[hsmomx3]

I originally found this a few days ago at www.educationnews.org and clicked on the link to this story which took me to "icehouse." I'm not for certain who wrote it but thought I would post it anyway.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[twyn1]

We have been hearing about the "certificates" or "diploma seals" in PA for a couple of years now -- there will be 2 "levels" of certification (possibly called "mastery" and "proficiency") -- rumor is that only if they "achieve" the higher level, will children be considered eligible for college learning and "elite" jobs (lawyer, doctor, engineer, politician) -- and it will be a very small group that gets this higher certificate. 66%-75% of students are expected to be "tracked" onto the lower level. Parents here were outraged when the PASS tests came out with just these results -- they couldn't believe that two-thirds of the students in high school are considered "below mastery", and were asking the school boards to look into it.

What the parents don't understand (but what cynical homeschoolers like me have already figured out) is that the districts are following a social plan that will provide "the state" with dumbed down but compliant "workers" who will never aspire to greatness (the "elite" group will, of course, include all children of the present educators and other "leaders")

The "wrench in the works" is the Homeschooling community. These "mavericks" are already refusing to follow the lock-step norm of government schooling and tend to be well-informed and strong-willed, but worse than that, those "unsocialized" home-schooled kids have the gall to perform well above expectations and are scoring highly on standardized tests and college entry exams. Yes....homeschoolers could be completely left in the cold if these certificates are made mandatory -- but there will be plenty of us fighting against it tooth and nail...

[PedroDaGr8]

"Do we really think that a government-dominated education is going to produce citizens capable of dominating their government, as the education of a truly vigilant self-governing people requires?"

-- Alan Keyes

Here is your reasoning behind this trend right here. Not just does it create a gamma class (I think that is the right class name ala Brave New World) but also it continues to help push the liberal agenda as most public schools are a breeding ground for now a days. Having been a recent (within the past 3 yrs) convert from liberalism, no suprise coming from when I graduated from high school and started listening to talk radio, I can tell you there is nothing more true than that quote.

[CholeraJoe]

Now, California is cracking down on home schoolers in order to bring them into the system.

About time. If private citizens wish to assume the functions of government, let them meet government standards. If I want to build my own house, I still need to comply with the applicable building codes.

[sam_paine]

It does not help make their point when there is a spelling error in the title of the Home Schooling article:

"States Begin Crack Down..." should be "States Begin Crackdown..."

I'm a product of public schools and even I knew that.

[aruanan]

"... is that education reform was instituted to bring education into coalescence with systems governance..."

Well, we can all hope that some kind of education, somewhere, will help this person write English.

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[ZULU]

The article should read "States, at the behest of politicians who are puppets of the educational trade unions and atheists, attack Americans' right to educate their children to be patriotic, moral, God-fearing, and historically well-informed about western society and culture."

[BaBaStooey]

Michigan's newly elected and sworn in Born in Canada Educated at Berkley Gov. Jenny "The Broad" Granholm would support a plan to drag all those successful home schooled kids into public schools, and if she could, she would try to do it to private school kids too.

Unfortunately, Jenny The Broad was elected by a statewide margin smaller than her margin of victory in Wayne County (meaning, she was elected by Detroit and Detroit only). Fortunately, this isn't how our House and Denate members aren't elected and Republicans hold pretty solid majorities in both houses, so Jenny "867-5309" Granholm will have a pretty inneffective single term as Michigan's governor.

[exmarine]

Can you spell T-Y-R-A-N-N-Y? My kids are mine - public schools be damned to hell along with the crap they teach.

[madfly]

home school ping

[moyden]

Liberals are evil.

[sweetliberty]

I think the quality of education and the superiority of homeschooling over even the best public school "education" has been proven without question. It seems the real issue is the threat to tax dollars allotted to certain schools, or the less obvious but even more sinister agenda that would prevent any American children from being taught by any method apart from indoctrination into the new socialism that IS the government school system. After all, parents might be teaching such horribly counterproductive things as the Bible and history and government and if kids learn to honor God and to become patriots, knowing and upholding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights then it could seriously hamper the expeditious rise of socialism. Heaven forbid that children might be taught that there is right and wrong and that homosexuality isn't just a preferred and equally acceptable lifestyle or that God is greater than the almighty state and that politics isn't the be all to end all in every situation. Independent thought is a real threat to the status quo so it must be inhibited at all costs.

[patriot_wes]

government control, government control, government control,

GOVERNMENT CONTROL!

[antaresequity]

This all sounds like alot of bluster...why in the world bother with certificates at all ?...like who cares ?...educate your kids to the standard you deem appropriate, let them take a college placement test and to hell with govmint goons...

Does anyone really think they are going to prevent you from getting a job...or drivers license?...come on...get real...

Just say no...its that simple not to volunteer for government servitude...I wish more people would realize this simple fact..

I dropped out of highschool, started a business, went to college, started another business, went back to college...and my lack of "credentials" hasnt meant squat...

Lead, Follow or get the hell out of my way...

Don't any of you homeschooling parents have the guts to tell the govmint to go screw themselves?

[glory]

will be as easy as requiring a certificate of mastery in order for the child to get a job, a drivers license, or go on to higher education>>

Pretty outrageous when you consider illegals can get all three with one at taxpayers expense, yet American children trained in their own home need something "extra" in order to obtain these things. This is outrageous!

[SuziQ]

the matter of bringing home schoolers under the umbrella of systems education and government control will be as easy as requiring a certificate of mastery in order for the child to get a job, a drivers license, or go on to higher education,

Right now, you don't even need a high school diploma to be accepted at a college. If homeschoolers have attended a community college, or can show that they have done work at a level sufficient to the freshman level, or have decent SAT or ACT scores, colleges will admit them. They can even get Federal financial aid, if they have been admitted, because it would be discriminatory to NOT allow them to get financial aid if other students admitted are getting it. They just have to prove to the school that they have done the work sufficient to obtaining a high school diploma in their home state. This was proven by the public school kids here in MA who had refused the take the MCAS, so would not get a diploma from their school, but found out from the colleges they had contacted that they didn't need the diploma. Most homeschooled high schoolers either go with an 'umbrella school', a credentialling school, or put together their own portfolios to submit to colleges.

Yes, states could make it difficult, but I think with the studies being out there that show that homeschoolers are doing at least as well or BETTER than most public school kids, the public could be convinced to support homeschoolers against any truly nasty state requirements. I live in MA where surprisingly, the nanny state has not begun to interfere with homeschoolers. Most h/sing decisions are handled at the local level with Superintendents using decisions made by the Supreme Judicial Court as a basis for their decisions. The two homeschooling support groups, the secular and the Christian, are working together to get any regulations that are passed to be as unintrusive as possible. It has worked so far. There are many towns, mine being one, that don't have much if anything to do with homeschoolers. Last year and this, I sent to the School Dept, by Certified Mail, return receipt requested, my letter of intent with a list of subjects each child would study. Each year I've gotten the green receipt from the Post Office, and have never heard another word from the School Dept. That works for me!

[koax]

i'm for home schooling.

one example: recently i met a teen age black kid working in a fast food restaurant. in that location blacks don't work in fast food because the restaurants are managed and staffed by mexicans. but this kid did.

i noticed that he arrived to work 15 minutes early. he was polite, self-disciplined, and intelligent.

i wondered what was going on. many of the black kids that i see in socal are out of control.

later i got to know him and it came up that his mother had home schooled him.

my guess is that he's emotionally and intellectually 10 years ahead of his public-schooled peers.

this kid will be a success, i just know it.

[paul51]

The only way to perpetuate the lousy public education system is to force people to use it.

[schu]

Bump for later