New Report Finds Which States Favor Homeschoolers

American Legislator ^ | 11-19-14 | Rudy Takala

[IYAS9YAS]

All I had to do to home school my kids was send a letter to the district stating that they would not be attending the following year. That’s it.

Same here in New Mexico. That's it, a form letter stating my kids won't be in public schools.

What I wish, is that we could write off the costs of homeschooling like private schools can since they're operating as a business. So are we. We have all the receipts to show for it, too.

[Fester Chugabrew]

http://www.hillsdale.edu/outreach/charterschools/reading

Recommended reading:

Books by Hillsdale College faculty:
Liberty and Learning by Larry P. Arnn
•Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons
•The Great Tradition by Richard Gamble
•The Story-Killers: A Common-Sense Case Against the Common Core by Terrence O. Moore

Books by other authors:
•Cultural Literacy by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
•Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong by William Kilpatrick
•The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
•Teacher in America by Jacques Barzun
•The Devil Knows Latin by E. Christian Kopff
•The Making of Americans by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
•Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. and Andrew Kern
•Left Back by Diane Ravitch
•The Paideia Proposal by Mortimer J. Adler
•Begin Here by Jacques Barzun
•The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
•The Seven Laws of Teaching by John Milton Gregory
•The Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet

[Chickensoup]

I cannot say I agree with this. Maine is a low burden state.

[1010RD]

Illinois regulates everything, but like myopic automatons they forgot to regulate home schooling.

[cyclotic]

As far as I’m concerned, any burden is high burden.

[mountainbunny]

I’ve lived and homeschooled in one state that they list as a low burden, and lived and homeschooled in another that they list as a high burden.

I disagree with both points and am wondering how they did their study.

[Tired of Taxes]

In the case of Connecticut — and probably New Jersey as well — I’m wondering if there are just so few families homeschooling their kids that the “education industry” doesn’t consider it a major issue to deal with.

Just the opposite is true!

Here in NJ, the state has tried many times to pass draconian laws against homeschooling. Once they even tried to pass a bill forcing homeschooled students to have mental health exams. (I'm serious.)

But, there are many homeschool families in NJ, and the homeschool community here has always been strong. So, fortunately, we have been able to fight every single piece of legislation proposed.

Ten years ago, we numbered about 40,000 (estimated), but the community is always growing, and I don't know how many families homeschool here now. I sincerely hope that the newer families are willing to fight off any attempts to crush our rights.

[Eva]

Don’t you remember that the Sandy Hook shooter was being homeschooled?

[Eva]

I should have mentioned that Sandy Hook shooter had sensory integration disorder and was unable to handle school full time.

There are more home schooled kids in my neighborhood in NW WA than there are public school kids. One of my neighbors, who is teacher, home schools her four while her husband teaches in the public school district. Another neighbor who is a retired biochemistry professor, helps out with science lessons.

[nascarnation]

Interesting post, thanks!

[Tired of Taxes]

Actually, he wasn’t homeschooled. The press said that he was, but he wasn’t.

According to what I read: He went to school until his spring semester of 10th grade. He turned 16 then, dropped out, and started college that summer.

IOW, he went directly from his sophomore year in high school to college. He skipped only that one semester, right before he entered college.

And, even though he “skipped” that one semester, he continued to be active at the school in an extracurricular club.

His parents “taught” him just two subjects for that one semester only - the spring of his 10th grade year. THAT is the only way the press was able to work the homeschooling angle into that story. ;-)

So, of course, CT has been trying to use that angle to pass laws against homeschooling. I don’t live in that state, though, so I know very little about what’s happening there now.

[Tired of Taxes]

There are more home schooled kids in my neighborhood in NW WA than there are public school kids.

I've heard about neighborhoods like that with more homeschoolers than school students. I've never lived in one, though. I wish I did! In our neighborhood, my sons were always in the minority; practically all of the kids around here attend school.

[Eva]

He was only taking a course ot two at the college. It was a community college so he didn’t have to meet any admission requirements. He had not been attending school full time before he withdrew.

Sensory integration disorder is kind of the opposite of ADD, instead of stimuli having trouble jumping the synapse between neurons, the stimuli fire all at once, overwhelming the chid. It is a relatively new diagnosis. I’ve known kids with it at just about all of my kis’ schools and didn’t know it. They are the kids who freak out in class and run all the way home, or start jumping across the lunch tables, making the aids chase them, or climbs up the baseball backstop and refuses to come down.

I knew kids that did all those things, none of the kids were allowed to attend school full time past grade school.

[Tired of Taxes]

At first he went straight to a university at 16. He dropped out of the university the next year and then went to community college.

The most we can say is that his parents “tried” homeschooling for a few months. Then he earned his GED, and they sent him to college.

Here’s a very good timeline with more details:

http://sandyhooklighthouse.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/timeline-adam-lanzas-life-and-online-activity/

There are some cases where I’d agree that the child has a true mental issue. And I agree with you in this case: He had some kind of serious issue, that’s for sure.

[Eva]

In one of the cases that d scribed, the school tried advanced courses, thinking that the boy was just bored because he tested very well. The advanced courses just made him worse.

[ExCTCitizen]

Home school here... there is a group of us who get together and homeschool our kids together.

[Tired of Taxes]

I wonder if anything could've steered him down the right course and stopped that tragedy from happening.

BTW, I just noticed...

Right here the same blogger "updates" (corrects) previous information given on the timeline. Now the blogger is stating that the killer went to school but, according to his father, was also homeschooled. (???)

HSLDA gives some information here that says he was a public school student who sometimes took courses from home.

The State's Attorney report says: "He attended Newtown High School (NHS) with a combination of home schooling, tutoring and classes at NHS and Western Connecticut State University (WCSU). At NHS he was considered a special education student. Having enough credits, the shooter graduated from NHS in 2009. He continued to take classes at WCSU after high school graduation."

It sounds more like he was a "homebound" student part of the time, apparently due to mental issues.

[ExCTCitizen]

So do us... the boys boat school or tent school. Sometimes we home school at museums or the park.

[NorthstarMom]

We homeschool our kids and this is what I hear often from other homeschoolers; how ridiculous it is that schools spend thousands per students and we spend hundreds with better results. True, even with successful public school kids it has more to do with strong families and involved parents than the perfect curriculum and great teachers. However, comparing the cost of homeschool curriculum per student to what schools spend per student is apples and oranges.

The cost per student in a school is not just curriculum plus a teacher’s salary. That cost covers all the expenses of operating a government institution: utilities, property maintenance, support staff, supplies, transportation, athletic facilities etc.

A very expensive institution can’t make up for poor parenting.

This is our seventh year homeschooling and it is the most challenging thing I have ever undertaken. This from someone who has in the (far distant) past worked out or competed to the point of passing out and collapsing. Maybe I have children who are more challenging than others, but there are days I wonder if I should just stick them back in school and have calmer days with just the little ones here. I then remind myself of why we are doing this in the first place and I can carry on. Not sure how many homeschooling moms would commit to volunteering to dedicate 12 years of this to the neighbors’ kids, or if it would even have the same as a mother with her own kids.

[goldi]

I read somewhere that it’s up to 57,000. My town apparently has a large home schooling population, which surprised me because the local public school is supposed to be so “good.” Anyway, my neighbor who teaches in the local middle school also is hired as a personal trainer by home schoolers. She said that the home schooled kids are very well educated and sophisticated. Basically, she said they run rings around her students.