Here's a homeschooling article that'll get your blood boiling :)

[funschooler5]

I don't know if this has been posted yet; it's been making the rounds on my homeschool email lists. Scroll down to "The Harms of Homeschooling".

 

http://www.puaf.umd.edu/files.php/ippp/vol29summerfall09.pdf

 

I've read some anti-homeschooling articles before, but this one takes the cake, with its stereotypes and illogical conclusions. To me, the funniest part is this headline on the second page of the article, written like it's a bad thing:

 

"Parents in many states have full authority, free of all state oversight, to determine the content of their children's education."

 

:001_huh:

 

That, and a few times the author refers to circus performers being homeschooled. No offense to circus performers, I just thought it was weird that she singled out that specific profession, when she's a little more general about other professions: actors, athletes, and, of course,....circus performers. :lol:

[Hikin' Mama]

"Parents in many states have full authority, free of all state oversight, to determine the content of their children's education."

 

 

 

 

 

What is this world coming to!?! (said with much sarcasm)

 

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

[nd293]

Well, my favourite was:

 

 

Thus, over the course of the last thirty years, “homeschooling”

has gone from illegal—meaning criminal—

in all fifty states, to fully legal, and from heavily

regulated, when allowed, to either completely unregulated

or only lightly regulated, everywhere. That’s

quite a revolution, in law and education both. How

did that happen? Why haven’t more people noticed?

 

 

Why don’t more people care?

 

Seems to me like a lot us have noticed, and a lot of us care! Why, I'd say the parents of at least two million children have noticed and cared.

[creekland]

Considering the author wrote this:

 

"Second, although I will be criticizing the right to

completely deregulated homeschooling, I do not mean

to deny for a moment that homeschooling itself is

often—maybe usually—successful, when done

responsibly. Passionately involved and loving parents,

whether religious or not, can often better educate their

children in small tutorials at home, than can cashstrapped,

under-motivated, inadequately supported,

and overwhelmed public school teachers with too

many students in their classrooms. Results bear this

out, as homeschool advocates repeatedly point out

(and as critics virtually never deny): the homeschooled

children who are tested, or who take college boards,

whether or not religious, perhaps surprisingly, perhaps

not, do very well on standardized tests, and on

the average, they do better than their public school

counterparts (though it must be noted that the parents

and children who voluntarily subject themselves to

testing are the self-selected educational elite of the

homeschooling movement)."

 

To which I say, "ABSOLUTELY! This is why we choose to homeschool!"

 

They later show their real fear here:

 

"Fourth, there are political harms. Fundamentalist

Protestant adults who were homeschooled over the last

thirty years are not politically disengaged, far from it.

They vote in far higher percentages than the rest of the

population. They mobilize readily. The “army†in

which adult homeschooled citizens are soldiers has

enormous clout: homeschoolers were called “Bush’s

Army†in 2000 and 2004 for good reason. Their capacity

for political action is palpable and admirable,

although doubly constrained"

 

Then too, I also read this:

 

"Third, public and private schools provide for many

children, I suspect, although I have yet to see studies of

this, a safe haven in which they are both regarded and

respected independently and individually. Family love

is intense, and we need it to survive and thrive. It is

also deeply contingent on the existence and nature of

the family ties. Children are loved in a family because

they are the children of the parents in the family. The

“unconditional love†they receive is anything but

unconditional: it is conditioned on the fact that they are

their parents’ children. School—either public or private—

ideally provides a welcome respite. A child is

regarded and respected at school not because she is her

parent’s child, but because she is a student: she is valued

for traits and for a status, in other words, that are

independent of her status as the parent’s genetic or

adoptive offspring. The ideal teacher cares about the

child as an individual, a learner, an actively curious

person—she doesn’t care about the child because the

child is hers. The child is regarded with respect equally

to all the children in the class. In these ways, the school

classroom, ideally, and the relations within it, is a

model of some core aspects of citizenship."

 

And I get a HUGE laugh! One only need go to school (which I do often since I substitute in our local public high school) to see what reality looks like!!!

[stripe]

So.... circus performers have been homeschooled... Does that flexibility and balance translate to the rest of us?

[Karenciavo]

...devout, fundamentalist Protestants.

check

 

And, of the hundreds of thousands of fundamentalist Protestant parents who in the past two decades have pulled their children from public schooling, the majority have done so not because their kids have special needs, or because they live too far from a schoolhouse, but rather because they do not approve of the public schools’ secularity, their liberalism, their humanism, their feminist modes of socialization,

Ayup

and in some cases, of the schools’ very existence.

Oh yes, most definitely :thumbdown:

 

They do so, furthermore, with little or no oversight from public school officials, who in some states need not even be notified of the parents’ intent to homeschool.

Yes we do, thank you NJ.

 

Because of lax or no regulation, in most of the country parents who homeschool now have virtually unfettered authority to decide what subjects to teach, what curriculum materials to use, and how much, or how little, of each day will be devoted to education.

Shocking isn't it?

In most (but not all) states, testing is optional, and in almost all states, the parent-teachers need not be certified or otherwise qualified to teach.

I ain't never gone to collage and lookie how I turned out.

 

In other words, in much of the country, if you want to keep your kids home from school, or just never send them in the first place, you can. If you want to teach them from nothing but the Bible, you can.

Well, this isn't true in NJ anyway although I wish it were.

 

In 2009, thousands of parents who keep their kids home and don’t tell a soul are well within the bounds of the law.

Land of the free baby. :patriot:

 

Education, after all, is typically described as a core, and possibly the core, state responsibility.

That's the problem.

First, children who are homeschooled with no state regulation are at greater risk for unreported and unnoticed physical abuse, when they are completely isolated in homes.

And people who have multiple s*xual partners instead of one partner for life are at a greater risk of STDs and yet...

 

Second, there’s a public health risk. Children who attend public schools are required to have immunizations. ...deregulated homeschooling means that homeschooled children are basically exempted from immunization requirements. They are more susceptible to the diseases against which immunization provides some protection.

Here you go again thinking the state knows what's best for the child.

 

Third, public and private schools provide for many children, I suspect, although I have yet to see studies of this, :lol: a safe haven in which they are both regarded and respected independently and individually.

Right, because kids in a school setting don't follow the crowd and we right-wing fundies (that's the fundie goose-step) beat the individualism right out of our kids.

 

Fourth, there are political harms. Fundamentalist Protestant adults who were homeschooled over the last thirty years are not politically disengaged, far from it. They vote in far higher percentages than the rest of the population. They mobilize readily.

Wow. I don't know whether to laugh or mobilize. Let me go get Elaine and we'll discuss it. Are you scared yet?

 

They are as effective as they are, and as successful as they are, because they engage in politics in the same way that soldiers participate in combat. They don’t question authority, and they can’t go AWOL. With little education, few if any job skills, and scant resources, their power either to

influence the lines of authority within their own sphere, or to leave that sphere, is virtually nil.

Wow, profile much. I wouldn't be too sure of that Miss Georgetown. There's an Evangelical college filled with homeschoolers right down the road from you that probably has you quaking in your boots.

 

Finally, the economic harms. The average homeschooling family may have a higher income than the average non-homeschooler, as was recently reported by USA Today. The radically fundamentalist “movement” family, however, is considerably poorer than the population, and it is the participants in these movements—the so-called “patriarchy movement” and its “quiverfull” branch and related groups — that are the hardcore of the homeschooling movement.

I knew Jean was no dam* good.

 

Even given these potential harms, there remain good reasons to permit homeschooling, in plenty of circumstances.

Just as long as you think in an approved manner.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Karenciavo

[mommaduck]

Figures it was published in Maryland.

[FO4UR]

...and her little article is all built on a lot of assumptions...

 

I LOVED (and by loved, I mean rolled on the floor DYING in laughter:lol:) her assumption that all HSers are right-wing fundamentalists who follow GWB like he's a god....b/c HSers can't really read or think for themselves.:glare: She has OBVIOUSLY never spent a minute reading some of the very long threads on this forum.;)

 

SO....fess up....who here is raising a little circus performer????:tongue_smilie:

[Paintedlady]

...devout, fundamentalist Protestants.

check

 

And, of the hundreds of thousands of fundamentalist Protestant parents who in the past two decades have pulled their children from public schooling, the majority have done so not because their kids have special needs, or because they live too far from a schoolhouse, but rather because they do not approve of the public schools’ secularity, their liberalism, their humanism, their feminist modes of socialization,

Ayup

 

Because of lax or no regulation, in most of the country parents who homeschool now have virtually unfettered authority to decide what subjects to teach, what curriculum materials to use, and how much, or how little, of each day will be devoted to education.

Shocking isn't it?

 

In most (but not all) states, testing is optional, and in almost all states, the parent-teachers need not be certified or otherwise qualified to teach.

I ain't never gone to collage and lookie how I turned out.

 

In other words, in much of the country, if you want to keep your kids home from school, or just never send them in the first place, you can. If you want to teach them from nothing but the Bible, you can.

Well, this isn't true in NJ anyway although I wish it were.

 

In 2009, thousands of parents who keep their kids home and don’t tell a soul are well within the bounds of the law.

Land of the free baby. :patriot:

 

Education, after all, is typically described as a core, and possibly the core, state responsibility.

That's the problem.

 

First, children who are homeschooled with no state regulation are at greater risk for unreported and unnoticed physical abuse, when they are completely isolated in homes.

And people who have multiple s*xual partners instead of one partner for life are at a greater risk of STDs and yet...

 

Second, there’s a public health risk. Children who attend public schools are required to have immunizations. ...deregulated homeschooling means that homeschooled children are basically exempted from immunization requirements. They are more susceptible to the diseases against which immunization provides some protection.

Here you go again thinking the state knows what's best for the child.

 

Third, public and private schools provide for many children, I suspect, although I have yet to see studies of this, :lol: a safe haven in which they are both regarded and respected independently and individually.

Right, because kids in a school setting don't follow the crowd and we right-wing fundies (that's the fundie goose-step) beat the individualism right out of our kids.

 

Fourth, there are political harms. Fundamentalist Protestant adults who were homeschooled over the last thirty years are not politically disengaged, far from it. They vote in far higher percentages than the rest of the population. They mobilize readily.

Wow. I don't know whether to laugh or mobilize. Let me go get Elaine and we'll discuss it. Are you scared yet?

 

They are as effective as they are, and as successful as they are, because they engage in politics in the same way that soldiers participate in combat. They don’t question authority, and they can’t go AWOL. With little education, few if any job skills, and scant resources, their power either to

influence the lines of authority within their own sphere, or to leave that sphere, is virtually nil.

Wow, profile much. I wouldn't be too sure of that Miss Georgetown. There's an Evangelical college filled with homeschoolers right down the road from you that probably has you quaking in your boots.

 

Even given these potential harms, there remain good reasons to permit homeschooling, in plenty of circumstances.

Just as long as you think in an approved manner.

 

:iagree: This really made my morning.

[LND1218]

...and her little article is all built on a lot of assumptions...

 

I LOVED (and by loved, I mean rolled on the floor DYING in laughter:lol:) her assumption that all HSers are right-wing fundamentalists who follow GWB like he's a god....b/c HSers can't really read or think for themselves.:glare: She has OBVIOUSLY never spent a minute reading some of the very long threads on this forum.;)

 

SO....fess up....who here is raising a little circus performer????:tongue_smilie:

 

Okay I haven't read it yet, but I had to comment... This explains it all!

 

Thank you for sharing this - I have been trying to figure out why my preschool and toddler boys are constantly climbing, jumping, swinging and just generally acting like clowns, acrobats, lion tamers, trained monkeys and sometimes the lion. I feel like a ring master some days!

 

I wish someone had explained this a lot earlier to me.

Duh! I am raising circus performers.

 

I wouldn't have discouraged my 16 months old from standing on the back of the couch or climbing out of his high chair if I had known. I would have just installed nets to catch him!

[FO4UR]

Okay I haven't read it yet, but I had to comment... This explains it all!

 

Thank you for sharing this - I have been trying to figure out why my preschool and toddler boys are constantly climbing, jumping, swinging and just generally acting like clowns, acrobats, lion tamers, trained monkeys and sometimes the lion. I feel like a ring master some days!

 

I wish someone had explained this a lot earlier to me.

Duh! I am raising circus performers.

 

I wouldn't have discouraged my 16 months old from standing on the back of the couch or climbing out of his high chair if I had known. I would have just installed nets to catch him!

 

:lol::lol::lol:

 

Yeah - it must be the lack of forcing ones body into the shape of a school desk for the formative years of life. :tongue_smilie:

[cara]

Periodic visits would open the door to college

and career counseling, of benefit to both the children

and their parents. They would give the state a window

into the quality of home life, and a way tomonitor signs

of abuse as well as immunizations.

 

Ummm no... sorry would not allow someone from the state to come in and visit us just to make sure I'm doing my job for no other reason then I homeschool.

[LND1218]

...devout, fundamentalist Protestants.

check

 

And, of the hundreds of thousands of fundamentalist Protestant parents who in the past two decades have pulled their children from public schooling, the majority have done so not because their kids have special needs, or because they live too far from a schoolhouse, but rather because they do not approve of the public schools’ secularity, their liberalism, their humanism, their feminist modes of socialization,

Ayup

 

and in some cases, of the schools’ very existence.

Oh yes, most definitely :thumbdown:

 

They do so, furthermore, with little or no oversight from public school officials, who in some states need not even be notified of the parents’ intent to homeschool.

Yes we do, thank you NJ.

 

Because of lax or no regulation, in most of the country parents who homeschool now have virtually unfettered authority to decide what subjects to teach, what curriculum materials to use, and how much, or how little, of each day will be devoted to education.

Shocking isn't it?

 

In most (but not all) states, testing is optional, and in almost all states, the parent-teachers need not be certified or otherwise qualified to teach.

I ain't never gone to collage and lookie how I turned out.

 

In other words, in much of the country, if you want to keep your kids home from school, or just never send them in the first place, you can. If you want to teach them from nothing but the Bible, you can.

Well, this isn't true in NJ anyway although I wish it were.

 

In 2009, thousands of parents who keep their kids home and don’t tell a soul are well within the bounds of the law.

Land of the free baby. :patriot:

 

Education, after all, is typically described as a core, and possibly the core, state responsibility.

That's the problem.

 

First, children who are homeschooled with no state regulation are at greater risk for unreported and unnoticed physical abuse, when they are completely isolated in homes.

And people who have multiple s*xual partners instead of one partner for life are at a greater risk of STDs and yet...

 

Second, there’s a public health risk. Children who attend public schools are required to have immunizations. ...deregulated homeschooling means that homeschooled children are basically exempted from immunization requirements. They are more susceptible to the diseases against which immunization provides some protection.

Here you go again thinking the state knows what's best for the child.

 

Third, public and private schools provide for many children, I suspect, although I have yet to see studies of this, :lol: a safe haven in which they are both regarded and respected independently and individually.

Right, because kids in a school setting don't follow the crowd and we right-wing fundies (that's the fundie goose-step) beat the individualism right out of our kids.

 

Fourth, there are political harms. Fundamentalist Protestant adults who were homeschooled over the last thirty years are not politically disengaged, far from it. They vote in far higher percentages than the rest of the population. They mobilize readily.

Wow. I don't know whether to laugh or mobilize. Let me go get Elaine and we'll discuss it. Are you scared yet?

 

They are as effective as they are, and as successful as they are, because they engage in politics in the same way that soldiers participate in combat. They don’t question authority, and they can’t go AWOL. With little education, few if any job skills, and scant resources, their power either to

influence the lines of authority within their own sphere, or to leave that sphere, is virtually nil.

Wow, profile much. I wouldn't be too sure of that Miss Georgetown. There's an Evangelical college filled with homeschoolers right down the road from you that probably has you quaking in your boots.

 

Finally, the economic harms. The average homeschooling family may have a higher income than the average non-homeschooler, as was recently reported by USA Today. The radically fundamentalist “movement†family, however, is considerably poorer than the population, and it is the participants in these movements—the so-called “patriarchy movement†and its “quiverfull†branch and related groups — that are the hardcore of the homeschooling movement.

I knew Jean was no dam* good.

 

Even given these potential harms, there remain good reasons to permit homeschooling, in plenty of circumstances.

Just as long as you think in an approved manner.

 

I can't stop laughing - Truly laughing out loud at this!! :lol:

[angela in ohio]

I have trouble taking people seriously when they don't punctuate properly and their grammatical constructions are a hot mess.

 

I have to say that at least she is honest (in her fourth point) about the intentions of public school.

[usetoschool]

If by boiling you mean bubbling over with laughter, then yes, it does have my blood boiling. The article is so poorly written and full of errors that I did some research to find out who this gal is. I figured this was a student practice journal of some kind put out by the university. Turns out she is an assistant professor at Georgetown. Sigh...if this is the quality of education the public schools produce then I am lucky to be a circus performer with approval to homeschool my kids. (jk)

[Guest Alte Veste Academy]

The article is so poorly written and full of errors that I did some research to find out who this gal is. I figured this was a student practice journal of some kind put out by the university. Turns out she is an assistant professor at Georgetown. Sigh...if this is the quality of education the public schools produce then I am lucky to be a circus performer with approval to homeschool my kids. (jk)

 

This is exactly what I thought as well. I couldn't believe they actually published something that relied exclusively on biased impressions and conjecture. I am a bit nervous about the kind of graduates the school is putting out if this is representative of university level teaching. Can you imagine the closing arguments of the lawyers who graduate from this school? :001_huh:

[hornblower]

I am secular, liberal, humanist & feminist and I homeschool.

These types of articles get me doubly angry: the original content is bad enough; some of the responses push me over the edge.

[Stacie]

I am secular, liberal, humanist & feminist and I homeschool.

These types of articles get me doubly angry: the original content is bad enough; some of the responses push me over the edge.

 

The responses from this board? :confused:

[TXMary2]

I think that article just may be the most ill-informed piece of trash journalism I have ever read. 10 minutes of my life that I will never get back.:tongue_smilie:

[Garga]

I can't stop laughing every time I see "circus performers" in the article.

 

Why does she harp on about circus performers? Is it a not-so-subtle attempt to make homeschoolers look like a bunch of clowns?

 

Can you see her late at night typing out her article and thinking, "What visual can I throw in my article to make homeschoolers look ridiculous? I know! I'll keep talking about circus performers! Oh, I AM a clever girl! No one will catch on!"

[Stacie]

I'm so glad to have read this article. It's completely changed my outlook on homeschooling and opened my eyes to the vast damage I've been subjecting my children to for all these years. I will leave now so we can be first in line to enroll them in the magnificant, highly rated Louisiana public school system when it reopens in January. But first I must catch them up on their much needed vaccinations. Thank you so much for changing my life, Robin West. I'm forever in your debt for showing me the light. :001_tt1:

 

:rolleyes: :smilielol5:

 

ETA: It seems upon further investigation, doing the above will revoke my membership in the Fundamentalist Protestant Circus Performers labor union and I will be removed from the local GWB Mobilization Army PAC. How can they do this to us? :crying:

Edited December 23, 2009 by Stacie

[Kate in VA]

I CAN"T READ IT.... WHHHAAAAA.... It's driving me crazy... its saying the file is damaged and can't be repaired :confused:

I so want to get in on this!!! ;)

[Sherri in MI]

"Education, after all, is typically described

as a core, and possibly the core, state responsibility.

Why were the states so willing to turn the reins over to

parents?"

 

Wow! The above quote really gets at the heart of the essential difference between homeschoolers and the author of this article: the view that the state is in charge of education v. that the parent is.

 

I'm not finished the article yet, but I'm already aggravated at the constant use of certain words: illegal, criminal, unregulated, regulated.

 

To think that the author misses the "good old days" when it criminal to not send your child to public school.

 

And how do you all love the fundamentalist Protestant label? What does that even mean?!!!! I am Protestant and conservative, but wouldn't go so far as to say fundamentalist. To just lump us all in a group like that! I know many Catholic homeschoolers in our group and on this board we have a wide variety: religious and secular!

[dangermom]

Check out some responses at Just Enough and Nothing More. Here's the blogger's own response in a different column.

[angela in ohio]

Check out some responses at Just Enough and Nothing More. Here's the blogger's own response in a different column.

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I really wish that if homeschoolers decide to reply to these types of articles, they would have someone edit their work first. (I'm referring to the letter linked in the blog.)

[jujsky]

I CAN"T READ IT.... WHHHAAAAA.... It's driving me crazy... its saying the file is damaged and can't be repaired :confused:

I so want to get in on this!!! ;)

 

Me too! I guess I'll have to satisfy myself with the snippets people have posted here.

 

True story: In high school, I dated a clown in the circus. :lol: He was homeschooled, and unfortunately fit all the negative stereotypes about it. He's NOT the reason I homeschool, btw ;)

[Sherri in MI]

http://detnews.com/article/20091217/METRO/912170337/-1/ARCHIVE/Lax-home-school-laws-put-kids-at-risk

 

This kind of reporting is just irresponsible and gets all sorts of people upset against homeschoolers for no reason.

 

Here is HSLDA's response:

 

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/mi/200912180.asp

[swellmomma]

SO....fess up....who here is raising a little circus performer????:tongue_smilie:

 

I confess I am. I have an escape artist, a couple acrobats and apparently 3 who like to use the ironing board to surf, so I guess they would count at the clowns. I of course am the ring leader of this 3-ring circus :D

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

I am secular, liberal, humanist & feminist and I homeschool.

These types of articles get me doubly angry: the original content is bad enough; some of the responses push me over the edge.

 

:iagree::iagree:

[Sherri in MI]

:iagree::iagree:

 

Priscilla and Hornblower, I'd be very interested in knowing what comments agitate you. :bigear: :001_smile:

[LND1218]

Priscilla and Hornblower, I'd be very interested in knowing what comments agitate you. :bigear: :001_smile:

 

:iagree::bigear:

[hornblower]

Priscilla and Hornblower, I'd be very interested in knowing what comments agitate you. :bigear: :001_smile:

 

Well, I can only speak for myself but it's something you touched on in one of your comments: we're not all the same.

 

Many replies are of the : "Well heck, yeah! I am ________ (insert stereotypical adjective often used to describe homeschoolers) and $%^&* proud of it! Huzzah! "

 

So it leaves me sighing (or screaming, depending on mood) "Agggg, I'm not one of them. I'm not like that." It's a minority within a minority issue, I guess......

 

I'm lucky to live in an area where there are a lot of liberal secular homeschoolers but on the whole, you don't hear much about us when homeschooling comes up in articles/media etc.

[BigMamaBird]

:lol:

 

Thank you all! I needed a good laugh today.

[FO4UR]

I confess I am. I have an escape artist, a couple acrobats and apparently 3 who like to use the ironing board to surf, so I guess they would count at the clowns. I of course am the ring leader of this 3-ring circus :D

:lol:

 

hornblower - you (as in your minority within a minority) are ignored b/c, quite frankly, you completely demolish 90% of their basis for any argument. If you exist, they have very little to say....it's just easier to pretend ALL homeschoolers are "xyz." :grouphug:

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

Priscilla and Hornblower, I'd be very interested in knowing what comments agitate you. :bigear: :001_smile:

 

My agreement is with the I homeschool for secular reasons and have humanist and feminist thinking (in respect that to me any society that treats women badly also treat men badly). I see humanism and feminism as simply human and equal rights IMHO. I also tend to be be a liberal in that I believe in a social safety net, but I actually have and uphold many conservative and religious ideas;) I am not agitated by this thread though to clarify. I do get upset when I hear others elsewhere make the assumption that all homeschoolers are fundamentalist since clearly, we are not all the same:) Many do homeschool for secular reasons such as academics, special needs, etc. and not just for religious reasons even when religion/spirituality plays a large part in their lives.

[Testimony]

is laced with bias. This woman's 4 points all are razor sharp. It bothered me when she said that a child is loved and cared for by a teacher because they are student as opposed to a child being loved in a loving and caring home.:001_rolleyes:

 

Homeschooling families live in trailer parks and 1,000 square foot homes. My home is 1,500 square feet. Thank you very much!:smilielol5::smilielol5:

 

Woman has an ax to grind. Maybe a homeschooler hit her car.:lol:

 

Merry Christmas,

Karen

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/testimony

[Peek a Boo]

this makes me doubly angry too.

 

this is a professor? written in 2009?

 

and the USA Today article is current, not written ages ago?

 

coupled with the NEA's current resolutions supporting the articles above?

 

"as ... homeschool critic Robert Reich has persuasively argued...."

 

I laugh because their thinking is screwed up, but these are not articles from The Onion: these are serious people who really believe we need to be under someone's thumb and are in positions to make it happen.

 

and yet people still believe that HSLDA is merely fear mongering.....yeah.....

[funschooler5]

We're athiest/agnostic homeschoolers here, and it bothers me when people assume that all homeschoolers are religious....but the way this article portrayed religious homeschoolers was just insulting. Poor, undereducated people living under tarps in trailer parks? How can the author not see that she's just perpetuating a crazy stereotype?

 

Hornblower and Priscilla, here's a great response to the article from a secular homeschooler (apparently she's been receiving emails from the author after her original response):

 

http://diosadotada.homeschooljournal.net/2009/12/22/an-update-on-the-continuing-dialog/

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

We're athiest/agnostic homeschoolers here, and it bothers me when people assume that all homeschoolers are religious....but the way this article portrayed religious homeschoolers was just insulting. Poor, undereducated people living under tarps in trailer parks? How can the author not see that she's just perpetuating a crazy stereotype?

 

 

 

:iagree::iagree: I have friends from all walks of life and that was insulting.

[Audrey]

We're athiest/agnostic homeschoolers here, and it bothers me when people assume that all homeschoolers are religious....but the way this article portrayed religious homeschoolers was just insulting. Poor, undereducated people living under tarps in trailer parks? How can the author not see that she's just perpetuating a crazy stereotype?

 

Hornblower and Priscilla, here's a great response to the article from a secular homeschooler (apparently she's been receiving emails from the author after her original response):

 

http://diosadotada.homeschooljournal.net/2009/12/22/an-update-on-the-continuing-dialog/

 

 

I don't know. This kind of article doesn't bother me because I'm not threatened by her opinion, which is what this is -- an opinion piece. There are shreds of truth in all her accusations about homeschoolers. The portrayal of religious homeschoolers lines up pretty well with the religious homeschoolers I have encountered IRL. The attitudes of religious homeschoolers she describes line up very accurately with religious homeschoolers I've encountered IRL and online -- especially online.

 

Part of me cheered her for slamming those kinds of homeschoolers. I personally think they ruin homeschooling for the rest of us. I hate that down the road I'll invariably encounter someone who will assume I'm one of those fundy nuts because I said I homeschool. That's the only thing about the article that bothers me -- that once again, I get lumped in with people I have nothing in common with except the choice to homeschool.

 

And yeah... that's just my opinion.

[Jean in Newcastle]

What bothers me about these kind of articles is not that the ignorant person who wrote them doesn't like homeschoolers. What bothers me is that I've had neighbors talk to me about the things in these articles that they've read and believed. Not everyone writes these things off.

 

I had to laugh at the circus performer thing. Our gym offers a class for homeschoolers - on circus performing!

[Parrothead]

Fourth, there are political harms. Fundamentalist Protestant adults who were homeschooled over the last thirty years are not politically disengaged, far from it. They vote in far higher percentages than the rest of the

population.

Sheesh, when did it become harmful to vote? Some one sounds a bit fearful in her article.

 

Don't let them mobilize and vote

Don't let them children learn to think for themselves

Don't let the children have more than one day a week for religious training. Any religion, but in particular Christians.

Don't let mothers make the choice to stay at home.

[nono]

Don't let the children have more than one day a week for religious training.

 

 

I do find that part particularly amusing considering she works for a Jesuit institution. Um, isn't it the Catholics that have religion class 5x a week in grade and high school? Yes, it is!

[MBM]

I do find that part particularly amusing considering she works for a Jesuit institution. Um, isn't it the Catholics that have religion class 5x a week in grade and high school? Yes, it is!

 

Well, not at my son's Catholic elementary school nor the local Jesuit high school.

 

The article reminds me of something Harvard law prof Charles Fried said: "The greatest enemy of liberty has always been some vision of the good." Some might not agree with him, but he makes an interesting (and intelligent) point.

[Sputterduck]

"The result is what we face today: a widespread and thoroughly

privatized educational practice that devolves full

responsibility for a child’s education to whatever parent

wants to claim it, which is not only legal, but virtually

unregulated as well."

 

Woot!

[lionfamily1999]

Well, my favourite was:

 

 

 

Seems to me like a lot us have noticed, and a lot of us care! Why, I'd say the parents of at least two million children have noticed and cared.

??? It was illegal to hs?

 

Really?

 

I mean, a lot of our forefathers hsed. Heck, there was lots of hsing going in the early 1900s... where did she get that it was illegal?

[jazzyfizzle]

...devout, fundamentalist Protestants.

check

 

And, of the hundreds of thousands of fundamentalist Protestant parents who in the past two decades have pulled their children from public schooling, the majority have done so not because their kids have special needs, or because they live too far from a schoolhouse, but rather because they do not approve of the public schools’ secularity, their liberalism, their humanism, their feminist modes of socialization,

Ayup

 

and in some cases, of the schools’ very existence.

Oh yes, most definitely

 

They do so, furthermore, with little or no oversight from public school officials, who in some states need not even be notified of the parents’ intent to homeschool.

Yes we do, thank you NJ.

 

Because of lax or no regulation, in most of the country parents who homeschool now have virtually unfettered authority to decide what subjects to teach, what curriculum materials to use, and how much, or how little, of each day will be devoted to education.

Shocking isn't it?

 

In most (but not all) states, testing is optional, and in almost all states, the parent-teachers need not be certified or otherwise qualified to teach.

I ain't never gone to collage and lookie how I turned out.

 

In other words, in much of the country, if you want to keep your kids home from school, or just never send them in the first place, you can. If you want to teach them from nothing but the Bible, you can.

Well, this isn't true in NJ anyway although I wish it were.

 

In 2009, thousands of parents who keep their kids home and don’t tell a soul are well within the bounds of the law.

Land of the free baby.

 

Education, after all, is typically described as a core, and possibly the core, state responsibility.

That's the problem.

 

First, children who are homeschooled with no state regulation are at greater risk for unreported and unnoticed physical abuse, when they are completely isolated in homes.

And people who have multiple s*xual partners instead of one partner for life are at a greater risk of STDs and yet...

 

Second, there’s a public health risk. Children who attend public schools are required to have immunizations. ...deregulated homeschooling means that homeschooled children are basically exempted from immunization requirements. They are more susceptible to the diseases against which immunization provides some protection.

Here you go again thinking the state knows what's best for the child.

 

Third, public and private schools provide for many children, I suspect, although I have yet to see studies of this, a safe haven in which they are both regarded and respected independently and individually.

Right, because kids in a school setting don't follow the crowd and we right-wing fundies (that's the fundie goose-step) beat the individualism right out of our kids.

 

Fourth, there are political harms. Fundamentalist Protestant adults who were homeschooled over the last thirty years are not politically disengaged, far from it. They vote in far higher percentages than the rest of the population. They mobilize readily.

Wow. I don't know whether to laugh or mobilize. Let me go get Elaine and we'll discuss it. Are you scared yet?

 

They are as effective as they are, and as successful as they are, because they engage in politics in the same way that soldiers participate in combat. They don’t question authority, and they can’t go AWOL. With little education, few if any job skills, and scant resources, their power either to

influence the lines of authority within their own sphere, or to leave that sphere, is virtually nil.

Wow, profile much. I wouldn't be too sure of that Miss Georgetown. There's an Evangelical college filled with homeschoolers right down the road from you that probably has you quaking in your boots.

 

Finally, the economic harms. The average homeschooling family may have a higher income than the average non-homeschooler, as was recently reported by USA Today. The radically fundamentalist “movement†family, however, is considerably poorer than the population, and it is the participants in these movements—the so-called “patriarchy movement†and its “quiverfull†branch and related groups — that are the hardcore of the homeschooling movement.

I knew Jean was no dam* good.

 

Even given these potential harms, there remain good reasons to permit homeschooling, in plenty of circumstances.

Just as long as you think in an approved manner.

 

 

 

 

 

:thumbup:

 

:lol: :gnorsi: 'ten hut! :D

[jazzyfizzle]

 

Homeschooling families live in trailer parks and 1,000 square foot homes. My home is 1,500 square feet. Thank you very much!:smilielol5::smilielol5:

 

 

 

 

 

:lol:

 

With ya sista. Oooweee I slid in at 1,499 sq. ft. :D Look out Charlie

[dangermom]

??? It was illegal to hs?

 

Really?

 

I mean, a lot of our forefathers hsed. Heck, there was lots of hsing going in the early 1900s... where did she get that it was illegal?

Her version of homeschooling history is a bit inaccurate. Check out Diosa Dotada's response for some correction on that point.

[meet me in paris]

I had to laugh at the circus performer thing. Our gym offers a class for homeschoolers - on circus performing!

:lol: thanks for the laugh!