, the turned off her phone, and read for almost an hour in the car, while her dad is looking for her? Is that the chronology? I still think that she handled her driving anxiety well, but calling in for help, then turning off the phone, and leaving it off for an hour while reading in the car, is a serious error.

This is an important part of the story that most folks here are missing: 1) She had a bit of a meltdown, and called home. 2) She turned off her phone. 3) She (very maturely, I think) calmed herself down. 4) She drove to ballet, and took her lesson there for an hour, 5) She drove home via another route. 3, 4, and 5 all happened with the phone off, and Dad driving around like a crazy man trying to find her, and freaking out. I think that recovering from her anxiety and not letting it stop her from going to ballet and doing what she wanted to do is a good sign, and a sign that she should be driving. Doing so without texting or calling for an hour, however, is inexcusable.

And the follow-up gets curiouser and curiouser: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/petula-dvorak-no-misrepresentation-of-piano-prodigys-treatment-by-dc-schools/2014/09/09/8d19659e-385f-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html Apparently, the public school administration admits that it sent out emails and letters to the family threatening truancy and explusion (perhaps from an automated system that they somehow can't quite control?), but someone told them in person "not to worry about those", so (according to the school), the parents are just making a mountain out of a molehill. You can't make this stuff up.

I really dislike these lists for two reasons. First, it implies that there is a universal ranking of colleges that applies to all students, which just isn't true. It implies that there are huge differences between, say, the 15th ranked and the 20th ranked, when, depending on who you are as a student, the 20th might be a much, much better fit. It also implies that every single department in the 15th school is "five" better than every single department in the 20th school, and we all know that's just not true. Moreover, especially the US rankings, encourage the schools to game the system. Is selectivity part of the rankings? When it is, some Universities spam out "crap apps", free applications sent out by the thousands to students who often have no hope of admittance in order to encourage application, and thus artificially make their school seem more selective. Are number of small classes part of the metrics? If so, it is unlikely that a professor will be able to open up one spot in an otherwise full class, and a student might have to instead wait a semester or year to take the class, even if needed for graduation. College selection should be much more about fit, than about some single, absolute ranking.

FYI, the urban dictionary's definition of College Confidential is good for a laugh.

I've seen some teachers (and good ones, at that), intentionally make the first test of the year very hard, or grade it particularly severely, so that many students get a low grade. This forces the students to take the class seriously, and study diligently for future tests, and shows them that hard work pays off. Seems like this is already effective with your daughter.

Have you read the WTM?

Frankly, for a full year of high school English, this looks rather light. Three novels, a play, an epic poem, and the autobiography, plus some short stories? I suppose it depends on what you want to do with each -- do you require an in-depth paper on each work? Do you closely-read each work? Assuming your school year runs about 9 months, this would mean you'll spend about six weeks on each work. I have a hard time imagining spending six weeks on the 100 page Animal Farm, unless it was closely read, with a lot of related reading to Orwell's life, and Russian/Soviet history, etc. I'd re-read WTM again for more ideas about what to read.

I guess The Great Gatsby is maybe not what you have in mind.

I think it is also helpful to define Classical Education by talking about what Classical Education isn't. It isn't the be-all and end-all, silver bullet for all kids. It isn't necessarily the most rigorous or only way to do things. Perhaps most importantly, it isn't an all or nothing approach. I don't understand how it is relevant for math: No one teaches three complete passes through math, from counting to calculus in each of the three stages, like many classical programs recommend for history. Perhaps one could say that the grammar of math is memorizing all the facts, the logic would be applying them to do word problems, and rhetoric would be ???. But no one teaches that way: word problems are mixed in from the beginning. And the history of math doesn't need to be taught, even to understand math at the highest level. No student really needs to read Euclid or Newton to do well in math. That being said, I use many Classical techniques, especially in History and English, where, for now, they seem to be a good fit here. But, I do so with my eyes open.

Dewey decimal, or Library of Congress?

Is this three hours a day, every day of the week? First thing I would do is set expectations all around. What do you expect them to have covered in 5th grade? What is the expectation to be able to do when they enter 7th next year. What are the expectations for homework? How much reading at home do you expect during the course of a week? What kind of tests are you going to give? What kinds of writing assignments are you going to give, and will they be done at home, or in the classroom? What are the expectations for parent involvement? I'd do parent-teacher conferences first thing in the school year, and be very clear about all of this. What are the expectations for discipline -- if they don't do their homework, or their reading then what? What if they are wiggly and unattentive during class? There a reason university teacher training programs spend so much time on classroom management, compared to curriculum selection and development. I would be much more worried about the former than the latter. How much of your time have you budgeted of your time per day to grade homework/tests, do lesson planning, etc.? This can really add up, especially if not all the kids are at the same level. And I'm curious about this school in general -- sure, it is a non-profit, I think almost all private schools are. How much is tuition, roughly? You mention using your tithing money to buy materials -- are you being paid? If a parent complains about the curriculum, is the principal going to back you up, given that she let you chose it yourself, and presumably has no clue about it? If I had to do this, I'd really want the kids to do at least 30 minutes of some kind of PE right before class. 6th grade boys are like puppies, they can be wonderful and lovable, but without daily exercise, they get into trouble. Does this school offer other instruction other than this 3 hours a day? If not, I'd be assigning something like two hours of homework a day, just to try to cover the whole curriculum.

I think it depends on the language. For spoken languages, getting all the phonemes pronounced correctly is much, much easier when they are in early elementary. They probably won't learn much grammar or vocab then, especially without immersion, but no amount of practice once they are older will help their accent. So, I think that spoken language should be taught earlier, but lacking immersion, don't expect much other than good pronunciation and listening skills. Non-spoken languages, like Latin, Greek, and ASL (?), which depend more on memorizing vocab and grammar rules, can easily wait until Jr. High, with very little downside. I know it is adorable to see the very little ones chanting their Greek or Latin, but these elementary programs can take years to cover what a serious program can cover in a few months. Why not spend that time instead doing spoken language, or playing in ditches, or anything else that only little kids can do and love to do.

I don't know that the existence of any policy, or the lack of one, can tell you much about what the actual ground truth is. Polcies can be ignored, or lead to odd unintended consequences. In "Paying for the Party", Indiana University was cited as having a very strict no tolerance policy towards drinking in the dorms. However, there was a waiting line outside the dorm parking lot every night with cars queued up to pick up the girls to take them to off campus frat parties, where there was binge drinking. Everyone knew what was going on, and the kids came back to the dorms smashed, but they weren't drinking in the dorms, and there were never any consequences for their actions.

Note taking is a skill that can be improved with practice, and I highly recommend practicing note taking sometime before they go off to college. I think a lot of this skill is independent of whether you are typing or writing, I knew lots of people who could write fast, but took terrible notes. I find the Teaching Company lectures excellent practice for notetaking at home.

I like the above so much that I had to also reply. While it is adorable to see the littles chanting away to some aural Latin program, I'm not sure there's much value there. I know that it is tempting to want to have a slow and gentle start in 3rd grade or so, leading to years upon years of slow and gentle preparation, but that really doesn't lead to much of an advantage when it comes to hunkering down and doing a serious Latin program. Four or five years of these programs all together may cover not even a single year of high school Latin, so it's not like they get a head start. Indeed, it can backfire, and it can burn kids out on languages before they've learned much of anything. I like what the Lukeion folks have to say, and they know way more than I do: I think that this time is better spent learning a modern spoken language, as the littles can easier hear and produce the sounds from their non-native language, which is much harder to do when they are older.