Replies

Congratulations on how well your children have done! We (my wife, really) homeschooled our son until 9th grade. I use many of the lessons-learned from that experience in my own teaching. I agree that the public system could learn a lot from homeschoolers.

The $100 is what I get to teach all my students, not each. I should have been more clear. It really doesn't buy a lot of hands-on and lab materials.

I won't pretend that I can accomplish with my students what you did with your children, because I can't. I can say that one of my students graduated high school last year. I have followed him closely, tutoring him on my own time, and acting as a bit of surrogate father on occasion. He is the first person in his family to EVER earn a high school diploma... from either side of his family.

Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles... not a one with a high school diploma, and most of them on public assistance. He won't attend college, but he does have a job. Keeping his paycheck away from the hoard of freeloaders is a different matter, but I think I helped him have a chance at a future. It's not headline news, but I get some satisfaction from it.

I did not even imply that $100 was for each student.

I hope you are not assuming that I spent $100/year on curriculum each year for each of my homeschoolers as individuals because we didn't. It was **less** than $100 for all three for their entire curriculum.

I don't know how we did it. Hm?...Recycled phonics, Saxon Math, grammar, spelling, and handwriting books that are now being used by the grandchildren and books from the library. How on earth did we manage?

By the way, our new little struggling church met for a time in a private school. Guess what? They were using the same Latin grammar books that I used as a kid. These rows of Latin books were published in 1947. Really! It's true. I bet no professional “educator” has ever asked anyone in the private school how they manage to do it.