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Dear SALChamps,

"I am merely saying that there are cases where parents say they are homeschooling and do not."

I think that few homeschoolers would disagree. However, you believe a minority of parents can homeschool, and most homeschoolers realize that they are far from being extraordinary, and realize from FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE that most parents (not all) can successfully homeschool, if that is their desire.

Any homeschooler here who believes that ALL parents will make great homeschoolers, please feel to differ with me.

"Before you say it, I have already stated that not all public schools are perfect."

That's nice. But our perspective is that many public schools are downright poor. I don't think that any homeschooler believes all public schools are bad (except in terms of disagreeing with the premise that the government should run schools - but that's a political issue, not a pedagogical issue).

Any homeschoolers here who differ with me, please speak up.

You also have a tendency to denigrate homeschooling, whether you realize it or not.

"Just because someone was able to procreate doesn't mean they will be a good teacher either."

What a snide, demeaning remark. Although taken to the extreme, there is some truth to it, in the main, it is false. Human beings are made to have children, rear them up, and successfully teach them to adulthood. That some humans may not meet that norm, that usual standard, is a truism. But to say more than that is a falsehood. To suggest that most parents are incapable of teaching their children is just not true. That's what humans are built for. It's in the design.

However, what really annoys me is your insistence that the public school establishment should have oversight over homeschoolers. That's a non-sequitur, logically idiotic, and just plain dumb.

The fact is that homeschoolers succeed at a higher rate than public schools. Homeschooled children routinely score higher on any measure of academic success than public schooled, or even private schooled children.

Homeschoolers use far fewer resources than public schools. At nearly a thousand bucks a kid for our curricula, we're positively spendthrifts among homeschoolers. Many homeschoolers do superb jobs of teaching their children for a few hundred dollars per year.

Conversely, the public school systems in my part of the country spend between $7,000 per child (my own county of Anne Arundel) to over $10,000 per child (Washington, DC). But frankly, the public schools in my county range from poor to mediocre, and the public schools in Washington, DC mostly range from poor to execrable. (I know that part of that is teachers' salaries. Would that it were actually a greater portion. In Prince George's County, Maryland, more than 50% of the school budget is NOT spent in the classroom for salaries, benefits, and actual materials and physical resources used by teachers and students. Prince George's County is not a particularly bad example of school system waste.)

So, it is your position that the people who accomplish less at far higher, far less efficient, far more wasteful costs should regulate the people who accomplish more for almost nothing. Sorry, SALChamps03, you seem like a nice person, but that viewpoint verges on mental delusion.

Then, you overlook the fact that public school systems are invariably controlled by a certain special interest group: public school teachers and administrators. I have personally felt the hostility ooze out of public school teachers for those of us who homeschool. Heck, I can feel it off you through the digital ink. In that we do far more for far less, it's true, we make you guys look bad. Well, public schools look bad enough without our assistance, so I guess, we make you guys look worse. And most public schoolteachers hate us for it.

And if you want to deny that, why don't you go look up the policy positions of the NEA regarding homeschooling? They are uniformly hostile in tone, demeaning in content, and propose severe and harsh regulations for homeschoolers that in many cases would crush us. Some of the proposed rules, if they were actually applied to all public school teachers, would force many public school teachers to find real jobs.

The teachers' union's official positions are all uniformly hostile and negative toward homeschoolers. But invariably, it's these folks who run the public school systems.

So, why do we want to be regulated by folks who hate us? Who would like to crush us?

In closing, your remarks are exaggerated, over the top, and represent a caricature of homeschoolers in general, and specifically, the homeschoolers here at FR and on this thread.

sitetest

As I said before, any statement that doesn't treat homeschooling as the Second Coming of Christ is met with complete anger and denigration. I disagree with some of your views. I agree with others. The "snide" remark that you mention was in response to a specific statement by someone else, who made an equally snide remark that I choose not to point out again. I believe that homeschooling is essentially a good thing. You do not feel the same way about public schools. That's fine. This is America. Enjoy your freedom.

However, remember that some of the the greatest achievers in our lifetime went to public schools. Every county in America has one. They aren't going away. In the future, I will avoid these types of threads because it is my belief that some of you are deluded as well, and some of your beliefs border on fanaticism. As can be expected with any fanatic, you do not respond well to anything that doesn't reinforce your belief. I am done responding, and will not reply to anything else.