Comments on: Home Schooling Goes Mainstream

By: The State of African American History Month | The Beacon

The State of African American History Month | The Beacon — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:43:22 +0000

[...] Jada’s mother has now quit her job to home school her, and that may indeed be Jada’s best hope for receiving the liberating education she so desperately wants. Indeed, according to J. Michael Smith, president and co-founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, “the Black homeschool movement is growing at a faster rate than the general homeschool population,” with high-profile parents like Will and Jada Smith setting the example. [...]

By: Is Home Education the Ultimate “Flipped Classroom”? « Little Seeds Academy

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:08:21 +0000

[...] on my anecdotal evidence at home, and the fact that home education is growing at a rate of 7% per year with over 2 million children being home educated, I believe it does. There has to be something to it, or there wouldn’t be so many families [...]

By: Are the Teachers Unions standing in the way of school choice? - Politics and Other Controversies -Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Conservatives, Liberals, Third Parties, Left-Wing, Right-Wing, Congress, President - Page 13 - City-Data Forum

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 19:04:43 +0000

[...] Originally Posted by juliekm My children entered the public school system last year for the first time in the 6th and 8th grade. An unfortunate consequence of the economy. Man was it a shock! They changed dramatically and it has been a huge effort to keep their heads in the right place. Parent don't realize how much they should be working at home to keep right values and morals deep rooted in their children. Parents that home school do Home Schooling "just isn't for the religious" ANYMORE The reasons have changed. In December 2008, the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics released estimates on the number of American families homeschooling their children. The report showed approximately 1.5 million children were being home schooled: 21 percent stated concern about the school environment 17 percent stated dissatisfaction with the academic instruction (Teachers) provided at schools. Those stating "other" reasons, went from 20 percent in 2003 to 32 percent in 2007, which indicates expansion in the types of demographic groups homeschooling their children. One private researcher estimates that as many as 2.5 million school-age children were educated at home during the 2007-2008 school year. Of course this is 2008 data – but it's clear home schooling is up a lot. Home Schooling Goes Mainstream : Education Next [...]

By: Dan Overmitten

Dan Overmitten — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:55:40 +0000

Ok, there are only 2 points I have against Gaither’s article.

decade?? How about the last 3 decades! He makes this statement and then proceeds to show how lengthy a history homeschooling really has. Everyone else is playing catch up, only because homeschooling can’t be ignored any longer. We’re everywhere and he’s had enough material on homeschooling to write a book!

There has only been one group who has attempted this. They are more than a homeschool advocacy group. They are a member organization which promotes “family values”, and have repeatedly tried to attach some sort of homeschooling language to federal legislation. Homeschooling is protected in each state and the federal government has never had anything to do with homeschooling. HSLDA represent only their members and they lobby for non-homeschooling issues. They should not be viewed as representative of the homeschooling community.

I also thought it humorous that the National Home Education Network was quoted. Their link(s) haven’t worked for some time.

It’s nice he described the effort against cyber schools correctly.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. ”
—Frederick Douglass

By: Ed is Watching » I Guess Some People Are Still Offended Parents Can Choose to Homeschool

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:10:45 +0000

[...] Next writer Milton Gaither clearly showed a little over a year ago, people choose homeschooling for a wide variety of reasons. The caricature West tries to draw is simply a figment of someone’s [...]

By: Chris Backe

Chris Backe — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:47:57 +0000

I happened across this article from another article in England that may require parents to undergo a background check before they can homeschool their own kids.

Although my involvement in a homeschool community has been extensive (homeschooled for 12 years, and a fellow author of a homeschooled book, entitled “The Homeschoolers Guide to College”, available on Amazon), it is stories like these that remind me of a simple fact: people must have the ability to choose for themselves. Any parent that insists their child should be like every other child can and should send them to public school to teach them the standards in the boringly standard way.

Any parent that wants something better for their child(ren) must face the worldview that public school is somehow better for their children – the children they gave birth to, raised, and know better than any well-intentioned adult.

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:59:32 +0000

I forgot to say, there is a theory (and it would be interesting for some further investigations to be conducted) that some of the anti-homeschool political people in England have links (i.e shareholdings in) to cyberschools that cost a lot of money per year so it’s not just an American issue. Some cynical homeschoolers over here have already suggested that some of the attacks we are getting are not due to child welfare but to ensure that homeschoolers end up paying the cost of education (at the moment we don’t cost the state anything, nor do we receive anything but some of the government suggestions are that if our children do not attend school, then we would need to a) register and b) register with virtual schools.

I certainly do not want that for my child and think it is an entirely inappropriate form of education for our family’s needs and philosophies.

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:51:23 +0000

We are losing our right to home educate (homeschool) here in England. It is really scary at the moment for homeschoolers because our current Government and some of the ministers are anti-homeschooling, actively hostile, and want us all to put our children into the school system and remove any parental responsibility to our children. They keep citing child welfare reasons and yet there is no link. This Government also cites Germany as a reason to change the legislation against home education. It’s sad because the home-educated children we know are all really lovely and my own child has thrived because of home education. I too get the pressure to put her in school when people see how well she is doing. They don’t seem to understand that home education has had a positive influence on how she behaves, thinks and learns and that we don’t want to change that. The peer pressure in schools is often very negative.

Education and learning can be done out of school – I think it is so important that there are lots of informed choices available because our children and ourselves learn in so many ways. For some families and children school works, for some a formalised and strictly scheduled approach works and for others a more autonomous approach is best.

Hooray for home education :)

By: Lucie

Lucie — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:57:27 +0000

I want to commend your article on the changes in homeschooling. We have homeschooled for 10 years now and I have watched public attitudes toward homeschooling change drastically. One that hasn’t, however, is the attitude of educators toward homeschooling parents.

(Example) Upon hearing that my 9th grader, taking his first-ever standardized test, had achieved top nationwide rankings on the ACT Explore test overall, Math & Science, one teacher-acquaintance proceeded to explain to me that I was “holding my son back” by homeschooling such a bright child. When I looked her straight in the eye and asked, “but what about the possibility that he is performing well because he is homeschooling,” she just balked.

Most of us realize the weaknesses of homeschooling and work consciously to overcome them by putting together groups for field trips, drama, and social activities. Most of us regularly learn teaching techniques from schoolteachers and informal educators alike.

On the other hand, the educators I meet are not even slightly interested in exchanging ideas with successful homeschoolers. They refuse to acknowledge that we could possibly be doing anything right or that we could have an advantage in any situation.

I believe quite strongly that each setting is unique, but each has the potential for informing the other. Right now that flow of knowledge is just one way because the way back to the schools is blocked by closed minds. What a pity!

Thanks for opening it up a bit.

By: Ex-con

Ex-con — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:06:45 +0000

Government schools cannot be reformed. They were created not to educate but to indoctrinate, dumb down, convert Christians to secular humanism and produce uniform, obedient human resource job seekers and ignorant consumers for big business-government at the expense of the property owner and taxpayer. This is documented fact (John Taylor Gatto, Charlotte Iserbyt, Samuel Blumenfeld, John Dewey, Gerald bracey). So please stop the pretense about schools “educating”.