Posted on 01/18/2002 2:20:59 PM PST by Thoeting
I have a question to homeschool advocates.
I teach English to students with learning disabilities in a small (500 students) middle school. I work mostly with 6th graders. These are students who are 11-12 years old.
This September, we had 6 students enroll who were previously home-schooled. Each set is coming into the public school system for different reasons. In 2 families, the parents have split up and both parents must now work. The others either just wanted to try it, or were tired of home. or moved from a large city. Of the 6, 1 enrolled in the school's gifted/talented program. Of the others, all 5 are coming in with deplorable skills. 2 of them (siblings) are unable to recognize all letters of the alphabet, and are also quite weak in math. They can count to 100, and do 1 digit addition and subtraction. Of the other three, 1 cannot recognize cursive, 1 can spell nothing beyond four letters, and the last one reads at about a 2nd grade level.
Everyone one of the 5 that I work with have "iffy" social skills. None are comfortable around large groups, and 3 of them are actually afraid of the other kids. All of them prefer to be with the adults.
I work with these 5 in an English class. Because of their discomfort with large groups, I requested to have only these five for this year. I enjoy their personalities greatly and I am thrilled every day to watch them grow. However, even though they are of normal intelligence, it is likely, that most of them will not learn to read at a 6th grade level before leaving middle school, which means they will continue to be behind considerably into high school.
I know that there is a large homeschool contingent that read FreeRepublic and I would like to know if anyone here has seen a situation like this before. Is there anyone out there looking out for kids to make sure they are actually being instructed? At what point do homeschool parents start to get worried? Is there any type of agency that oversees homeschool parents? As I have conferenced with these parents over the course of the year, NONE were aware that there was a problem! Yet some of these children were up to 6 years behind.
Please don't take this as a slam against homeschooling. Obviously something went wrong in these situations, but I think (or at least hope!) that the majority work well.
Number Two: You say they have deplorable academic skills for their age...sounds to me they ought to fit right in with the rest of the kids that have deplorable skills due to being in forced public schooling for the last 6 years. What makes you think your 'regular' students are going to be any further ahead of these kids when they graduate?!
Number Three: Take your 'regular' school kids you've had in school all their lives and put them into homeschooling...and see how they excell. Who is failing who here? Ever stop to think maybe it is NOT the kids but the school that is failing.
Number Four: Why am I wasting my breath here?
Most of what I see is, the worst homeschoolers are smarter than the best from public schools.
LOL
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