Texas Home School Coalition : Home School Crisis

Texas Home School Coalition ^ | Tim Lambert

[Alkhin]

Dear Texas Home Schooler,

THSC PAC today (January 31, 2006) releases its initial round of endorsements for the 2006 Republican Primary. Texas home schoolers face a potential crisis in this election the likes of which we have not seen since the TEA ruled that home schools were not private schools and encouraged local school districts to prosecute parents who were teaching their children at home in the early 1980s. Let me explain.

[Alkhin]

I am posting this because I have recieved this notification through my local homeschool chapter in Fort Bend and thought it would be relevent to the ongoing discussions concerning Homeschools. Texas has been a veritable jewel among the states where homeschooling is concerned, and I would hate to lose bragging rights that the best place to HS is my home state. It concerns me very much that a majority of candidates up for election have close connections with the administrative bureacracy in Texas and that some have had no problems stating that they wish to come down on HS'ers. This is a freedom I am loathe to lose, especially since I have just begun HSing myself. I love doing this and wont take kindly to some educrat forcing me to comply to their warped standards.

Thank you, JimRob, for Free Republic!

[Alkhin]

BUMP!

[Alkhin]

BUMP!!!

[untrained skeptic]

I support home schooling. I distrust our government trying to regulate home schooling becuase I strong suspect their efforts are more to destroy it than make sure it provides a good education.

However, at the same time we all know people who we don't think are capable of making sure their children get a good education at home. Shouldn't there be some kind of accountability to make sure that children are really getting a solid education? How can that accountability be enforced without the subversive elements of our government using it to force home schoolers to teach crap to children?

[Alkhin]

Good question - and I cant think of a way to answer the second other than to say that it can't be, at least not through the government. The best means of accountability at least inasfar as the parent keeping their own accountability is through regular Standford Achievement Tests and the various curriculums available. Ultimately, how the student places in the SATs/ACTs and other college entrance exams is the highest arbiter of that judgement. I simply don't want the TEA/NEA/government bureacracy telling me I have to be in alignment with the curriculum THEY set because the main reason I took my child out of public school was because I found their curriculum to be deplorable. I am accountable to my child, but not to some government agency.

[thebaron512]

And Public schools have done so well.... They don't like losing control and HS make them look bad in many cases.

[Alkhin]

Definitely!! What worries me the most is that I know in the public school my child will not recieve the Western civ education I know she will need to have in order to understand why things will be the way they are when she reaches adulthood. She gripes now, but I keep telling her that she will continue to encounter things later on that will reference back the Western Civ history/literature/science/technology/society that we are covering now.

On top of that, considering what I have been hearing has been happening in the grade schools where she would be attending - - rapes, gangs, mislabeling, and a general arrogance of the school teachers -- I'll fight tooth and nail to keep her out of Public School.

[Osage Orange]

However, at the same time we all know people who we don't think are capable of making sure their children get a good education at home. Shouldn't there be some kind of accountability to make sure that children are really getting a solid education?

You mean like the accountability in Public Schools?

[TalonDJ]

Accountability should rest with the parents where is has as long as humans have existed.

'we all know people who we don't think are capable of making sure their children get a good education at home'

And many of us know people we think should not be breathing. Or should not be allowed to drive, etc. People always know people who rights/privileges they would like to take away. That does not mean anyone has the right to actually DO IT. It is all well and good to have that 'I don't think they are capable' attitude until some teachers union brainwashed bureaucrat says YOU are not capable of raising your own kids. Then the much lauded 'accountability' suddenly seems like a bad thing. Any time you are thinking something needs over sight take a long hard look and think "Who would I trust to decide I was not fit."

[Alkhin]

HI Talon!!! Long time no see!!

[uncitizen]

I distrust our government trying to regulate home schooling becuase I strong suspect their efforts are more to destroy it than make sure it provides a good education.

When i was considering HS as an option for my daughter several years ago, our local school administration here in San Jose threw up road blocks and obstacles at me left and right. Furthermore, the books they required were the same as those used in the school district. They required me to prove this and that as regards my competence to teach my own child. More than any proof they'd ever given me wrt their own school district teachers BTW. In the end, they wore me down. I gave in and placed my daughter in a different private school.

[TalonDJ]

Ah, that is because you are not around the Hobbit Hole enough :D Nice to see ya!

Is is just me or has then been fewer homeschooling threads lately?

[Spirited]

Homeschooling threads have raised some flack and I suspect no one needs to extoll virtues of something that has already proven itself but is only for almost all.

[agrace]

homeschool bump and ping

[Alkhin]

Thank you - and a responding bump!

[Alkhin]

I know I havent :< :< its been crazy around here. I try to breeze in every now and again, but can never seem to join in...its not that everyone isnt friendly! I guess I just dont have much to contribute...

have been having some fun on some Yahoo threads and posting every once in a while to my regular blog...aside from that, homeschooling eats up a lot of my time.

[Alkhin]

Bump

[Alkhin]

If you know a FReeper in Texas, let them know about this thread!

[SuziQ]

Have there been no cases make it to the Supreme Court of Texas about homeschooling? In MA we rely on two different decisions by the Supreme Judicial Court, which limits what school districts can demand of homeschooling families.

[SuziQ]

The reverse of that is true as well. How can parents be sure that their children are actually being educated well at school? What accountability on the part of the school is there on which parents can depend?