Tenn. Declares Only Dumbest Kids Wanted for State Jobs
Posted on May 21, 2008
Update 2: Wow! Welcome Sean Hannity listeners!
Update: Welcome Rush Limbaugh listeners and Neal Boortz readers!
-By Warner Todd Huston
It’s true. The State of Tennessee has officially declared that from this point forward it will accept only less educated student applicants for state, county and city jobs in the Volunteer State. Why would the kindly folks in Nashville make such a stupid rule? Well, it’s all about control, you see. The state controls the less educated kids and they don’t control the ones that show higher academic aptitude. It really is just that simple.
It has come to pass that the State of Tennessee has officially invalidated the high school diplomas of thousands of home-schooled Tennessee kids, at least where it concerns their eligibility to apply for the positions of fireman, police officer, state government employee, even daycare worker — any government job or government controlled position that the state regulates is covered.
The reasoning the Board of Education used to justify this obscene act is almost a sensible sounding one. Since religious schools and home-schools each have their own curriculum that is designed by people not working for the state government (i.e. the state Board of Education), then the state has no real control or input in those curricula. Therefore, the state cannot make the assumption that kids educated in institutions or via home programs meet the standards of an officially recognized state education. Like I said, this almost seems logical until one does a tiny bit of research. Fortunately Tennessean Rob Shearer has done just that.
Rob points out that while the State of Tennessee is claiming that home-schooled kids have a diploma that the state cannot insure what it represents, the same can be said of the state approved diplomas. It turns out that the State of Tennessee does not require a minimum GPA for graduation from government indoctrination schools. So, did these kids get an A, a B, or a D? We don’t really know just looking at a diploma. The state only requires “credits” for passing the 20 some required courses, the final determination only being that the student be “proficient” in the class work… whatever that might mean.
Still, that aside, what about the State’s charge that home-schooled kid’s curriculum isn’t controlled by the state and so cannot be assured as “proficient” by the State? Again, this seems like a sensible charge. After all, the State knows what requirements it has created and they are “official,” after all. Isn’t it possible that the kids at home-schools and religious schools are getting a substandard education? This is a solidly sensible concern, is it not?
Let us look at some of the data to see if the State of Tennessee Board of Ed is correct that the education received by kids outside the government indoctrination centers might have gotten a questionable education.
To start with, the State of Tennessee ranks a bit lower than the national average in ACT scores. Apparently the 2007 ACT scores shows Tennessee students (that is all students as a group, gov’t school or otherwise) rank less than average at 20.7 whereas nationally the average is 21.2. So, Tennessee is already not even at the national average to begin with.
Now, to contrast that, the last comprehensive study of home-schooled children was the ERIC clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation from 1998.
Home school students did quite well in 1998 on the ACT college entrance examination. They had an average ACT composite score of 22.8 which is .38 standard deviations above the national ACT average of 21.0 (ACT,1998).This places the average home school student in the 65th percentile of all ACT test takers.
(See full report HERE)
Ken Marrero also points out some more interesting results in the 1998 data.
“What was the ACT composite score for Tennessee students for 1998? In the year home schoolers averaged 22.8 and the national average was 21.0, Tennessee’s students scored just 19.8, a full 3 points below home schoolers. This put Tennessee ahead of only North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Washington DC. The composite home school score places them FIRST among the 51 jurisdictions represented in the study.”
That study aside, there are also data concerning the ACT test score results for the home-schooled students of Tennessee. The data covers the 2005 school season(page 17).
This report shows home-schooled Tennessee students realizing a 20.7 average against the government schooled kids’ 20.5 effort.
It is also interesting that the 2005 stats are the only such data available. It seems the ACT organization stopped delineating the differences between the home-schooled and the government indoctrinated students. One has to wonder if ACT has realized that governments all across the country are gearing up to destroy home-schools and religious schools and they didn’t want to help the home-schoolers out by showing the too obvious excellence that home-schoolers achieve compared to their less educated government indoctrinated contemporaries.
So, after seeing these interesting statistics, one has to wonder why the State of Tennessee would rather accept the least educated kids of the State to become policemen, firemen and daycare workers? Does Tennessee really want to promote the more stupid above its best and brightest?
Apparently it does.
But, is the State of Tennessee much different than the rest of the nation excluding their being some of the first to make such an overt attack against home-schools? Not really. After all, to sanction home-schooling means the powermongers and indoctrinators in the State would have to give up some level of power to control the minds of our students. Our schools nation wide from top universities to the lowest grade level are becoming the laughing stock of the civilized world and instead of looking to give our kids the best advantage possible to compete with an ever growing world our governments are dumbing down our curricula, tossing out standards, hiring teachers unqualified for their positions — and then being stuck with them forever due to overweening and anti-education unions — and generally making our schools useless.
So, good job Tennessee. Now that you’ve cut out the best and brightest of your own student population, from this point forward, the citizens of Tennessee are going to have to wonder about the competency and intelligence of every policeman and every daycare worker in the State. They will also be forced to realize that their wonderful state government in Nashville has set up a situation where the best and brightest of the Volunteer State will be leaving in droves for opportunity elsewhere.
Not too smart, Tennessee. Not too smart at all.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Church And State, Education, News, Stupidity
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91 Responses to “Tenn. Declares Only Dumbest Kids Wanted for State Jobs”
Not from Tennessee (my home state), but here’s an anecdote about home-schooling from where I live now, Hawaii.
I was talking to the owner of a surf shop, whose brother is a school principal — both men are intensely involved in local issues.
He told me his shop is filled with ‘home schooled’ kids whose parents have given up on them and just let them surf all day.
Typical? Maybe not. But the Tennessee government is correct: a home school diploma conveys precisely no information about what, if any, education a person has had.
And let’s not even mention the issue of cranks.
Well, Harry, you’re right about one thing. If we see a kid with a state sponsored high school diploma we can be sure of what we have. We’ll have an uneducated kid, probably a drug addict, and stupid as a box of rocks. THAT is what the state makes, after all!
Yes, we are SO sure of the excellence of any kid leaving a state sponsored high school. That’s why just about every kid that enters college now has to take remedial classes first to qualify!
Good job Harry. Good job for supporting our fetid government schools.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 05/21/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Harry -
Your point is echoed all over the country. Here in Tennessee, a police officer friend of mine reports that anytime a juvenile offender is stopped or questioned during school hours, he invariably asserts he is home schooled when asked why he’s not in school.
All your experience demonstrates is that bad parents can use home schooling as a cover. It says nothing whatsoever about the value or validity of home schooling done correctly. The correct usage of the tool is assumed for the purposes of the discussion.
Further, are we to assume that the surf bums became surf bums because home schooling exists? That the mere possibility of home schooling turned kids into bums and parents into irresponsible adults? Or is it a more rational and likely assumption that the kids and parents would have been just as bad whether or not home schooling existed as an excuse and, thus, they would have found some other scapegoat to use?
The value of Freedom and Liberty is not to abuse it. Liberty is valuable only insofar as it is pursued and cherished. That some denigrate or misuse their Liberty is not a reason or license to restrict the Liberty of others. It is reason to analyze and correct the behavior of those doing wrong.
Your entire point, while it may be 100% correct, is meaningless in the discussion at hand. You seem to be saying that if only home schooling were done away with, these kids would be happy, studious students and their parents proud and involved in their kid’s education. That seems unlikely at best …
Blue
Harry and Blue,
If the government’s concern is how much the kids know, why not accept ACT scores? GED scores? They can even put the bar higher than merely passing on the GED if they want to. If Princeton University can find a way to accept home schooled kids, can’t Tennessee?
Incidentally, I also find it interesting, Harry, that you take as the gospel truth the owner of a surf shop owner you have, in spite of his obvious vested interest. As if he were somehow an expert at identifying home-schooled kids?
“He told me his shop is filled with ‘home schooled’ kids whose parents have given up on them and just let them surf all day.”
Which, of course, means absolutely nothing other than the particular prejudice of one particular person. The *facts* are that home-schooled kids do as well or better than public schooled kids in virtually every measure. It is no more appropriate to generalize all home-schooled kids by one anecdotal sample than to do so by choosing some biased sample of public school kids. If I go to some crack house in some urban place and find that most of the people there are from public schools should I thus conclude that public schools have a policy promoting crack cocaine and prostitution?
This decision by Tennessee has no relationshp with reality. It ignores all the data on home-schooling (which does, in fact, allow making inferences about home-schooled kids in general), and pretends to data on public-schooled kids that does not exist (that having a public school diploma guarantees a particular level of competence).
It is nothing more or less that a political decision that has *nothing* to do with actual education and *everything* to do with inside-baseball politics.
Shame on them.
Just one point to add to this; here in Houston, and I’m fairly certain this applies to most major cities in Texas, to become a police officer or fireman requires a minimum of 60 hours college or accredited university credit hours. That would make having a high school diploma or home schooled diploma a moot issue since the bar has already been raised.
My own opinion regarding home schooled Vs. the public child prison system would be to eliminate the public schools in favor of private sector or industry taking on the vacancy. Make education a competitive industry with a pay as you go attitude, no different than purchasing food or other necessities. Those who wish to gain an education will eventually achieve that goal while those who simply show up will still be flipping burgers, selling drugs or breaking into cars while the rest of us advance.
This would simplify tax collection by doing away with school/property tax which clearly has been wasted on a large percentage of our young people. The teacher’s unions will choke to death if they actually have to justify their positions and the buildings which have already been built will be purchased by folks with a vested interest to succeed. I see no real reason to continue throwing money down the toilet we call public education.
As a home schooling ‘granny’, I know full well, at least in this corner of Tennessee, if you see a kid during school hours without a parent, you can be pretty sure that kid is NOT home schooled! The folks around here take their kid’s education VERY seriously, to the point that a large portion of them will start attending college BEFORE they would have ‘graduated’ had they been attending the public institutions.
Also, having had to deal with some TN state employees in recent months, I can tell ya first hand, they’ve already got some of the ‘dumber’ ones working for them.
I’m not following why my friend with the surf business would have a vested interest in keeping kids out of his shop, but most of the reactions to my comment seem to miss the point.
Hard to imagine why. It was a simple one: nobody has any idea what a claim to have been home-schooled might mean. Abe Lincoln walking miles to borrow books? Hanging out all day at Hookipa Beach? Who knows?
At any event, I did not say that all home schooling was bad.
I would be interested in knowing where the respondents were schooled, since almost all of them have very poor reading comprehension. Or ability to segregate categories. Or both.
Sheesh.
Look folks. Harry is back and NOW he is saying that Abraham Lincoln was not educated.
If we had more people as badly educated as Lincoln we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today!!
Like so many of us pointed out, the very basis of your claim is basically uninformed. In fact, it seems far more common that a homeschooled kid is smarter and more educated than a government schooled kid that it boggles the mind that you’d even try to claim otherwise.
And, since you are casting aspersions on everyone else’s education here as WELL as that of all the homeschooled Tennesseans, we’d all like to know about YOUR education. Did ya GET any?
Thanks for stopping by to make matters worse for yourself, Harry.
Thanks for proving my point about reading comprehension. Tee hee.
No, I did not have the benefit of our fine public schools. My loss, I’m sure.
Both my sons were home schooled. My oldest now runs a facility that services trucks for Dollar General. Not bad considering that he’s only 24.
My other son was also dual enrolled at college for the last two years of “high school”. He received his high school and college diplomas at the same time. He now owns and runs a broadband, wireless internet company (WISP). He just turned 21.
I’m just glad we didn’t send them to the public indoctrination centers. Most of their friends are now coming to them for jobs and they can’t hire them. Reason . . . they can’t read or do math at a level necessary to do the jobs! So much for government education.
I would match my sons against any government educated person the state of Tennessee has!
I am afraid that I agree with the dismal outlook of public schooling, more rightfully called “government schools.”
Every day in my profession I deal with a cross section of society, the majority of it being 25-35, but a sizeable protion is 16-25. The inabilty to use logic, reason, as well as the simple inability to grasp basic math and reading comprehension is VERY alarming.
Society no longer values education. It values entertainment.
Harry,
Just a little bit of education for you. Homeschool kids can often complete their educational assignments in considerably less time that those sitting in a traditional classroom. These surfing kids ~may~ have already completed or will complete their studies later in the day. You are just assuming that they are not learning anything. Just because they aren’t at home hitting the books during traditional school hours, it doesn’t mean that they are uneducated. Hawaii does have some requirements including submitting attendance, standardized testing, an annual report and keep a record of planned curriculum. So, how do you access that the “parents have given up on them?”. It would be easier to send them to public school!
I know many kids that can be found doing sports and other activities during the day. My son was on a traveling homeschool baseball team that often played during the day, he volunteers at the library during the day and we even occasionally go fishing during the daylight hours. He usually gets his work done early or in the evening or even split up. (approx. 4-5 hours a day). We can enjoy the daylight hours to do other things.
I contend that a public school diploma conveys precisely no information about what, if any, education a person has had.
When Tennessee can ascertain that government school graduates have taken and passed the following in order to graduate then they might have a point.
4 year High School Course:
Math: Algebra I & II, Plane/Solid Geometry & Calculus
Science: Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry & Physics
English (4 years): Reading - all the Classics, vocabulary/spelling, composition, and yes, even diagramming sentences!
Geography and Sociology (4 years)
History (4 years)
Personal Finance & Home Economics (1/2 year each)Yes, both my sons can cook very well!
Physical Education (4 years)
Foreign Language ( 1 year)
Bible Study (4 years)
Civics (1 year)
Both my sons took these courses and graduated with 3.9 GPA’s, both from High School and college!
All courses were done via correspondence, all test taken under our librarians supervision, and all tests and work sent in to be graded.
We, the parents did not grade any required work or tests.
Was it time consuming and at times inconvenient, yes. But it sure was worth it.
BTW, my sons were free to study at any time and often volunteered at a local nursing home during the day. They weren”t skipping school!
You’re dead on with the reasoning here, Warner (the original author of this piece) — this is about power, plain and simple. The state is trying to use it’s power as the largest employer to coerce parents into putting their kids in government schools.
“Gee, Johnny’s Mom, you don’t want him to be homeschooled, he won’t be allowed to work as a lifeguard at the government pool.”
Why else dose the leftists NEA oppose home schooling thats gets in the way of their nafarious plans of brainwashing kids
We are home-schooling our boys;after just a single year in the pubic school system we had had enough and it lead us to the only decision for the best future for my boys.
People are so gullible. Just because a kid tells you that they are homeschooled, it does NOT mean they are. It seems to me that the status of “homeschooled” is being abused by kids (and perhaps parents), and the public is SOOOO ready to attack homeschoolers that they readily believe these kids and parents.
If people are so narrow minded that they cannot consider the kids on their own merit than they probably deserve the undereducated employees they get.
Then again, all of these rule-making “officials” are probably public school educated. That would explain their lack of reasoning skills or their ability to find a workable solution that would benefit the state of Tennessee AND homeschoolers.
While the state is specifically excluding these folks, most of the people homeschooled would not even want to work for the state. In general, the home schooled kids are way to educated to not take their ability to use logic, think and communicate clearly to the market where they will be properly compensated for their abilities.
Most government employees are their for the security and retirement, not for the rewards given to those who excel.
TXL
It’s all about control and money. The government wants control. This is serious because people are losing jobs, they are not being allowed to advance in their present jobs, because they cannot provide a government diploma, or one that is acknowledged by the State.
“Three West Tennessee day-care workers have already lost their jobs because of a new interpretation that the state Department of Education has given to what qualifies as the high school diploma required for holding some government-related jobs, [snip]
Evans, 24, who was in the audience at the committee meeting, said he got his homeschooling certificate in 2001 and worked in various jobs, including as a jailer with the Roane County Sheriff’s Office. Last year, he attended Walters State Community College and made perfect grades in graduating from a law-enforcement certification class, he said.
He got a job with the Rockwood Police Department in January 2008 and quickly developed an exemplary record, Bell said. Then the Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission noticed his homeschool certificate and asked the Department of Education whether that met the criteria for a high school diploma.
When the department replied in the negative, the POST Commission declared that Evans could not be certified as a police officer and therefore could not hold his job.”
Excerpt from Knox News here:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/may/07/diploma-measure-still-faces-hurdles/
More happiness from the likes of Bredesen & Naifeh. Can we tar & feather those two yet?
This is crazy. If the state were really concerned about home schooling then they would set a list of requirements and have the kids tested annually like in other states. That way they know that the children are meeting minimum standards.
My nephew was home schooled and made a perfect score on his SAT and is now in college in the top of his class.
I am in TN. I homeschool my kids. I don’t care what the state says about High School diplomas. They can not dispute perfect scores on SATs and nearly perfect scores on ACTs. If we homeschool well, we have nothing to fear.
What government schools call “education” is more appropriately described as indoctrination. Learning to read, write legibly and comprehensibly, understand and use mathematics, understand history and its lessons, are all MUCH less important to any government school system than having “high self-esteem”, demonstrating “tolerance”, and being utterly feminized. The result? A stupid, violent criminal class with higher self-esteem than the rest of the population. Poor homeschooled kids. They have to make do with self-respect derived from hard-earned accomplishments.
Perfect SAT scores? Very nice for the one kid in 10,000 or 20,000, I guess.
Of course, not all home school kids get perfect SATs, just as not all public school kids do.
My kids went to public school. One was a National Merit Scholar, another a Sterling Scholar (a big deal in my state, where the public school kids compete head-to-head with kids from the $17,000-a-year private schools).
The third kid didn’t do that. He is dyslexic and was never any great shakes at pencil-on-paper tests. But in the public schools, he got diagnosis (important because his kind of dyslexia was subtle and we had not realized what was going on); and after that he got years of special and expensive tutoring, so that today he does very well in the information world, although he will never learn to spell.
As a good many of the posters here have not. I’d be more impressed by screeds about the wonderfulness of home schooling if about a third of them weren’t semi-literate.
Hey, if the people commenting here were all government-schooled, the percentage of semi-literate posts would be a LOT higher. And peppered with F-bombs at that.
I guess then the great State of Tennessee will be invalidating all out-of-state high school diplomas from anyone applying for a state job as well. After all, the gov’t of TN can not ensure what those diplomas represent as well.
Bess, that’s a VERY good point.
I expect a good many of them were government-schooled. After all, the home school movement isn’t that old. Most people above a certain age went to public school.
I watched the meeting where they discussed this issue. The Representatives from Memphis kept complaining it’s not fair. It’s not fair for the public school students who didn’t pass their gateway exams and only ended up with a certificate not a diploma. Do you know what’s not fair? We as homeschool parents, because we choose a different way to educate our children we are punished by paying for our own children’s education and that of the public school children, in the form of property taxes.
That’s what is not fair!
By the way I am pretty sure here in the state of Tennessee if you are homeschooling or are affliated with a church-related school you are required to test your children in 9-12th grades. So why can’t the wonderful experts at the DOE use those scores if they are so concerned about the homeschoolers?
Well, then, Harry, you just proved my point. You decry people’s literacy skills, then claim they were derived, such as they are, from government “education”. Thank you!
Probably the next few generations of homeschoolers will improve vastly on today. They certainly can’t do worse than the government indoctrinators.
Actually, the government isn’t concerned about homeschoolers–at least, not their welfare. Government bureaucracies exist for the purpose of self-perpetuation, not to accomplish anything. It’s analogous to cancer; growth for its own sake, regardless of the cost to the host.
Hey, Harry, you’ve got some good points. I homeschool most of my 6 kids but have one in public school. It works for each of them. No, it doesn’t mean I can spell well (although I usually can). But even parents who didn’t get the best education personally can give their kids a better one at home when they work hard, as most do. It’s not easy. It means less family money, less prestige for mom. It’s worth it, but it represents sacrifice on the family’s part. And, as Rebecca said, homeschooled kids have a unique freedom in being able to “do school” any time at all. For some of my kids that’s early morning so they can get outside by lunch time, but late-night reading is as important as anything else they do. We’re not clear in this country on what the goals of education really should be, and it’s hard to not get cynical about public school and the state’s goals for our children. If we truly want well-educated kids it seems to me the state would encourage that by whatever path it takes–and that encouragement isn’t happening where I am, although Missouri is better than Tennessee.
To the extent the nation got where it is today, it got there through universal public education. That’s why it seems so weird to me to hear people — most of whom went through public schools — condemn the common school movement.
My great-aunt was principal at 2 public schools in a very poor part of Chattanooga in the ’30s and ’40s. Very poor. She had kids in her district who could not attend school because they had, literally, no clothes. So she went up and down Main Street (where her brother had a haberdashery) and extorted clothing from the merchants.
Among the many things that bug me about home schoolers is the sauve qui peut attitude of all of them.
I also dislike seceders from the common school movement because I am familiar with the seg academies that were started to keep white kids from having to associate with black kids. I see some of that in the home school movement, too.
Also, I have a friend who runs a curriculum service for home schoolers, and I’ve read some of the material. Antiscience, quackery and general nuttiness is readily available and seems to be the principle attraction for a lot of home school parents.
I’m sure there are parents out there that use “homeschooling” as an excuse let their kids run wild, but I don’t know any of them. On the flipside, I do know people who have diplomas that can barely read and who are on welfare.
I pulled my son out of public school to homeschool him. It takes a LOT of commitment from the parents. It can be costly. You constantly have to explain to people that your child really is “socialized”. What kind of question is that?! He’s not obsessed with the opposite sex (our teen hs friends only date in groups) and he is respectful of others. He is lucky that his teacher cares more about teaching him everything possible than anyone else in the world. As he gets older, I also know enough to have someone else teach him the things I am not strong in.
As I dug further into the information on this blog, it really hit home for me as the person in the News Sentinel article is trying to keep his job in the town where I grew up . Living the the north metro suburbs of Atlanta spoils us; we have so many opportunities for our hs kids that we could never do them all(and we’re supposed to have the best schools). Homeschooling is not for everyone; neither is public schools. They are only as good as the people involved.
I doubt my son could work in any kind of government position; he is too driven and free thinking for that. He should, however, have the choice.
As for the literacy/spelling comments, I have found that even CEO’s can make mistakes when typing. It has nothing to do with intelligence. I’m also pretty sure that the people posting here do have public educations (I do). Don’t be so quick to judge something you know little about.
Actually, it’s “principal”. And while your anecdotal stories are heartwarming, they don’t actually prove anything. Had a darling charitable aunt? Swell. So did I. Have a friend who does this or that? We probably all do. Whatever.
You can dislike “seceders” all you want; what you can’t do is make us fall into lockstep with you. Obviously, you have an axe to grind, and that’s sad, but your hatred doesn’t change anyone’s mind, and it doesn’t prove anything. It is your right to be as buttheaded as you like, though. Parents have the right and the responsibility to do whatever we believe best for our kids, and our decisions are not subject to your approval any more than yours are to our approval. Get. Over. It.
HOW ABSURD! I have many friends who homeschool their children and their children are FAR better educated than their peers! Our state has STRICT tests that the homeschool children MUST pass before they can be awarded their high school diplomas! Also, their children are much better disciplined than state educated children. Not to mention that Jesus Christ can be mentioned “in school” when the public schools are “out of control”!!!! The teachers union has way too much control and lots of the teachers need to be FIRED!
Lindsey, I think the mention of Jesus Christ is what Harry means by “antiscience, quackery and general nuttery”. Mention of Mohammed or Gaia would probably be fine, though. (Insert gagging noises here.)
So, to review: Government schools and their teachers and principals virtually glow with the radiance of good deeds. Homeschoolers, on the other hand, are loafing deadbeat surfers who show how stupid they are by praying and refusing to kowtow to the [very screwed-up] status quo. Got it. We’ll just ignore the school shootings, bullying of near-epidemic proportions, sexual-predator teachers, pitiful test scores, and so on, and so on, because to pay attention to those things or to want better for our kids is apparently “quackery”.
For sure, your kids have a much better chance of encountering a sexual predator in church. Suit yourself, though.
But, just as Lindsey is correct that parents have a right to educate or miseducate their children as they wish, society has a right to devalue their choices.
Suit yourself.
Depends on the church, really.
By the way, I just LOVE the idea that anyone not in line with your skewed perceptions is “miseducating” their kids. And parents are part of society, including parents you don’t like. Start devaluing one group, and don’t be surprised when all but about 2% end up defined as “satisfactory”.
Essentially, you’re simply a bitterly hateful, antiChristian, liberal bigot. Keep on defending a cataclysmically broken system that doesn’t work, if it makes you happy; you probably would have been chewing gum furiously on the Titanic, hoping to patch the holes.
And another thing: You obviously didn’t catch this before, but the word is “secessionists”. Nice one, Dr. Hawking.
After seeing what good ol’ Harry has to say, I don’t think I’d be interested in hiring HIS kids!! LOL.
I have been closely associated with government schools. They’ve universally been garbage since the early 1960s. Kids can’t read, they can’t do math, they have no clue about history, geography or civics. The teachers don’t care because their cushy union contracts shield them from having to perform.
Our schools are garbage from the lowest grades to the highest university.
I’d like to take two things Harry Eager said.
1. “After all, the home school movement isn’t that old.”
The home education movement has been around for a while now. Friends of my family home schooled their 4 children in the ’70s and ’80s. Those children are now in their mid to late 30s, and with families of their own. I know they were not alone in this endeavor. Home education has become more prevalent in the past decade.
2. “For sure, your kids have a much better chance of encountering a sexual predator in church.”
Not true. This data is old, but according to census data in 1997 - over 4000 incidents of rape or other types of sexual assault occurred in public schools. I’m trying to get the census figures for last year.
Last year the Associated Press did a series of articles on student sexual abuse in public schools. In a four year span the AP discovered over 2,000 teachers whose teaching credentials were revoked due to sexual misconduct.
Take those numbers as averages or even as representative for the whole, and it’s troubling.
Harry also used the term “common school.” The “common school” or even “compulsory education” (which is really what we’re talking about here) movement dates back to Massachusetts around 1852, and it has a rather violent history. After those first laws were passed, many towns and citizens resisted. The state used the militias and local police to forcibly march students to school, the most famous case being the Town of Barnstable.
Compulsory government controlled education has a history of “my way or the highway” and many times it has nothing to do with the actual education of children. It’s about control. Pure and simple.
Diversity, change, choice are all fine and dandy until they are used by folks who want educational choice. That’s hypocritical.
Harry,
Have you seen this list about public school teachers and their sexual abuse of public school children:http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=39783
I’m not aware of any such list regarding churches.
Add a 39783 after the last =
If government schools and their inane, ineffective and inefficient methods were so great, they probably wouldn’t be so knee-jerk hysterical about competition. The only possible way for government schools to compete is if they’re the only game in town.
I’m still waiting to see some explanation as to how homeschooling is full of antiscience and quackery, yet manages to produce high-performing students more often than government schools. Maybe there’s a vast conspiracy.
Despite the fantasies of the home school movement, only a tiny fraction of parents chose it. Survey after survey finds that parents have high regard for the public schools their own children attend, although they disparage those ‘other schools’ with the problems.
Funny thing about that.
THERE’S a ringing endorsement, eh Harry? We ask parents that have been raised in crap schools to evaluate crap schools. Makes sense to me.
Mr. Eagar said “Despite the fantasies of the home school movement, only a tiny fraction of parents chose it.”
The home education movement has no fantasies. Compared to public education, its numbers are smakk - about 2 million nation-wide. In my state there’s only 5,000 students currently in a home education program.
However, right now, home education is a legal alternative in all 50 states, and many states have more stringent rules and regulations concerning home educated students than their public or even private counterparts.
If the anti-homeschool crowd bothered to look into home education, they would be surprised to know that it is as diverse as any public school in terms of abilities, teaching styles, learning styles, curriculum, and educational philosophy. But, my experience is that those folk can’t be bothered to do that. They’d rather rely on various anecdotal knowledge.
Ultimately, home education is not a threat to public education. While families who opt to home school their children may not like public education for one reason or another, I fail to see them spewing the mistrust, hate, and lies that the anti-homeschool crowd does.
I guess when the data doesn’t back up your arguments, non sequiturs are all you have.
Funny thing that.
I’ve never heard any homeschool proponent claim that homeschoolers outnumber government school students. Never. Never seen that in print, never heard it claimed verbally. The only thing I’ve heard or read about numbers of homeschoolers is that the trend is growing. So whose fantasies are these, anyway?
Bess said it beautifully. All Harry can offer is that he “dislikes” homeschoolers. Well, he’s offered no reason for homeschoolers to like him, either. So one surf-shop owner derides homeschoolers. Automatically that becomes proof positive that homeschoolers are slackers, their parents are negligent, and homeschooling itself is suspect. So his aunt “extorted” clothing for poor kids; that proves that government schools are noble, altruistic and altogether superior to homeschooling. Thank GOD ABOVE our laws are not based on Harry’s little feelings and prejudices. Not so far, anyway.
Never mind the fact that no matter how much tax money is thrown into the insatiable jaws of the government school system, it fails to produce results. Never mind the fact that ON TOP OF these dollars, kids and parents are constantly being nagged, guilted and bullied into fundraising drives. Never mind the fact that homeschooling, depending on how it’s done, can be either expensive or cheap, can be tailored to fit any child’s learning style (unlike the one-size-fits-all approach demanded in government schools).
Homeschooling is bad, because HARRY DOESN’T LIKE IT. Get your dosage adjusted, Harry.
One more item.
Mr Eagar said “society has a right to devalue their choices.”
Not according to the current politically correct playing rules. The current PC playing rules say that choices ARE acceptable, and can’t be devalued - at least in the areas of sexual preference and abortion.
If it’s OK for two men or two women to marry (their “choice”) or for unborn babies to be summarily killed (the mother’s “choice”), why is educating one’s children at home not a valid choice?
The answer is, of course, is that government schools are not there for education - not in the any true sense or definition, but instead, they are there for social indoctrination. Two million homeschoolers are somehow seen as subversive.
If you don’t like homeschooling, it’s quite simple. Don’t homeschool. No one is forcing it upon you. It’s not a choice for everyone. Most homeschoolers would like that sentiment reciprocated for their choice.
Bess, I want to be you when I grow up.
We homeschooled a total of 14 years. My son only scored 19 on his ACT. I guess something went wrong…since he is only a 3.5 GPA in College and will graudate this summer. Married has his own photograph business and works part-time as well.
Our youngest daugther finished homeschooling at 17, became a Master Barber by 18. Married now at 20 and works at Dillards as a Master Barber.
My oldest daughter is 23 and just now decided to go to college. So, she does not have to take the ACT to enter into collge. She has maintained right at or higher than a 3.5 GPA average.
They do not use drugs, all have savings accounts, never need money from their parents, none of them uses charge cards,all attend a local church.
I wonder if we made a mistake homeschooling.
Mr. Ulmer, I grieve for you. Truly you have been victimized by the antiscientific quackery of homeschooling. Your poor children. They would have been so much better off on Ritalin, learning gang signs and how to roll joints in the restrooms. Those skills, after all, would have prepared them for lives in government jobs.
Recommended reading:
Underground History of American Education
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
a few reviews:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/7/27/215225/986
http://www.thememoryhole.org/edu/school-mission.htm
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/06/1722203&tid=146&tid=103&tid=6
Harry wrote: “But in the public schools, he got diagnosis (important because his kind of dyslexia was subtle and we had not realized what was going on)”
I’m very glad for your son that is school was on the ball, since you and your wife didn’t seem to be paying much attention to his struggles. In our case, my youngest had vision problems causing problems with his reading. His teachers kept telling me that he was just a slow reader and a B student and I shouldn’t expect more than that from him.
Once I brought him home to homeschool for 6th grade, I was able to observe him more closely, network with other homeschoolers, find a developmental ophthalmologist and get him the vision therapy he needed (which required driving an hour each way in the middle of the day every week for three months. Luckily he is homeschooled, so he didn’t miss any school despite the long commute.)
He just scored a 17 on the ACT as a 7th grader. I think he’s probably doing okay academically, based on that, and I know he’s a great deal happier having time to focus on his music (he’s learning a second instrument this summer) and his studies instead of dealing with cranky teachers and hours of useless homework on material he’s already mastered.
I actually had my son in a Montessori K4 program (which does NOT imply we’re wealthy; it was a financial sacrifice, but the public schools here pretty much necessitate Kevlar and a concealed-carry permit). They kept telling me they “couldn’t get him to do anything”. I brought him home, and within three months he was reading and doing arithmetic. Not only had he been bored at the school, but the teachers were actively demeaning and browbeating him and other (usually male) students.
I’m determined to offer him and his younger brother better in the future, and the idea that wanting the best for my sons is elitist or racist or anythingist pisses me off, because it’s utter BS. Yet to the utter shock and amazement of not me, that kind of ignorance continues to crop up, usually from people whose antihomeschooling hysteria takes its talking points from around 1977. I’ve seen too many homeschooling successes, and too many public and private school failures, to buy what they’re selling. Kids who succeed in public schools do so IN SPITE OF the school system, not because of it. A good education is taken, not given–and from what I have seen and experienced, homeschooling tends to equip kids to take very good educations.
In MI, when the public schools have a student they cannot work with, they expel him/her and tell the parent to homeschool. They even give the parent the name of a home school support group. The parent usually has no clue about home schooling, desire to home school, or ability to home school (due to working a full-time job.) Lack of parental attention is often the real problem with the public school “problem child” to start with, and you can imagine what happens to the expelled child, who is now deemed a “home schooler” by the public school authorities.
Sad as this all sounds, what really makes me mad is that the public is not allowed to have a say in public policy. We are the ones in charge yet we vote in a bunch of idiots who then have a secret agenda and yet we stand by and watch the system falling apart. Isn’t anyone besides me concerned that we are spending hundreds on millions of dollars to elect someone to a job that pays thousands? Why would someone spend this amount of money, regardless of level of education to get a public office. I smell corruption at every level. It is no shock to me to read this info. Wake up America before our country is GONE!
I am a product of the Tennessee public education system. I came from a poor family and I attended more than 10 different schools while growing up. My parents are both from Tennessee and, although they encouraged me in school, they did not provide much in the way of educational toys or books. I worked very hard in school and graduated 4th in my class. I received a 31 out of 36 on my ACT’s and a 1330 out of 1600 on my SAT’s. I have 3 siblings and I was the only one to go to college, which I did with many scholarships to a private school. Two of my siblings dropped out of school for teenage pregnancy, drugs or crime. We all had very similar opportunities, however they made very different choices to the heartbreak of my mother. This is all to say that you cannot judge a system of education based upon one set of criteria whatever it may be. Our society is made of individuals who make individual choices. Many people rise above the opportunities given them as many others fail miserably.
I am educated as a teacher and taught in the public schools in Northern Virginia for a few years before I became a mother. I know that I am a hard worker. I always have been, however in the public school system the expectations placed on one person to develop the minds of a whole classroom of very individual learners is disheartening and overwhelming. I felt that no matter how hard I tried, I would never reach all my students and meet their individual needs. I am thankful for the public school teachers who give everything they can to educate our general population. This is our reality in our nation. I guess you can call me a bit selfish that I want to use my education as a teacher and focus it squarely on a few children…my own.
My husband and I have decided to homeschool and, although my children are young, they are well above their age levels. My husband and I have an education mentality and we are always finding teaching moments. We enjoy the flexiblity homeschooling provides and know we are doing right by our children. If all parents and politicians simply considered the children first,(whether public-schooled or homeschooled) then our reality might be different and better.
Dearly Beloved Christian People,
Let us not extol the behavior of our homeschooled children as our defense, and yet in the next moment deride our neighbor (a display of bad behavior), provocation or no.
Let us not consult the thesaurus over the Scriptures in order to provide an apt response to those who oppose us.
Proverbs 25:11
A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.
Whose Word is the very best Word and therefore the most apt for every situation? And what principles are taught therein?
Proverbs 15:1
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
1 Peter 3:15-16
But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
Let us remember that even Joshua stood as one “snatched from the fire [of hell],” (Zech. 3), and that certainly “we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isa. 64:6).
It comes down to this: If it were not for the mercies of the Lord, we would have nothing at all but death for ourselves, and nothing at all to give to our children. So let us give blessing and honor to others in the Name of the One who has given blessing and honor to the undeserving (that would be us).
We will not win others with intellectual arguments (even compelling ones) so much as we will win them with love and respect.
In all things:
Romans 12:21
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
If you are a Christian and you are offended by the words of one such as our dear Harry, then remember Jesus who received many offenses and yet thought only of us:
Isaiah 53:7
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
Harry is very articulate; he has wonderful, sharply honed thought processes and God-given intelligence. What an ambassador he could be for the Lord, and that is just what the Lord wills! We won’t impress Harry by being like Harry, though– and yet not by outdoing him, either. The only thing that will win Harry’s heart is the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the Lord’s ambassadors! If we love Jesus, then let us also love Harry, a LOT, even.
We must put on Christ, follow Christ, BE like Christ! Homeschooling isn’t just about academics, right? If some of the fruit is manifested in success in ACT scores, college admissions, careers, etc., that is well and fine- and finer if it is to the glory of God. But more precious in His sight is a life lived in submission to His Will.
Micah 6:8
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ do that. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Lk. 6)
Let’s love better than the “free hugs” people who don’t even know Christ! (it’s in the blog).
God bless you all.
The website didn’t show up, so here it is:
http://likehis.blogspot.com/2007/09/free-hugs.html
When I first started reading this I was upset that TN would do this to homeschooled kids. Then I realized that the poster is actually saying that all public school kids are are stupid.
Pretty offensive.
I find homeschoolers are very critical of children and parents who go the public school route.
Why must people look down their nose at each other? Why can’t we just accept that there are several viable methods of education?
Close but no cigar. I am saying that homsechooled and religious schooled kids are BETTER educated. That does NOT automatically mean that government schooled kids are necessarily “stupid.”
So, it’s “pretty offensive” that you have such a reading comprehension problem.
Two things Anna said;
1.
I am sure you’ll find some that are that way, that some folks are critical of those children and parents who opt for the public school route. But I have not seen that on this thread or in the original post.
The original post was about the State of TN discriminating against folks who hold a home education high school diploma or a diploma from a private religious school. The State of TN was critical of home/religious educated graduates. It said their education was sub par. The argument is that it is not.
I’ve said it earlier, and I’ll say it again, home education is not for everyone. Moreover, my choice to educate my children at home is in no way shape or form a criticism of those who choose public schools. In fact, what Tom, Dick, or Harry does with their children has no bearing in it whatsoever.
2.
Good question. That’s the question most home education proponents ask all the time. If you read all the comments in this thread, you’ll see some strawmen arguments *against home education* that border on the mean. And for this story — Why can’t the State of TN accept that?
In my humble opinion, it all goes back to the basic question - What is the purpose of education, esp. public education? Is it actually to educate children or to indoctrinate to better serve the state?
******************
Fixed it for you, Bess.
Lobo
Look, obviously not everyone can (or should) homeschool. That has not been the contention here. The problem is that regardless of the benefits of homeschooling, government-school proponents insist that people shouldn’t be ALLOWED to homeschool, or that they should be punished for doing so. Nobody has proposed that government-schoolers be punished or prohibited, although the quality of their results is in many cases well below that of homeschoolers.
wow
I received this thread from a homeschooling list I’m on and I was so fascinated by the comments that I could not stop reading. I’m most inclined to heed caryn’s advice and go on about my way.
But I still felt like saying something - yes - to Harry. You have had many wonderful examples of government/public schooling. I’m sure, given the chance, that most here would congratulate you on that. You gave us what you probably thought was a funny little story to make a point. Your point was not very well received, mostly because homeschoolers are quite sensitive on this subject. We have reason to be and the new ruling in Tennessee is a glaring example of that. Home education is NOT a “new” movement. Government education is the one that is new. One that began with, PERHAPS, the best intentions but is now showing itself to be a monster our ancestors created. It is out of control and fairly useless. I would argue that *most* of the children who come out of public school with a decent education did so from either innate skill or from dedicated, attentive parents who supplemented often.
I think that if the majority of the US had not grown up believing in and only knowing the current public school system, they would never agree to have it in place as it stands.
Just a tiny example: Anyone who has more than one child will tell you that no two children think alike, learn alike or behave alike. Now, if you knew nothing about public schools, but someone were to tell you that they wanted to take 19 to 25!!! students roughly the same age and put them in a classroom with ONE teacher for 45-55 minutes at a time. And that that ONE teacher was going to educate EACH of those students in that time period in roughly 180 days in say.. calculus. Each of the students come from (often) wildly different backgrounds with totally different upbringings (some parents discipline their kids, some dont, some parents expect their children to be obedient, respectful and honest…… some are simply to tired to expect their kids to do anything) and this ONE teacher is going to somehow impart knowledge to EACH of these students in that short time between bells. Oh, and that teacher has absolutely no power to discipline the students in any constructive way, nor can they count on parental involvement.
Who would agree to that? Who would think that THIS is a good way to get students to learn ANYTHING?? And that is simply one tiny little problem with the public school system - there are so many others (violence, “socialization”, poor curriculum choices, sexual predators, lack of flexibility, etc.)
How Tennessee can think that students coming from THAT would make better policemen (or whatever) than a student who was educated by someone who was totally committed and focused on them is beyond me.
Mr. Eagar,
I get it. You do not like home education.
Then. Do. Not. Utilize. That. Option. For. Your. Children.
To respond to two points from your latest toxic missive.
1. “But the question is not whether home schooling can work in some cases. It’s how you tell whether it worked in any individual case.”
The State of TN has set forth a set of rules and regulations that all home educators must follow. One such regulation is testing to ensure that the student is working at his grade level. It even specifies which test must be used and by whom it must be given. Moreover, it provides a remedy for those students who do not make grade level.
You may find a summary of TN home education law here : http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/Tennessee.pdf
(N.B. I am no way shape or form advocating or agreeing with the philosophies or stances of the HSLDA.)
2. “Statments from semiliterates that, in their judgment, it worked wonderfully do not impress me.”
Resorting to ad hominem attacks now? Pray tell, are you calling semi-literate? Your arguments would go further and be taken more seriously if you did not resort to such nasty name-calling. I do not tolerate such behavior from my 4 year old. You really ought to be ashamed.
I was going to respond more fully to all your “arguments”. However, it’s pointless. You have not put forth any valid arguments or discussion against home or religious education, or any valid reasons why the State of TN should not allow home or religious educated folks to hold a state job. Instead you’ve resorted to insults on all the posters here.
Signed the barely literate, it’s-a-wonder-I-can-stand-upright,
Bess
Preview would be your friend, Bess.
When I write something in perfect English and a poster “corrects” me to something wrong, and I then note that, it isn’t an ad hominem attack. It’s an observation.
I have no objection to your teaching your children at home. I just don’t think much of the results — spread over all the children taught at home. I’ve read the curricula, I know what’s in ‘em.
And, as I noted, I am a Tennessean. I was around when the code word was “neighborhood school.” White Tennesseans didn’t dislike public schools then. They loved them so much they went to great lengths to “protect” them.
Suddenly, when the public schools started enrolling “those people,” public schools became a bad thing. The next code word was “private academy.”
Now the private academies have to admit a few of those people. Time for a new code word.
If you don’t like the conclusions people draw about your behavior, behave differently.
Dear Mr. Eagar,
I realize I was responding to the “notification” message that you had posted. I notice now that your post is not appearing here. But, you know what you wrote.
Calling the folks posting here about the successes with their children “semi-literates” is an ad hominem attack. There’s no “correcting” in that statement.
In addition, you do not know my educational background, nor that of anyone else here. So, yes, I take umbrage to your nasty remark.
I do take offense to this “If you don’t like the conclusions people draw about your behavior, behave differently.” as I have never called you a name or insulted you or your family. So, what about my behavior would you, Mr. Eagar, have me correct?
As for “I’ve read the curricula, I know what’s in ‘em.” - are you referring to the multitude of home education curricula? If you’ve read them all, wow. Hats off to you. That *is* impressive.
However, I doubt you have read all the various curricula out there. What are your objections to say, Saxon Math 5 or Singapore Math 1a and 1b? Or do you prefer Everyday Math (a public school favorite)?
“Now the private academies have to admit a few of those people. Time for a new code word.”
Your not so subtle implication that home education is racist leaves me speechless.
Again, you can’t find a logical argument, so let’s draw out a non sequitor, an emotional racial one at that.
Mr. Eagar, go back to your surf shop. (You are *now* a Hawaiian, correct?) Concentrate on catching a “radical wave, dude” and leave those of us who wish to exercise our legal right to educate our children alone.
I’m done with you; go bother someone else online.
–Bess
He is pretty much just a troll, at that.
And as for “perfect English”, eh, not so much, Harry. I’ve found at least a few misspellings in your posts.
By the way: I am personally acquainted with more than a few black homeschoolers. What’s THEIR reason for homeschooling–they don’t want to go to school with black kids?
Bess is absolutely right; if you knew as much as you THINK you did, you wouldn’t act like such a horse’s behind. You seem to think that playing the race card will shame homeschoolers into giving you a few points. You’re dead wrong. Homeschoolers have nothing to be ashamed of. You, on the other hand…
For all Harry’s self-proclaimed sense of superiority, he has thus far offered not ONE actual argument. Name calling is all he has given us. If he is an example of our wonderous government schools, it’s no wonder that this nation is quickly slipping behind the rest of the industrialized nations.
He has effectively made himself look the fool. So, we must thank him for making OUR argument!
No, I went to church school.
Whatever. Had you been a homeschooled student who actually knew something about it, and could perhaps criticize homeschooling on any factual basis, you might have a bit more credibility on some issue here. Instead, all you’ve been able to state with any degree of accuracy is that you don’t like homeschooling.
I don’t like snowboarding, so I DON’T DO IT. I don’t troll on snowboarding forums, kvetching about how I don’t like it. Clearly you have nothing to do; perhaps you need some sort of constructive hobby, or even a job.
Like Sonja, I found this quite fascinating. It is interesting that there didn’t appear to be any input from the public education sector. At the risk of incurring the wrath of my daughter, let me input from the perspective of a public educator (state and corporate award winner for integrating technology with high school government and economics, currently having a great time being an instructional technology specialist), Political Scientist (cum laude, The University of the South/Sewanee, TN), and State Economics Teacher of the Year.
Put things in historical perspective…I graduated from a rural Alabama public school back in the days of the Space Race, which I was just sure put me at a great disadvantage. However, Sewanee (at the time one of the top five colleges in the U.S. and I still think it currently remains in that rarified strata) quickly accepted me based on my SAT scores (it didn’t accept ACT back then). As a back up, I also applied to Vanderbilt just in case Sewanee didn’t want me, obviously if Sewanee accepted me then Vandy was a snap on acceptance. HOWEVER, that was then and this is now. I doubt seriously now that Sewanee (or Vanderbilt) would have accepted me if I had graduated from the average public school today without further scrutiny.
Put things in economic perspective…There is a thing most citizens are not aware of called Average Daily Attendance. The greater the ADA, the more money a state receives from the Feds. Likewise, the greater ADA, the more money a school district receives from the state and Feds. Similarly, the greater the ADA, the more money a campus receives from the district. I leave it to the reader to draw any conclusions about the government having a vested interest in “logically” promoting public education over another educational mode that deprives it of funding. While most citizens are concerned about the use of property tax in funding, I can assure you that property tax funding is basically chump change when compared to ADA funding.
Put things in Interest Group perspective…Again, most citizens are not aware of the textbook industry and its influence. Let’s face it, textbook companies depend on public education to buy their products. Having been on several textbook adoption committees, I was shocked how much money was transferred from the public education sector to textbook companies. Just like with ADA funds, property tax is again chump change compared to the funds transferred to textbook companies. Again, I leave it to the reader to decide if textbook companies just might contribute to those who have a vested interest in public education.
Put things in Special Needs perspective…It is true that public education is tasked with identifying special needs disabilities and meeting these needs, especially if the family can’t afford special needs solutions. It is also true that public education does provide mandated training of teachers, administrators and support staff to recognize special needs. Furthermore, it is true that much funding goes into meeting these special needs. And I will further declare that public school personnel at all levels are overall dedicated to meeting this mission. Harry was quite fortunate in being able to take advantage of this. However, let’s expand this into the general realities of today’s public education. Regarding training, it is crammed in with all of the other well-documented pressures and mandates on public schools, so time is limited to becoming experts at recognizing special needs. The “System” to ID and meet these needs does not kick in until they are recommended by the campus or district. Indeed, because of the time limitations there have been students who have fallen through the cracks, for which the government resolves by placing more time restricting procedures to “prevent” this from happening…it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out the results. Compound this with school districts (more than the citizen realizes) that have large numbers of students with special needs (especially those not ID’d and vastly more than citizens know) who are misdiagnosed…remember it is the referral at the campus level that even puts a student in a special needs category (which follows them throughout their K-12 experience even if found later to be misdiagnosed). However, it must be recognized that if both parents must work, the only way a student is often diagnosed (correctly or incorrectly) with a special need is through the public school system.
Put things in No Child Left Behind perspective…if one was a paranoidal conspiracy type, it would be awfully hard to convince him or her that NCLB was not a diabolical plot to subjugate the general population ala “1984” style. In fact, one would be hard pressed to come up with a better way to do this on purpose. I will take exception to those who feel the government is trying to “brainwash” students because to do so would presume they are actually being taught something in the first place however distorted it might be. NCLB is another example of what the citizen is not clear on. Basically, it is two tiered system. If a school district has a community of economically affluent parents and students, where the importance of a good education is realized and the standards are in fact set high and required, then NCLB requirement are easily met and that district can teach “higher order thinking skills/aka HOTS” thus those students’ and society’s needs are well met. However, if a district (more than citizens realize) is not blessed with such a community, it must spend most of its precious instructional resources on meeting low level NCLB requirements. Think about the dynamics…even if parents are not cognizant of the need of a solid education, you have to understand that they still want what is best for their children but never get the chance or exposure to those needs outside the popular media (as informed by the public education experts). Furthermore, even if school districts, schools and personnel are not able to provide HOTS, they still want to do so even though their hands are tied. Talk about segregation, NCLB is nothing more than old style in new garments government mandated de facto segregation. I leave it to the conspiracy theorists to point out the coincidence that the NCLB policy makers are also the economic and political powers-that-be. Also, they can draw conclusions that when the NCLB proponents “go into the trenches” to see what teachers, parents, etc. think about it, they always publicize the positive comments of those in the more affluent school districts. Frankly, if I were a citizen, especially a parent, in an affluent district I would sing NCLB’s praises since that cuts the competition my community and kids would otherwise face from the less affluent districts. I’m just surprised that the ACLU, NAACP, etc. have not jumped on the de facto segregation aspect.
Put things in historical Part II perspective…Harry is correct in that much of the homeschool movement has its roots in segregation, racial, economic and cultural. But again that was then and this is now. Yes, that still exists and always will, but like so many things that had questionable beginnings, homeschooling has been discovered by the mainstream unprejudiced population as a superior alternative to a now crippled public education system. As the homeschool is accepted more on a large scale, those who use it as a way to subvert good social values become less influential.
Put things in historical Part III perspective…a simple Google search on the history public education shows that there was a need for Industrial Revolution nations in the 19th and 20th Centuries to rapidly educate a workforce on a large scale to work in the factories. Reading the early official Carnegie recommendations to the U.S. government on need and methodology of public education is fascinating. Einstein was on the committee for a while and was asked his recommendations on what order math should be taught. Thinking about it, he replied that after the basic math concepts it really didn’t matter, but if the committee had to make a recommendation then why not do it alphabetically…look at the first letter of the math subjects that are usually taught and in what order they are taught even today. And if the powers-that-be were correct in providing public education on a large scale to meet the industrial needs of the 19th and 20th Centuries, just consider the global economic system and what is happening to U.S. industry today. Yes, it is true that other economies have public education for the stated purpose, but they do it differently. When I ask friends in other countries, who have kids in their country’s public education system, what the view of the U.S. NCLB and public education system is, the phrase that keeps coming up is, “the U.S. education now, once the standard, is a laughingstock. Keep it up because it is helping our country surpass the U.S.” NCLB is probably the biggest reason that the homeschool movement has mushroomed today. Once it goes away and commonsense is restored then faith in the U.S. public education system should also be restored.
Put things in a logical perspective…as has been pointed out, and even Harry must agree, the time required to focus on teaching a subject at a high level to one or a few students is exponentially less than to a large group of students with a large range of abilities and behavioral issues. On the other hand, in today’s economy most families can’t afford to have a parent stay home to homeschool. So there is a critical need for public education. However, it is not logical to force a family who can afford it (often at a great economic sacrifice) to deprive their children a superior education. After all, our economy must have citizens who have the necessary higher order thinking skills if it is to remain competitive. Also, if we are to accept Harry’s anecdotal logic, which is honestly real to him, we must also accept the premise that since folks like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. are all college dropouts, then we must also recommend that all kids should drop out of college in order to be highly successful…obviously these are exceptions to the rule, just as I’m afraid that Harry’s positive experiences with public education are rapidly becoming exceptions to the rule.
Put things in a data driven perspective…all experts, except public education vested interest groups and government, accept that homeschool kids generally out perform on any [metric] one wishes to use. And [who]are we to say that most, if not all, major U.S. colleges and universities who accept homeschool credentials are misguided? Actually, they are forced to because now they are in competition on the global scale for top students and they recognize that accepting the generally better educated homeschoolers helps drive up their metrics showing how superior their colleges are. While we are discussing the data, it seems that even kids who are taught by parents who don’t even have a college education, much less professional pedagogical training, generally outperform public education taught students on any metric one wishes to use.
Put things in a mythical perspective…1) Homeschool kids don’t develop the social skills like public school kids…first of all, even homeschool kids spend most of their lives as adults, thus they are learning good adult coping and social skills without the background of illogical rules and observed bad behavior found in most public schools today. …second, to say they need to observe bad behavior to know what to avoid is the same as saying kids need to learn about good hygiene by living in unsanitary conditions. 2) Homeschool kids aren’t exposed to the variety activities that public school kids have…though this is anecdotal experience, by the time a typical homeschooler has reached the age of 8, he or she has probably been on more quality [fieldtrips], etc. than most public school kids have done throughout their K-12 experience…this is especially true when today’s public school budgets have been drastically cut for such activities. 3) Homeschool families just don’t have the resources that public schools have…never in the cosmological history of the known universe has there been so much spent on public education, yet despite the facts that U.S. kids are healthier and have more synaptic connections now than ever before in the U.S. and yet their performance on metrics are at an all time low…and how does one reconcile that poor, undernourished kids who come from generations of uneducated cultures and study by the light of runway lights because it is the only light in the village (have to study at night because they worked all day in the fields) outperform our public school students when they are given the chance? 4)Homeschool families just don’t have the support of the government…historically, public education has been a necessary burden forced the government, whereas homeschool families [willingly] educate though they don’t have to. 5) Homeschool families are just backward and closed minded driven by religious and prejudicial motives…while this may have been so once in the past, a quick eavesdropping on a meeting of homeschool organizations quickly dispel that notion, especially when the number of successful engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc. parents are seen at the meetings…by the way, how do you suppose prior to the 19th and 20th Centuries were kids educated?…basically, homeschool methods follow the methods similar to the way kids were taught by the ancient Greeks, which I believe much of the U.S. political and social system are based on. 6) The reason why homeschool kids do better on metrics is [not] because they are all geniuses…while there are geniuses among them (as well as in public schools), it is a [statistical] impossibility that all of them, or even a vast majority, of them are geniuses.
Put things in social engineering perspective…I leave that to the political conspiracy theorists.
Ok, we must have a public education system because not every student can be homeschooled. By its very nature of mass production it can never be superior to the customized education program (will a McDonald’s Happy Meal ever be as good as a meal from a Five Star restaurant?). But let’s agree that the U.S. can and must do a better job. Otherwise the homeschool movement will continue to grow. While most families can’t afford to homeschool, it is illogical to penalize those who are able to put their children through an inferior? system of education…in what other area do we use that logic when it benefits one’s own children? Oh, yes, in case you are wondering why my daughter might be mad at me for expounding so…being a former language arts department chairperson on her district’s fast track, and loving the district, students, and staff, after being forced to teach by No Child Left Behind standards she was not going to make my granddaughter go through that…and because of the controversy of homeschooling, she likes to keep it under the radar as well as to cut down the competition my granddaughter will have when she becomes an adult. We in the public school trenches have a joke about No Child Left Behind…if you never let individual students excel, then truly there will be no child left behind.” As an insider to both public schools and homeschools, I hope I have been able to clear up the dynamics to this controversy. Well, by now you are probably asleep and I must go and start preparing for next year’s beginning of the public school year.
…Dan
Dan’s post was probably one of the longest comments I have ever seen! I see you listed all your credentials in an effort to ward off the “semi-literate” label.
My comments :
“Otherwise the homeschool movement will continue to grow.”
Why is that a bad thing? IMHO it’s not a bad thing at all. In home education families take responsibility for their children and their education. That’s a good thing.
“While most families can’t afford to homeschool, it is illogical to penalize those who are able to put their children through an inferior system of education.”
Home education is not for everyone. Just as private schools are not for everyone. Just as vocational-technical schools are not for everyone. Just as public schools are not for everyone. The only ones who are being penalized with this TN issue are those who were home educated or educated in a private religious school.
In truth, I’m an advocate for *complete* school choice and educational freedom which includes both home and public education. The parents should be able to freely choose the best option for their children. Not be forced into one.
I respect and admire Mr. Blevins’ ability to present a reasoned explanation on this issue, but I disagree with a couple of points.
Many homeschoolers felt disgusted and frustrated by what they saw in the public school system LONG before NCLB, and the distasteful factors will likely be there long after NCLB fades away. And NO, I am not referring to dusky-skinned people, so ride that high horse right on out of here, Harry.
I am referring to bullying, gang activity, incompetent and sometimes even malevolent teachers (who seem to do their best to drag the honestly good and gifted teachers down with them), low test scores, and poor overall results. I’m referring to time and energy spent on inculcating values into children that are in direct conflict with the values their parents want them to learn.
I disagree also with the implication that growth in the homeschooling movement is simply a negative result of the public school’s failure to do its job. As has been pointed out time and again, homeschooling predates both the system and its failure.
My husband and I are both degreed professionals. I stay at home to teach and care for my two children, having spent 15 years as a technical editor and writer in the defense industry. My husband and I made this choice, and while it does involve the sacrifice of living within our means, it can be done. That’s a whole other debate, but I wanted to point out that this is in fact well within the realm of possibility for more people than most of us realize.
Obviously, as Bess points out, not everyone can do this, nor SHOULD everyone. Some parents can’t handle being around their kids for very long, so the chance to put them on a bus and be rid of them for six or seven hours is very tempting. But to deny anyone the opportunity to homeschool, because that opportunity is not universal, is unrealistic, wrong, short-sighted and utterly stupid.
Are you kidding us? The amount raised through local taxes for public education exceeds the Department of Defense budget, or it did before we went to war.
Bravo Paige and Bess…Actually both replies to my reply is not perceived by me as exceptions or disagreements, but rather added evidence to the original premise that homeschooling by its very nature and history is superior. And yes, Bess, you are correct in the reason why I stated my credentials as well as to demonstrate I personally don’t have an ax to grind since public education has been quite good to me professionally…but sometimes I wonder what I might have accomplished if I had been homeschooled. If it must be taken that your comments are rebuttals to anything I said, then I quickly recant and embrace them. Actually, I was just trying to not offend opponents to the HS concept otherwise I would have been more militant. In short, both Paige and Bess are 100 percent accurate. After reading about the TN ruling I was outraged, both from the aspect of the “state” trying to force families to provide for their children in a way that they know is not best as well as homeschooling getting a bum rap from those who have a vested interest in seeing homeschooling fail and then distort the facts to gain support from the uninformed citizenry at large. At the risk of being accused of being one of those “political conspiracy theorists,” being an insider to the politico-education establishment I can assure you the government by its nature is out to suppress anything that threatens its power-base.
There really is not much more to add to whatever facts about public education stated by Paige, Bess and those prior to my original reply. These are facts that have plenty of evidence to their accuracy. To try to convince those who deny them would be similar to trying to convince the ancient priest about to gut a sacrificial child to appease the gods that eclipses really aren’t caused by some godlike monster devouring the sun…Paige and Bess, I know you will catch the deeper implications of this analogy. For the non-believers of homeschooling I suggest you read “The World is Flat” and “The Big Squeeze” on why we need more kids who have the HOTS capability or why public education had better get its act together. As I say in my blog (www.theflatworldtimes.blogspot.com)…my kids and granddaughter will be succesful, but it just might not be in the U.S.
In closing, I would like to add two more facts. First, as regards to special needs being met in public schools, most are not aware that if a low IQ student is actually performing up to standards based on that IQ then that student is not helped and is instead thrown in with the mainstream student population to sink or swim. For example, if a student has a 70 IQ, who would obviously have problems with most academics, is actually performing at the level of a 70 IQ student then too bad, no help; whereas a student with a 130 IQ is performing, let’s say for example, at a level of a 100 IQ student then that student qualifies for special needs assistance…honestly, that is how the federal law reads! Notice, I’m not even delving into the special needs students who don’t get identified or are misidentified…how many very intelligent students have been ID’d as ADHD when if fact they are just bored and then put into a Special Education class or labeled as a troublemaker hopped up on meds?…after all, aren’t we conditioned to accept that the government knows best?
Second, Harry, I’m just sorry I didn’t think of using the “well, I’m homeschooled” excuse for all of those times I got caught skipping school…well, maybe those public school kids have learned high order thinking skills after all!
Ok, I’m shutting up at the risk of sounding like a public school bureaucrat or central office administrator. After reading my initial comments and these, you must be feeling like the brand new teacher who actually thinks he or she is going to spend the week before the kids show up preparing the classroom or lesson plans, only to discover the week is spent in meaningless motivational in-services or procedural meetings. Finally, I’m glad Harry recognizes that public education is a cash cow and a governmental goose that lays the golden egg. And thanks to my friend and fellow rabble-rouser, Ted Z, for calling me to say that several had actually taken the time to read my epistle…the two of us could be a tag team on debating the factual shortcomings of public education and the superiority of homeschooling.
Good luck to those who must have their children in the U.S. public school system and congratulations to those who see the wisdom of homeschooling and are able to provide it. BTW…Ted suggested we show this blog to our district’s assistant superintendent of instruction to start a dialog on how we can improve our district. And thanks, Paige and Bess, for clarifying what I was attempting to convey.
Dan
Oops…I know I should have proofread my reply before clicking submit. Before Harry or anybody else can point out my grammatical error…the first sentence should read, “…Actually both replies to my reply are not perceived by me as exceptions or disagreements, et al.” My apologies for using “…is…” instead of “…are…”
Dan
I wasn’t looking to correct your grammar, Dan, but I am waiting for you to admit that your statement about federal spending on public school was a silly howler, off by nearly an order of magnitude.
And since this “information” is supposedly coming from an insider who ought to know the facts, it does color my readiness to accept the rest of what you wrote.
Just thought I’d share an interesting article written about African American home educators.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/african_american_homeschooling/99179/1
The author is director of the National African American Homeschoolers Alliance.
Dan - my comments were not a rebuttal, but wanting you to clarify a few statements, because they seemed a bit contradictory to your central argument. That’s all. And I found it amusing that there seems to be this need to justify oneself with a curriculum vitae to avoid the labeling of “semi-literate.”
Harry, your arrogance is stunning in the way you probably wish your “arguments” could be. Mr. Blevins has been a professional in the very field we’re discussing. Even using your own Big Lots version of logic, he knows more about educational funding and its sources than do you or I. The fact that you find it surprising doesn’t mean it’s untrue.
Well, he probably ought to know more, but he doesn’t know even as much.
My job puts me in contact with the numbers. He’s off by a multiple of at least 5.
You could look it up. He could look it up.
If looking it up and being correct on the facts counts as arrogance with you, so be it.
IF that was an actual fact, it would be the very first you’ve cited here. If this is your A game, I’m glad you’re not on our side.
I attended a public school system and graduated as a National Merit Scholar. I further attended a university and after getting Bachelor degrees completely unrelated to education I received a Master’s degree in Education.
That opened my eyes to the fact that there really and truly is an agenda being pushed on our children by the public schools.
Graduate level school finance classes also taught me that the assertion that funding is based on the number of children in the seats is indeed correct (it is referred to as Average Daily Membership or ADM in the state where I live). In these classes principals working towards certification to become superintendents and teachers working towards certification to become principals heard all this and complained that homeschoolers were taking money away from them. The person teaching the class (a superintendent of a good district in this rural area who was adjuncting for the university to give them a “hands-on” instructor) explained that in our state, good districts benefit from homeschooling and bad districts suffer and complain, because (here’s a simplification for brevity’s sake) the state ends up with one big pot of money in the range of a few billion dollars dedicated to education. According to the figures he provided there (were at the time) roughly 450,000 public school children who divvy that up. There (were at the time) roughly 25,000 homeschooled children who would share that money if they were in the public schools, which would in turn mean that each child would get roughly 5% less funding out of the pot. Good districts tend to have a disproportionately lower percentage of their children taken out and homeschooled by their parents, so they benefit from the extra funding per pupil while poor districts lose disproportionately more pupils and hence lose disproportionately more funding.
Primarily because of the indoctrination factor (and it was discussed in great detail in my graduate level education classes) my wife and I have decided to homeschool our children. I have a Master’s in Education and lesser degrees in other subjects (think hard sciences) and my wife’s degree is in child development. Will our children be “less educated” because we insist on having lots of time to take them to museums and zoos and state capitols? Will they be “less educated” when math and reading are taught and emphasized before the age of five? Will they be “less educated” because their worldview is framed outside the atheist worldview? Will they be “less educated” when they are outperforming their peers in every statistically valid comparison? According to the NEA the answer is yes. This is what frustrates people, that when you can prove statistically that homeschooling is a better option in general and you can provide anecdotal examples that far exceed the public school option (and find public school anecdotes far worse than any negative homeschooling ones I’ve ever heard) the Public School Pushers still insist that theirs is the only valid option (not choice – they don’t want any choices).
I haven’t seen many public schools willing or even able to teach Mandarin, an opportunity my son enjoys at home. Frankly, the public (and even the private) schools here can’t manage well with Spanish, and that’s somewhat easier to learn and to teach.
In public schools, the one-size-fits-all approach ensures that some kids are going to be left out. If some of those same marginalized kids are taught at home by parents who care enough to understand their learning styles and to tailor teaching to those styles, how is that bad? If a child needs extra time to master one skill, and breezes through another subject with ease, why should he or she be forced to plod (or race) along with the herd? I hear a lot of trash talk about homeschooling being “undemocratic” (and that’s not a quote from anyone here, per se) but it’s the government schools that look a lot more undemocratic to me. I guess the critics define democracy the same way as Kim Jong Il.
If government schools can’t handle competition, maybe they’re the problem, rather than the competition. If government schools work for 50% or 60% of the population (an estimate that seems optimistic to me, but whatever), let that segment use them. The remainder are just as deserving of good education as those in government schools, and they deserve to have every option open to them. Denying them that only winds up hurting everyone.
You guys need a course in critical thinking (although I don’t think it really can be taught; people either have what it takes to think clearly or they don’t).
Let’s review the last 2 posts:
Scott by implication avers that the average homeschooler is supervised by someone with as master’s in education. I doubt it.
Paige is under the delusion that somebody is preventing her from home schooling.
I just hope the home schooled students come out better than their teachers, but that seems improbable.
I think I understand now! Harry, you simply do not understand the reason why there are so many homeschool parents here who are incensed by this TN declaration. Many of us have the foresight to see that actions like this are steps to making homeschooling illegal. Paige is not under any delusions. She is concerned, and rightly so. There are groups out there who DON’T want parents to have a choice to home school their children and they are the originators of decisions like this.
I don’t believe that anywhere in Scott’s post did he in ANY way aver that the average homeschooler is supervised by someone with “a” master’s in education. He was giving an EXAMPLE (you do know what that is, dont’ you?) using his OWN situation. Here’s another EXAMPLE: I know at least 5 homeschooling parents, personally, with masters degrees in education. One of whom is the nice lady who evaluates my children, and many others, each year to ensure that my children are being sufficiently taught the information they need to “graduate” to the next school year. (end example) So, in effect, my children and almost ALL the homeschool children in Florida ARE under the supervision of an individual with a master’s degree in education. That’s the way our law is set up here in Florida - either you have to have your children evaluated by said persons, have your children tested by said persons (with tests approved by the state) or have your children enrolled in private schools (run by similar said persons). Most states have similar rules/laws in effect to govern homeschooling to make sure that children are being properly educated.
It is Ridiculous for TN to negate homeschool diplomas in the face of the statistics on homeschool stu