As @FLOTUS said, the choice in this election is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four years of their lives.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 15, 2016
Posted on 09/25/2016 11:46:40 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King said that he has concerns about children who are homeschooled according to a story published in Politico Pro (paywall) today.
Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said today that he’s concerned that homeschooled students aren’t “getting the range of options that are good for all kids.”
But King also said he’s aware of homeschooling families “doing it incredibly well” and he knew of students in college who had “very tremendous academic success.”
“Obviously, it’s up to families if they want to take a homeschool approach,” King said, when asked about the topic during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters.
King noted that research shows homeschooling is growing in popularity.
But King said he worries that “students who are homeschooled are not getting kind of the rapid instructional experience they would get in school” – unless parents are “very intentional about it.”
King said the school experience includes building relationships with peers, teachers and mentors – elements which are difficult to achieve in homeschooling, he said, unless parents focus on it.
The Christian Science Monitor didn’t include this in their coverage of their own breakfast which I find odd considering how controversial those remarks are.
Considering many home schooled children take college classes while in high school I find Secretary King’s remarks completely asinine. He doesn’t demonstrate any data to back up his concerns. Studies have shown homeschooling students are out-performing their public school counterparts. He must not also be aware that homeschooling students also led their public school counterparts in SAT results.
Considering his remarks center around a socialization argument leads me to believe he knows very little about homeschooling.
In my opinion his remarks demonstrate frustration over an educational option that is outside of federal control. Considering the mess he made up in New York I don’t think he’s qualified to comment on homeschooling.
Will Estrada, director of federal relations at the Home School Legal Defense Association, made the following remarks on Facebook, “Government bureaucracies always seek more power at the expense of individual liberty. Education policy should be left to the states and localities.”
“The success of homeschooling shows that freedom works. Secretary King would replace that God-given freedom of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children with more government regulation,’ Estrada added.
The fact that the Obama administration has a low opinion of homeschooling should hardly come as a surprise. Back in 2013 former Attorney General Eric Holder when trying to boot the Romeike family out of the United States argued that Germany’s banning homeschooling doesn’t violate fundamental rights.
Homeschooling parents need to be ever vigilant to protect their educational freedom.
Update: Be sure to read Lindsey Burke’s piece about Secretary King’s concerns at The Daily Signal. She made some points that I kick myself for not making.
Also known as being Socialized with Socialism.
As @FLOTUS said, the choice in this election is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four years of their lives.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 15, 2016
That’s it right there!
My granddaughter is home-schooled and I’m thrilled as can be that her parents have control over the kids and other adults in her life.
She takes dance and has friends at church. There are also scheduled field trips with other homeschoolers. That’s enough peer involvement for a 5-year-old.
Very importantly, we also have the assurance she’s protected during potty breaks.
If Trump is elected inform him he is fired and his agency is being closed
Bkmrk.
As a member of the Nebraska "education bureaucracy" once declared during a televised debate years ago, home schooled/ Christian schooled kids won't "fit into the new social order being constructed here."
This is a crisis we'd better get a handle on before it's too late -- if it isn't already!
The only way I interpret “rapid” is in “rapid decline.” Lots of kids graduating from HS today are unable to perform the work that sixth graders routinely did 50 years ago.
Homeschooling nag/joke - please don’t ask me if my children are adequately socialized while we are at soccer practices, play dates, museum tours, Bible study, dance lessons or anything else we do.
Homeschooling is partially to blame for the decline of private schools, and it is increasingly popular with internet curriculums that almost free Mom from having to be a full time teacher.
Nearly every family I know with more than three children that opts out of public school homeschools due to cost.
I only expect that to increase due to:
A. numeric growth of the population that homeschools, with second generation groups engaging in it with their children
B. between Christian and public education online programs, it becomes more acceptable for everyone to find an online program to use.
C. the growth of homeschooling coops that are a hybrid of private and home schooling, so that you have language lessons, science lessons and PE with a group two days a week but at a fraction of the cost of private schooling all week
D. as it becomes more mainstream, more people who want to opt out of public schools are more likely to know someone who did it and thus it isn’t a weird group out in the wilderness but more like tutoring at home - therefore, OK to try
I think Mr. Secretary should be worried about poor quality public schools and the students they are turning out.
There is the important consideration of teaching kids to not be naive about the world in which they will live as adults.
My DIL and also granddaughter home school their kids. My DIL said it took her awhile to get the public school mindset out of her oldest. He has his head out of the pc clouds now, thank goodness.
You aren't worried about us, you are worried that we think for ourselves instead of being brainwashed as liberals...
FU...
maybe they'll make parents who homeschool join the union and pay dues....would not surprise me one bit...
Your nephews are just like me and my siblings. We are nice, too. My 6 year old brother is doing multiplication and division. My 3 year old sister knows how to write...
Yeah, those poor homeschooled kids aren’t browbeaten into complacency and conformity by their teachers, nor bullied by their “peers”. How tragic.
Not to worry, John your tenure will be over in less than four months!
Why, why, why can we not get rid of this abomination called Dept of Education?
Of my three, we have as undergrad,2 Physics degrees and on computer field degree.
Two are currently actively pursuing their masters and one is looking into beginning his.
One is in pursuit of a PhD after her masters.
All three are gainfully employed and have not cost society a nickel in welfare, jail time, or any other form of government deadbeat handouts.
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