Posted on 01/22/2013 9:53:44 AM PST by billflax
"This notion that the children belong to the state, that their education must be provided for by the state … is inimical at every step to liberty.” – J. Gresham Machen
The swelling legions of homeschoolers poke a subtle rebuke at America’s ever expanding nanny state. Under both parties, Washington has systematically invaded private spheres and co-opted public services historically performed by local bodies. But a spontaneous groundswell of freedom minded folks has continued America’s rich inheritance of rugged individualism.
The God-fearing, flag-waiving, gun-toting homeschool crowd embodies the American spirit of mutual self-reliance. You won’t encounter a more neighborly bunch. Their children thrive without government “help.” Their support networks blossom sans the state’s sanction. Meanwhile, taxpayers waste a fortune securing abysmal academic results. In 2012, SAT scores fell to their lowest level since tracking began. As spending soars, assessment scores plummet.
The modern homeschool movement comes largely by Christians aghast over an academic establishment overrun by progressives. Schools long ago became laboratories for instilling statism and distilling politically correct groupthink. Values clarification anyone? With public education increasingly geared toward multicultural agitation against America’s godly heritage, many parents resolved to safeguard the hearts, souls and minds of their young.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Too bad we can’t opt-out of the property taxes which go mostly to the publik schools.
I don’t see any of the members of the FRTU here yet. But it’s still early.
One big advantage of homeschooling is the ability of a child to really focus on an activity and expand their expertise. This can be quite attractive to any number of Ivy league schools.
A very good friend of my daughter discovered she LOVED languages. In her Sophomore year, she transitioned to home schooling to allow her to really concentrate on languages not offered at any public school. She became proficient in about 4 and gained a working knowledge in several others.
Full ride to Yale.
Nice
I STRONGLY disagree... It's not subtle at all.
Probably this is reason no. 1 why my wife and I chose to homeschool.
I wonder how long before they try to ban home schools?
I think home schoolers should get property tax exemptions
Great post.
Never been around a nicer bunch of people. Of course, there are loons - but they are few and far between. Although you wouldn't know it going by the lame-stream media.
and at Yale she got liberal indoctrination probably
We did get in early to defend you all against the MSM over the shooting incident yesterday.
First: all parents homeschool until they turn their child over to progressive professionals for indoctrination into leftist society. You may not think your sweet 1st grade teacher intends on doing that but she must use materials approved by the State, have a lesson plan that complies with State standards, and must bring your child along in the topics that matter to the committee of elites who grant both her and her school credentials.
My wife and I homeschooled and our goal was always to give our children an adequate basis of morality and character so they could successfully resist the indoctrination of others with their own agendas. In this we were successful.
Second: Homeschooling is not for every parent and it is not necessarily for the entire 13 years. My wife and I homeschooled for 10 years until the subject matter became too demanding. But when we consulted with the local public school district, upon their own evaluation they wanted to place our daughter fully two grades ahead of her age peers.
What does this say about the norms of public school performance? When an entire education system debilitates children by about two years, after they graduate this deficiency continues and affects job performance and citizenship. America is being dumbed down so educrats can give themselves high marks for barely meeting their own lowered standards.
One advantage to home schooling is that the parents get to revisit topics they had long neglected. Nothing reinforces knowledge like having to teach it again!
The first question I got about homeschooling while we were active in it was “what about socialization”?
This question always puzzled me. If parents don’t move during the years their child attends public school, that child stays in the same age cohort for a dozen years. Talk about socialization! Their child spends more time with those children than with any other group, so of course group and peer pressure becomes significant in shaping child character and morality.
In my experience, children who are homeschooled interact with such a wide variety of people that the people they consider their “peers” have a far wider rage of ages and backgrounds. In my daughters case, when she got to be older, some of her “peers” were even the parents of other homeschool children with whom she interacted as we shared field trips and specialized lessons with.
If at all possible, home school your children for as long as you can. But of course each child is different as is each parent’s abilities and circumstances.
We’ve been telling the State to stick it for 18 years. Two down, two to go.
I think home schoolers should get property tax exemptions
But what about taxpayers with no children ?
I would not be surprised if homeschooling is in the gun sights of this administration.
good question.
No kids doesn’t mean will never have or never had them though.
Vouchers will just have the government putting their crap into private schools sooner or later.
It's been in the gunsights since Clinton, when he tried to force the certification of "all teachers." We shut down the congressional switchboard, and that was the end of that.
Most people think the movement is now too big, with homeschoolers numbering an estimated 2 million children. But I expect an assault before the regime ends, particularly if the commies take the House.
I’m waiting for one of our well educated homeschooled kids to grow up and get into politics, and make mincemeat out of some public skooled jerk on the stump.
Homeschooling is awesome, but I’m hoping one day it pays big ...i’ve always said that one day our homeschooled youngsters will be the ones to save us.
Homeschooled my own for a collective total of 6 years ... wouldn’t have traded that time for anything.
We homeschooled and never regretted it. Our daughter is about to graduate college in May with conservative principles intact and her faith in the Lord as strong as ever.
We’re trying to get ours into a Montessori school.
Anyone here in GA interested in proving their support for vouchers by redirecting their state tax money to this school? (and getting a federal tax break in the process!) See http://PayItForwardScholarships.com ... if we can’t get enough redirected to this $-for-$ donation, public school may be the only choice. FReepmail me if interested.
In the last few decades sending your child to government indoctrination centers, if you had any other options, is tantamount to child abuse and neglect.
If any of us are foolish enough to believe we can out vote a population that spent K-12 being spoon fed liberal garbage and then possibly going on to higher learning with institutions packed to the rafters with self avowed socialists and communists, you are insane.
If this country is EVER to be placed back on the brilliant track set forth by the Founders, then we will, at bare minimum have to spend the same number of decades teaching our youth reality and truth not liberal lies which only serve to hide liberal failures.
IMO, without an all out effort to destroy the public school system by removing our children from their clutches, this country is forever lost. We certainly will not have the equipment for a Thomas Jefferson moment as government is making sure they infringe on the 2nd Amendment. And they have evisceration the 4th and 5th and in conjunction with mudslimes will eviscerate the 1st Amendment.
The irony is that aiming for the former will often result in the latter.
Take at hazard one hundred children of several educated generations and one hundred uneducated children of the people and compare them in anything you please; in strength, in agility, in mind, in the ability to acquire knowledge, even in morality—and in all respects you are startled by the vast superiority on the side of the children of the uneducated.It terrifies me that so many conservatives believe in compulsory schooling, even after having attended.— Count Leo Tolstoy, "Education and Children" (1862)
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