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As one of our fellow FReepers mentioned, "ISP" stands for Independent Study Program. And by "Independent", I do not mean the kind of independence which has been expressed on this thread.

You could describe ISP's as a formal group of home educated families that are involved in providing record keeping, extracurricular activities, and presenting classes for individual members.

I can understand, to some extent, with you being a Special Education teacher, the higher number of students formerly home educated, but I find that to be interesting also. We have a friend whose child is autistic. After years of battling with the local public school, who had failed to provide the child with a program that was designed to educate students with special needs, she pulled her child out.

It is an unfortunate fact in our society, but you would hope that with a situation such as our friends, parents would be diligent in finding or providing the best opportunity for their child. No individual loves a child more than a parent.

If you have provided such an opportunity for these students where their parents could not, I commend you.

.....parents would be diligent in finding or providing the best opportunity for their child. No individual loves a child more than a parent.

Well said! That is why good home-schooling is great choice for many kids! One-on-one with a flexible setting with comfortable surroundings? That's primo right there.

But for whatever reason, not every parent makes that choice. In our case, my girls are public schooled educated. In complete truthfulness, my older might have done better at home. It's a tough call for her as she has emotional issues. Home schooling may have exacerbated those issues. My younger could not have possibly done as well at home as at her school. By any measure one could toss down, be it academic, athletic, musical, citizenship, leadership, she is superior. The only thing I did as a parent was ferry her around, write the checks for equipment, private lessons, etc, and basically stay out of her way. When she and her guidance counselor cooked up some cock-eyed plan for her to skip science this year, double up on math, and accelerate her languages, I cringed and signed the permission, thinking inside, "this isn't going to work, she can't handle this many AP classes this young...." but it was successful for her.

We are in a great school district and she has done well. Had we been in a weak school district, I would have made different choices. But we took what was offered and ran with it.