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Defending home-style ABCs [Homeschooling Ping]
Los Angeles Times ^ | 4/3/08 | Seema Mehta

Posted on 04/05/2008 3:09:38 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim

Madison Browning, 8, spent a recent school day coloring, playing on swings at a park and whirling to Japanese string music at a cozy dance studio. Caedyn Curto, 13, studied biblical scripture at his family's kitchen table before tackling decimals, completing a biology test and revising a journalism essay.

The Browning and Curto families, both of whom live in the South Bay, have embraced very different styles of education. But they now find themselves on the same side of a battle to continue teaching their children at home in the face of an appellate court ruling that home schooling in California must be conducted by credentialed instructors.

The February court decision is not being enforced pending appeals. The 2nd District Court of Appeal agreed last week to rehear the case in June, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to support new legislation allowing home schooling if the decision is not reversed. Meanwhile, the ruling has forged a rare alliance of religious and secular home schoolers.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: constitution; education; homeschooling; religion; stumblebummer
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To: Twink

Seems you didn’t read his post #95, where he states clearly that his kids are insulted.

If you think the graphs and charts on that website are not correct, why don’t you write to the authors and ask for the data? No, you’d rather cast aspersions and then stand back and puff yourself up over how magnificently you proved someone else wrong (or lying, as you imply.)

All in all, your reply could be summed up by the phrase “I’ve got a Secret”. You and you alone understand his point, and you’re not telling what it is. That’s what’s sophomoric, Peewee.


221 posted on 04/10/2008 4:34:39 AM PDT by savedbygrace (SECURE THE BORDERS FIRST (I'M YELLING ON PURPOSE))
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To: Twink; humblegunner
Dear Twink,

“I think you have an issue with humblegunner,...”

You have it backwards. It's humblegunner who has a problem with me. Try to actually read the posts that we exchanged.

“Are you doing this with me cos I’m easy and he isn’t?”

Nah. You present your own set of problems. Like lack of interest in the facts.

“I’m taking it as you dissing me from your post and I could be wrong, it’s possible and likely, yet I don’t think so here.”

Make up your mind. Do you think I'm “dissing” you or not?

It isn't my intention. But you made precisely one remark to me, accusing me of making it personal. I politely suggested that you go back and read the exchange and see who initiated the exchange, and thus, who made it personal.

You declined.

So I asked you to withdraw the remark.

You did, while getting snotty.

As well, you seem to have misrepresented the remarks of another poster in trying to defend his/her remarks. You said you agreed with those remarks.

I pointed out what the remarks actually were with which I'd taken issue. I asked you whether or not you agreed with them.

Do you agree with the poster's remarks that I posted?

“On average is always a qualifier to a bunch of bs or manipulation of the numbers, not taking correlating data into account, etc.”

No, sorry, “average” or “mean,” and “median” and other words like that have specific meanings (I actually took a bit more than introductory statistics), and are fairly used to compare groups.

You'll notice that I said that “on average, homeschoolers do better academically than public schoolchildren.” I didn't say why. That's where questions of causation versus correlation come into play. That would be an interesting discussion.

But before that discussion might proceed, it helps for folks to accept a basis of statistical facts. Like, on average, homeschoolers do better academically than public schoolchildren. The research has been done. That much has been established. If you, or humblegunner, or anyone else on this thread or elsewhere, prefer to refuse to acknowledge that statistical fact discovered through disinterested research, then, first, there is little basis for discussing the whys or issues of causation and correlation, and second, you will be burying your head in the sand, in denial of reality.

I have no intent to offend, but no intention of letting you say unchallenged things that aren't true, either.


sitetest

222 posted on 04/10/2008 5:36:03 AM PDT by sitetest (If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
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To: sitetest; Twink
It's humblegunner who has a problem with me.

Nope, not you.

I have an issue with anyone who uses statistics or any other means to try to imply that their kids are superior to mine.

If you need to denigrate my kids to make yours look good, based solely on the manner in which they are educated, you begin with a weak premise.

Something about homeschooling makes the parents arrogant.

I simply choose to call them on it.

223 posted on 04/10/2008 6:36:10 AM PDT by humblegunner
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To: humblegunner
Dear humblegunner,

“I have an issue with anyone who uses statistics or any other means to try to imply that their kids are superior to mine.”

Not knowing anything about your children, I imply nothing about them. It is you who infer wrongly from my posts.

That IS your problem.

“If you need to denigrate my kids to make yours look good, based solely on the manner in which they are educated, you begin with a weak premise.”

In that homeschoolers are often required to defend our choice to homeschool, we use statistics to show that typically, homeschooling leads to positive results. That you take that as denigration of your particular children is an illogical, bitter, emotional, response on your part.

That you then go further and try to personalize the discussion with someone who isn't making it personal is even more your problem.

Be well.


sitetest

224 posted on 04/10/2008 6:47:12 AM PDT by sitetest (If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
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To: jabchae

So do you think having state funded university programs is unconstitutional as well?

I think society would be a big mess if public schools were taken away. What about all the bright kids who have parents who couldnt and would not homeschool properly?

You are looking at this issue form the perspective of someone who wants to homeschool. Not everyone could or wants to.

Its sorta like public highway systems. Some things just keep everything flowing smoothly. Maybe homeschoolers should get tax refunds to help them (and you might I don’t know what the tax laws are regarding it).

In the end I think most people prefer traditional schools.


225 posted on 04/10/2008 2:42:45 PM PDT by modest proposal
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To: jabchae

So do you think having state funded university programs is unconstitutional as well?

I think society would be a big mess if public schools were taken away. What about all the bright kids who have parents who couldnt and would not homeschool properly?

You are looking at this issue form the perspective of someone who wants to homeschool. Not everyone could or wants to.

Its sorta like public highway systems. Some things just keep everything flowing smoothly. Maybe homeschoolers should get tax refunds to help them (and you might I don’t know what the tax laws are regarding it).

In the end I think most people prefer traditional schools.


226 posted on 04/10/2008 2:42:45 PM PDT by modest proposal
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To: Twink

I never skipped in college either. I was at almost every class (even when I had a bad ear infection).

The only times I skipped were when I knew I was not missing anything huge. Oh..and once I had a psychology professor who wrote his own book and tested directly from it. So I never went to class and read the book for each test and got an A.


227 posted on 04/10/2008 2:49:36 PM PDT by modest proposal
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To: modest proposal
I think many people that think compulsory public education is unconstitutional are looking at it from the perspective that having the government tell you what chair to sit in and what to think for most of your waking hours isn't freedom. (Your proposal to keep instruction values-neutral is impossible.) Not all of these people are homeschoolers. Many offer other solutions.

I haven't heard of any compulsory universities in the US, state funded or otherwise.

Another viewpoint is that the expanding govt welfare programs is not a good idea. I think it was Sheldon Richman who summed it up, "If a free lunch at noon is a welfare program, why isn't a free math class at 11?"

You presume to know the motives of people you've never talked to as well as mine, which I haven't shared. How is that? I've offered you alternative views that people have actually explained to me. I would not presume to tell them that they actually have other motives, absent any evidence. Are you saying that no one actually believes compulsory govt. ed to be unconstitutional? No one could believe that? No one could act on that belief?

Do you think no one had an education before 1850 in the US? Public ed. is a relatively recent fad. Society was a horrible mess then and now public schooling has fixed everything?

228 posted on 04/10/2008 4:26:12 PM PDT by jabchae
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