Yes, different people will certainly have different circumstances. Luckily we have a good state university and a good community college right here in our city that have inexpensive tuition and the programs my kids want to study.

I have only visited my dd's dorm room one time in the three years she's been in college (she just started senior year). I stopped doing her laundry at home when she was 13.

Why can't your son take a taxi home?

I would assume she meant both boys. My kids are less than a year apart in age and have the same friends. Unless someone specifies only one of the kids, I assume both.

I would let him continue with Latin. It is actually ok for him to be average at it.

I think, regentrude, that you don't really get it when I'm being funny or facetious.

There will be students in every population who don't achieve at high levels. But studies over the years have shown that homeschooled students tend to schieve at higher levels than schooled students, regardless of the educational background of their parents. Homeschoolers are individuals and will reflect individual interests and capabilities. But they tend to have higher achievements levels than their schooled peers.

Is the tutor a certified Chinese teacher? Part of why homeschoolers often do better is because they have a flexibility that the schools-as-institutions don't. Just another reason to restructure the schools. There have been many studies that show that homeschoolers tend to achieve at higher levels than schooled students.

Homeschoolers, on the other hand, tend to do very well even when their parents don't have specialty degrees in all the subjects they are teaching their students.

This is part of why I don't think pushing college classes into high school is a great idea ... along with many other reasons I have explained with varying degrees of success/clarity of thought in this thread (and some I haven't).

That would be great, but in practice there are way too many rules and regulations and red tape about who is "qualified" to be a teacher and who can get a teaching certificate. It's just another reason we pretty much need to start over with how we structure schools.

What I found, when my oldest dd was in school(s), was that schools don't actually want parents sticking their noses in. They claimed to want parental input, but they had very limited and proscribed channels for doing so, and in the end they didn't really take parental concerns and suggestions seriously. There was a pervasive attitude that the schools know best because they are comprised of educators, and mere parents couldn't possibly have any meaningful understanding of what was best for their children's education. I don't think it's that parents don't give a hoot. I think it's that they a) expect schools and teachers to do what they claim to be doing and b) learn very quickly that it doesn't pay to be a "troublemaker."

I was just being funny. Or not, as the case may be. :mellow:

That's true. But until we smash the system and replace it with a better one, we are working with what is, not what ought. But then again, I never had Latin in school, I am studying it with my dd (not even keeping one lesson ahead), and my dd got a silver medal (one question away from gold) on the National Latin Exam. I must be doing something right. ;)

Because the student will get college credit for a DE class but may not for an AP class. Because college professors are likely more qualified to teach the class. Because pulling a college professor into a high school to teach a class comprised only of high schoolers means that the students who pay tuition to the college are losing out on instructor hours dedicated to the college. Among other reasons.

I said that those students should have state-funded DE. I said that I don't think that duplication of services is the most effective means of handling the situation. I did not propose that certain students should not get the classes they need. I sad that federal law doesn't mandate it. You are reading what you want to read into my statements, not what I actually said. I have lots of issues with how education is handled in the US, how schools are structured, the fact that schools are supposed to be one-size solutions for kids of varying sizes, and the fact that traditional school methods reward a narrow set of skills and capabilities. I think we need to move past the traditional conception of high school, not just start transferring college into high school. You may consider me racist and classist at your pleasure. I'm actually advocating better options for students.

nm zombie thread

I oppose compulsory attendance. If I were in charge of education, high schools would look nothing at all like they do now. I don't advocate confining students in institutional schools. I don't hold the opinions I've expressed in this thread because I am racist or classist. I think students should receive an education commensurate with their abilities. I don't see American high schools as the best vehicle to accomplish this.

Reading further: if you're going to do Latin on a loop, I'd just drop it. If you really want your kids to learn Latin, you have to be consistent with it. Fifteen minutes two times a week, for example, won't really do anything for you.

I don't think you're trying to do too much schoolwork. I think you've got too much time outside the house. I'd either cut back the outside things or consider doing school on Saturdays, too. Also, if you want to spend about 15 minutes a day on Latin, I suggest Getting Started With Latin. You will progress so much more quickly than you will with SSL, which is a program for grades K-2.

What's the point of allowing students to place out of intro classes but not granting them credit? The public Ivy near us does this. People around here say it's so that you still have to pay for all your credit hours on their campus.

Yet the state schools are required to accept transfer credits from other schools; it's just the private schools that try to bar this or claim that you have to take your major classes on their campus. ETA: I am going to encourage my dd14 to take her major classes at the college she attends. It's probably best that she does. But not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford four years of college tuition. Some people need to start at the CC; some people may need to transfer credits for one reason or another. I think this needs to be available for them, or we trap people into one school or taking more than four years to graduate.

I agree with you that our public school system is poor. I'm simply pointing out that gifted students are not legally entitled to FAPE, even though I see discussions in many places in which people seem to think that they are. Maybe if we quit spending so much money on war, we could provide people with healthcare and education equivalent to their needs.

Yeah. Our state recently (within the last 5 years?) standardized all colleges and universities to a semester schedule (maybe it's only all state schools, but I think it's all schools). Part of doing that was coming up with articulation agreements about what can transfer between (state) four-year schools and between (state) two-year and four-year schools. There is a Transfer Module that is available; there are hundreds of classes that will transfer either individually or as part of a two-year gen-ed program. It's telling to me that most of the private schools have opted out of this. They are not required to accept transfer credit so, on the whole, they don't. And many of these private schools are not elite or ranked any higher than state schools, so it's not like they are saying their classes would be so much more rigorous.

I'm not sure what you mean. I was talking about my dd being able to transfer A&P (anatomy and physiology) from one (state) college to another (private, non-elite) college.