[Stand Watch Listen]

indexing

[Still Thinking]

"We're trained professionals. Don't try this at home."

[What Is Ain't]

Their self-definition, prestige, and job security depend on their conviction that ordinary people can't learn without being taught (fisting) by trained and knowledgeable professionals.

[brat]

Isolation a problem? I find it preferable to the spoiled brat, selfcentered little thugs that seem to comprise schoolmates these day.

[Congressman Billybob]

A quick answer to the "socialization" argument was made by a home-schooler parent on another FR thread, a week ago. He/she said, "Once a week I beat up my child and steal his lunch money." That way, he doesn't "miss out" on the public school experience.

The control freaks in public education circles are afraid that the "workers" on their education plantations are getting away from them. They're right. The "workers" ARE escaping from the plantations, in greater and greater numbers.

Of course it is a misnomer to call the children in public schools "workers." All they have to do is sit there, and money flows into the hands of their "massahs." In some urban school systems, the record keeping is so shoddy, or downright dishonest, that money flows for students who aren't even there, except on the paperwork submitted for more tax dollars.

That's why "Reforming Public Education" is one of the necessary subjects in my latest book, published today.

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest column: "The Truth of a Gravel Road."

Click for latest book: "to Restore Trust in America"

[madfly]

Homeschool ping!

[ppaul]

Neither parents nor the state can justly attempt to imprint indelibly upon a child a set of values and beliefs, as if it were an inheritance one should never be able to question, as if the child must always defer and be obedient. To do so would in effect render the child servile.

Bottom line: destroy the family unit.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother" --which is the first commandment with a promise -- "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth."
- St Paul, Letter to the Ephesians 6:1-3

[Carry_Okie]

I homeschool my kids. From what I have seen, I think the concern about incompetent instruction by parents is overblown, but in some cases, real. As homeschooling grows, and especially if the system accepts vouchers, it might well get worse. The key is to motivate a market in educational services that include verification.

The state could legitimately require proof of accomplishment verified by an array of private, third party companies with a stake in the outcome (malpractice liability) and a reason to satisfy their customers (helpful assessment information and proof of superior academic standing). No homeschooler should fear that. The market would then compete to provide accurate and low-cost verification services that might actually be useful to parents. Personally, I would have no problem with that. In fact what it would accomplish is to verify that homeschooling is the superior educational alternative. My kids are so far ahead that they could crush any test these thugs would give to a pubelick skewel child.

Now as far as the PC brainwashing is concerned, we approach that as if we were engaging in the study of "know your enemy." My kids will be able to spout the crap on cue as if they were spies in an enemy camp. There is peril in sending them to college without an understanding of how the evil system works and what its failings are. After all, to win this battle they will probably need advanced degrees.

[Under the Radar]

Neither parents nor the state can justly attempt to imprint indelibly upon a child a set of values and beliefs, as if it were an inheritance one should never be able to question, as if the child must always defer and be obedient.

This is a horrifying statement.

[Under the Radar]

-- Strict regulation of homeschooling as a way of guaranteeing that no homeschooled children are isolated violates the old legal maxim "Hard cases make bad laws." A law designed to prevent a few extreme cases is almost certain to be long, difficult to enforce, and more likely to prevent good people from doing good than bad people from doing bad.

I believe that the author means that strict regulation would uphold the maxim, not violate it. Perhaps this sentence could be better worded to state, "Strict regulation of homeschooling as a way of guaranteeing that no homeschooled children are isolated would serve only to prove the old legal maxim "Hard cases make bad laws."