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In the meanwhile, why sacrifice your child’s getting a good education accompanied by your values vs. a mediocre education and the tearing down of your own family values? It is hardly cowering to educate your kids at home. The easy thing is to send your kids to public school and leave the job to others.

I attended public school in upstate NY not 50 miles from Troy, NY, the locale of this incident.

I have 3 kids in public school, ages 9 throught 14. They are each doing exceptionally well.

In the 8 years our kids have attended public schools, I have called no fewer than 6 parent-teacher or parent-teacher-principal conferences. Topics ranged from how the 2nd amendment was being taught to why my son would not be completing his "black history month" assignement on Colon Powell. (the teacher was made to re-teach the 2nd amendment lesson using facts alone, and my son made a report on Lincoln and the Civil War instead of Powell.)

I exchanged a dozen emails with the superintendent regarding 0's Sept address to students. The district went from fully participating in the speech and lesson plan, to required viewing of the speech with no lesson plan, to optional particpation in viewing the speech.

Sending your kids to public school isn't a fire-and-forget proposition. You don't relinquish your parental rights or responsibilities when you choose public school. In fact, you take on more responsibility, because now you have to keep tabs on what's being taught, what materials are being used, etc...

So why not just home school? Because if you don't stand up to liberals in the public schools, they will be free to churn out mindless, indoctrinated socialists. They would like nothing more than for all conservative parents to pull their kids out of the public schools. Then they'll carry out their indoctrination unopposed.

I firmly believe that homeschooling can produce well-educated conservatives. The problem is that when these well-educated conservatives reach voting age, they'll find themselves outnumbered 3 to 1 at the ballot box by indoctrinated socialists. Conservative viewpoints must be heard in public schools. Vouchers can help, and in some areas, homeschooling is the only true option. But in schools like this Troy district, it's time to fight.

So, no, sending my kids to public school isn't the easy decision. As much as I'd like to raise them to adulthood in the bubble of my own home, I know that in the long run it will do them more harm than good. I'm raising conservative warriors.

“As much as I’d like to raise them to adulthood in the bubble of my own home, I know that in the long run it will do them more harm than good.”

Speaking as a graduate of the homeschooling “bubble” at age 17, and incidentally as a magna cum laude graduate of one Tier 1 university and a PhD student at another, I have to take issue with your characterization of homeschooling. You argue that public school parents are more involved because they must “keep tabs on what’s being taught, what materials are being used, etc.” Granted this is not an easy process and I applaud your willingness to get and stay involved in your kids’ education. However, you’re ignoring the fact that careful attention to curriculum, attitudes, lesson plans, etc is a central part of homeschooling, whether a parent does the majority of the teaching or uses co-ops, tutors, community colleges, etc to supplement the child’s education. Can you honestly say that all or even the majority of your fellow public schooling parents give that much attention to how their kids are taught?

“So why not just home school? Because if you don’t stand up to liberals in the public schools, they will be free to churn out mindless, indoctrinated socialists. They would like nothing more than for all conservative parents to pull their kids out of the public schools. Then they’ll carry out their indoctrination unopposed.”

And what makes you so sure that exposing your children to that indoctrination for 12+ years will not outweigh the potential benefits of “standing up to the liberals” in the first place? I’ve got news for you: real conservatives are outnumbered a lot more than 3-1 in the public schools, and the ratio only gets worse as you move into high school (I note that your oldest is only 14) and college. So yes, keep fighting for a more Constitutional approach to education (which in my view would mean dismantling the NEA, among other things), and keep supplementing your kids’ political and moral education. But don’t be misled: we’re not going to win back the public schools by being the occasional voice of dissent (assuming that voice isn’t bullied into submission by teachers, principals, et al), but rather by demonstrating that children both learn better and become better citizens when removed from government control.

Perhaps our perceptions of and experiences with home schooling differ. In this area, home schooled kids are not at all ‘raised in a bubble.’ Au contraire.

There are networks of home schooling famiies who get together for field trips and share work among themselves, benefitting from each other’s expertise. I.e., if one home-schooling dad is an engineer with NASA, he will take over lesson plans for several home-schooled families and oversee the kids’ education in the math/science areas where he has expertise. That works out better than a state certified teacher whose own math/science education may have ended at the 10th or 12th grade level. And, it is usually far more practical than normal science fair projects.

Presenting one’s conservative case to a teacher, principal or superintendent does little more than get your kid or kids out of otherwise required programs in the school. It also confers on him/her/them an unspoken ‘reputation’ among the powers-that-be who dictate about 1/3 of his/her/their lives. That reputation is telegraphed to other students throughout their school years, rendering their expression of conservatiave viewpoints virtually worthless. It is a perverse form of bullying, done by adults in authority. It is far more pervasive than most people either see or are willing to acknowledge.

“you take on more responsibility, because now you have to keep tabs on what’s being taught, what materials are being used”
I have nothing against people who send their kids to public school but are you serious? I don’t keep tabs on what is being taught or what material is being used. I spend hour upon hour researching curriculum. I choose all my curriculum and pay for my curriculum. Then I study the material, read every word, teach every class, grade every paper. I am not complaining because I love it! I am just setting the record straight. Hiring someone else to teach your children is not more responsibility.