More families opting for home schooling

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scott Butler could not stand high school. On the days he made it to class, it felt like a waste of time.

"It was hard to pay attention," he said. "I really wasn't learning anything -- a lot of distractions."

"We think the same rules ought to apply to everybody, and this appears to be an instance in which an exception is being made," said Bud Blakey, Washington counsel to the United Negro College Fund.

Translated: "We want to control YOUR child and not allow you to raise YOUR child as you see fit," said Dumbass Blakey.

Critics worry that home-schooled children are not getting a quality education. As school districts face tougher quality standards for teachers.

Wrong, home-schooled children WEREN'T getting a quality education. That's why they're being homeschooled now.

The National Education Association, which represents 2.7 million teachers and other school workers, says home schooling as a parent's choice "cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience."

Ah yes...one of the biggest, most powerful unions in this country. One of the largest donors to the Democratic Party. If home-schooled children don't get a comprehensive education, then why do they constantly OUTSCORE and OUTPERFORM their government schooled peers? If I were a parent, I certainly would want my child to focus on learning, rather than having to put up with political correctness in schools, learning about homosexuality, diversity and a slew of other steaming CRAP.

...home-schooled children are not getting adequate exposure to other kids or the chance to develop social skills

Home-schooled children are not supposed to go to school to learn social skills, they are there to learn an accurate teaching of history, science, geography, math, English, spelling, etc. Social skills will develop fine outside of school by playing community sports and playing with friends. I personally think that the child that is sent off to government school during the day and camps out in front of the Playstation or television at night is certainly not developing social skills.

How the government invades and destroys:

[1] posit a need for a service (education)
[2] use tax moneys to provide the gov't service FREE
[3] when quality is low, create regulations for the government provided service to improve it
[4] when quality is still low, impose these regulations on similar services provided by private organzations
[5] when gov't quality is low and private org quality is high, outlaw these private organizations

In the homeschool movement we are somewhere between [4] and [5]. Not at [5] yet, but give it time.

But home schoolers have a special line in the federal booklet on government aid exempting them from the listed requirements.

NOT true! The regs read that if they have completed the requirements of their state with regards to education, they don't have to have an actual diploma granted by some school. They have to have satisfied their state or local educational authority. That's not exactly 'getting off the hook'. It does mean, however that homeschooled kids who have done as much work (or more) than kids from public or private schools will no longer be denied Federal Financial Aid for lack of a piece of paper from a school.

Her interest in the social scene speaks to another concern for the critics: that home-schooled children are not getting adequate exposure to other kids or the chance to develop social skills.

It might be a concern to the 'educrats', but not to homeschooling families. Most will laughingly tell you that their kids have too much socialization! Most h/sing families are involved in their communities in some way, giving their kids the chance to interact with people of ALL ages, not just the limited set of kids their own age. They get together with other h/sing families, and their kids have plenty of time to socialize with kids their age and kids of other ages as well.

I homeschooled my daughter for 11 years and today was her 2nd day of college. They haven't given her one moment of grief for being homeschooled. She has heard from more than one person that the school is increasingly seeking homeschool grads. The gloom and doomer's are high schools, not college.

As for social skills, she shoots a tight group with my AMT longslide(her favorite), and can reload her own! She likes the 200grn HP with some Blue Dot. A little sooty, but she likes the extra speed with a longer barrel. My neighbor, 4 doors down, has social skills also. She is pregnant with no husband. She's been on Paxil for a couple of years now. She's 18.

My neighbor, 4 doors down, has social skills also. She is pregnant with no husband. She's been on Paxil for a couple of years now. She's 18.

Yeah, I guess those are the kinds of social skills the educrats think our kids should be learning. NO THANK YOU!

Congrats to your daughter. I know for a fact that Brown University is actively recruiting homeschoolers; though I would never encourage any of my kids to go there. Way too liberal for me. Our 10th gr. daughter will likely look for a smaller school, just because she'd feel more comfortable in smaller groups. Our youngest son, on the other hand, has his sights set on MIT! He loves all things technological, so we'll see how that plays out in high school for him. He's in 8th grade, but he's fixing to join the public high school's Robotics Team. He's jazzed about it! Sir SuziQ is going to be one of the coaches.

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