Spelling bee successes do not mean an excellent education. This year's contest did not see great success by the homeschoolers in the finals. Not sure about the various state contests. Since most "homeschooling" of difficult subjects is farmed out perhaps we should call it "non-traditionally structured schooling" for accuracy.
Umm, sure. A small thing called EDUCATION, and not indoctrination brought to you by your friendly neighborhood school.
Not that anyone pushing this agenda understands why or cares.
Our agenda is to have the FREEDOM to teach our children. Got a problem with that?
Spelling bee successes do not mean an excellent education.
Would higher SAT scores define that for you?
Care to explain how THAT would happen?
/john
On the contrary. The dumbed down public school kids have little to offer for inovation and economic strength. They'll be social leeches or worker bees.
The better educated will become the new rulers some day. Being able to read and comprehend can do wonders for a political canidate or corporate leader!
Every family has to make this decision on their own, and no one should be pressured by any "agenda," whether it's the NEA's, or someone who says that homeschooling is the *only* way to do it (it's not.)
I'm not so sure about the "massive recession" part. Certainly the majority of homeschooling families have one parent at home full-time (usually, but not always the mother.) Many families have not structured themselves to live on one income. That limits the numbers of homeschoolers right there.
If more married mothers stayed home with their children, homeschooling numbers would rise. As more people homeschool in a given city, it gets more fun and easier for everyone, because the number of clubs, co-ops, private sports teams, orchestras etc. increases.
Even so, given that we are in a recession now anyway, and that most families have two working parents, I don't see homeschooling becoming a "universal" solution to the school question anytime soon. But people should be free to choose whether to do it or not based on their own individual circumstances.
The system is set up to reward those who get with the program. There are carrots as well as sticks.
The system is sheer hell, however, for those who can not or will not fit in, comply, knuckle under.
I would think just the opposite. We spend over $300 billion a year on government K-12 schools. If parents homeschool, that money merely flows into the economy and is put to, in my opinion, a more productive use.
Take it to the extreme: Parents do not care for their children at all. Everyone pays taxes to the state to raise their children. Is that good for the economy? Of course not. It is better for the economy if citizens do for themselves what they can.
"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense." — Karl Marx (1848)
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." — Thomas Jefferson (1777)
"We are opposed to state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children." — Democrat National Platform (1892)
Considering that non government schooled kids have taken first several times or placed in the last 10 years far, far out of proportion to their numbers is quite extraordinary. Don't expect _too_ much press on that little factoid.
The fact is, they don't want any competition. The standard, dumbed down feeble response many parents have is "They don't get socialized."; which I presume to mean the kids are not exposed to mind numbing racism, drugs, homosexuality, etc. (by the faculty) and various leftist pet causes ad nauseum.
How do you address the fact that most school drop-outs are primarily functional illiterates? The national graduation rates is just over 70%. (i.e. 30% drop-out rate.) In many of the poorer schools the drop-out rate is 70%. Please explain why sending our children to these centers of incompetence is not a great error.
Godspeed, The Dilg