Posted on 04/07/2005 2:09:31 PM PDT by Lorianne
One day after jazz band practice, 14-year-old Peter Wilson's band teacher pulled him aside. The instructor wanted to know whether Peter, who is home-schooled alongside his three brothers, liked being taught by his mother, and why he didn't come to public school full-time, instead of just for music.
The teacher seemed uncomfortable bringing it up, and the conversation was brief, Peter said. When he got home, he told his parents.
Mark and Teckla Wilson, who are raising their four sons in Mark Wilson's roomy childhood home in this former timber town, soon found out to their annoyance that the teacher's questions were part of an effort by the Myrtle Point school district to persuade home-schooling families to give the public system a shot.
Enrollment has been dropping steadily as timber jobs have dried up, and Oregon's budget cuts have left Myrtle Point facing a $675,000 gap for next year. Since Oregon bases its state school funding on enrollment, every home-schooled child Myrtle Point can woo means an extra $5,000 or so. An estimated 100 youngsters living in the district are home-schooled.
Already, 18 percent of the nation's 1.1 million home-schooled students are enrolled at least part-time in public school, usually for specialty courses such as music, art or science that are more difficult for parents to teach at home. But that is usually the parents' choice, not the result of a recruitment effort by strapped-for-cash public schools.
In Myrtle Point, the district is trying to phase in some courses that could prove particularly appealing to home-school parents, such as forestry, ecology and computer science.
Superintendent Robert Smith said the school system is also willing to adjust the curriculum — for example, by allowing discussion of creationism in biology class, or biblical literature in English courses.
"We're not setting up a church steeple. But students want academic freedom enough to encourage different things, and that should not be stifled by relying on exclusive treatments," Smith said.
Myrtle Point, with an enrollment of 779, is not the only district pursuing such a strategy.
In Walla Walla, Wash., school officials have launched plans for a new learning center that they hope will attract at least 30 home-school students, to help cope with a projected $200,000 in budget cuts next school year.
A school district in Fort Collins, Colo., started a program aimed at drawing home-schooled youngsters into the system with two days a week of art, science and music. In 2003, it earned the district an extra $203,341 in state funding.
There are no guarantees the strategy will work.
Many home-school parents are fiercely loyal to the lifestyle, and to the educational benefits they see for their children. Some want to protect their youngsters from the peer pressure and drugs they fear are rampant in public schools. Others, like the Wilsons, home-school their children in part for religious reasons.
"I like instruction where the instructor, not just the body of knowledge, is important," Teckla Wilson said. "Home-schooling allows you to work out the pace that is best for them. And, we are Christians, and for me, it is important that I teach them to think with a biblical world view."
After Mark Wilson complained, Myrtle Point officials told teachers not to try to recruit home-schooled students directly. Instead, parents got letters inviting them to a dinner to hear about the new classes the school is adding.
Lynn Potter was one of about 30 home-school parents who went to the dinner; her daughter, who plays in the band, was even part of the evening's entertainment. She said she is grateful that her children are allowed to participate in music and sports, but that there is nothing the district could say to get her to give up home-schooling.
"There would be the moral issues that our children would have to face with all the others who aren't taught the way they are," she said. "It's a lot of work, it is hard, but I am committed to five more years of home-schooling."
The fate of the school has provoked plenty of discussion in the town of 2,700, and prompted a tart opinion column by school board member Dal King in the weekly Myrtle Herald.
"Families who home school or choose to send their kids to other districts, we need your full support, not just what's convenient for you," King wrote. "While you may have good reasons, please do your part by enrolling your kids full-time in the district and don't just `cherry-pick' music or sports."
The Wilsons, whose son plays drums and other percussion instruments in the jazz band, took offense at that.
"We do this at some cost to ourselves," Mark Wilson said of home-schooling. "If the kids were all in school, my wife could get a job. To think that by offering us a few courses, by dining us, they could get us to say, `Oh, never mind,' is unrealistic on their part."
""Superintendent Robert Smith said the school system is also willing to adjust the curriculum — for example, by allowing discussion of creationism in biology class, or biblical literature in English courses.""
Oh my God. I don't know what to say.
The article seems fairly reasonable in making several of its points:
1. The schools want the money.
2. The parents want the best education for their kids.
3. Allowing parents to have a choice puts pressure on the schools to change, since now they have to compete, no longer having a monopoly on education.
4. The parental sacrifice to homeschool is based on principle, not convenience or dollars.
"Families who home school or choose to send their kids to other districts, we need your full support, not just what's convenient for you," King wrote. "While you may have good reasons, please do your part by enrolling your kids full-time in the district and don't just `cherry-pick' music or sports."
This is so offensive on so many different levels.
Our children are not "economic inputs" to be dedicated to the service of the state.
Mr./Mrs. (what kind of first name is "Dal"??) King can drop dead.
Well. Who could say no to that welcomed invite!
Maybe these stupid public schools will start being responsive to the needs of the students, instead of every left wing idiot group that comes along. If all of the students go away, the public schools go away. Wow, sounds like competitive market forces at work, what a concept!
So we can indoctrinate them and make sure we can continue America's moral decline.............No thank you.
(Families who home school or choose to send their kids to other districts, we need your full support, not just what's convenient for you," King wrote. "While you may have good reasons, please do your part by enrolling your kids full-time in the district and don't just `cherry-pick' music or sports."
Comrrade, we need your supporrt! Give your childrren to the state.
Gee, I wonder why people are pulling their kids from public schools with attitudes like that! The parents of home-schooled children are already paying their unfair share for the public schools as their property taxes pay for them even though they barely use them.
This article is quite encouraging. It illustrates the reason why the teachers' unions are so afraid of home-schooling. It eventually forces schools to compete for the home-schooled kids and therefore actually offering them the courses, and more importantly, the attitude (not anti-God) that would attract them!
We're going to see this trend increase in blue states as they are the ones where there are more liberal people (therefore fewer kids) and where those liberal people force schools to be liberal. Therefore conservative parents in blue states are more likely to home school, effectively giving liberal public schools the finger.
Their wallets have been 'grabbed', can a real effort to provide good education be far behind?
Calpernia wrote:
Well. Who could say no to that welcomed invite!
--> I consider myself "Wooooed", Now, will they pay for my flight for the free dinner? Did I forget to mention i don't have kids? But imagine all those free steak dinners going to waste. /Sarc
>>>The parents of home-schooled children are already paying their unfair share for the public schools as their property taxes pay for them even though they barely use them.
Now this is a question I've not been able to get an answer too.
My children currently go to a catholic school. The school is able to aquire a portion of that tax money to allocate to their expenses.
So, if the private schools have this option, do the homeschooling families?
>>> Did I forget to mention i don't have kids?
No worries. There are a few available at $25,000 a pop over in Saudi. I'll go put a bid in for you ;)
STARVE THE BEAST! Woohoo!
Calpernia wrote:
>>> Did I forget to mention i don't have kids?
No worries. There are a few available at $25,000 a pop over in Saudi. I'll go put a bid in for you ;)
--> LMAO! ! ! Is there a payment program? $25K a pop is out of my reach. :P I can do a downpayment of 1$. :P
"Weee take monthly installments with hay for the camel, yes?"
Be careful, the beast you starve may be your own...
Timber jobs dry up. Liberalism wrecks their own beloved school system.
Guess they just didn't think ahead.
I believe that ikka stated it very succinctly, and correctly.
Maybe. The truth is yet to be seen. However, I don't particularly relish the idea of a bunch of uneducated little chuckleheads running around.
He better check with the local dope smoking ACLU perverts and judges before making such anticommunist hate speech or they'll show him whose boss.
"While you may have good reasons, please do your part by enrolling your kids full-time in the district"
Wow. I was under the impression schools was to serve and educate students and families, not vice versa.
I guess this board member thinks students exist to serve the schools, which are so dear to his heart.
Dear Calpernia,
I believe that Alaska provides assistance to homeschooling families. This is in part because Alaska is so sparsely populated, it's easier to educate many children by providing assistance with correspondence curricula than to build schools for a family here and there.
I seem to recall, also, that Pennsylvania, or some districts therein, offer some sort of on-line curricula to homeschoolers. Technically, using the curriculum makes one a public schooler, but children still school at home, and within the context of the family.
But generally, no. And in many states, the government provides no assistance to the Catholic schools.
sitetest
Calpernia wrote:
"Weee take monthly installments with hay for the camel, yes?"
--> Cool, I'll even throw in some dried cow chips (dried cow poop) for your entertaining pleasures. ;)
Yeah well, from 8:30 to 2:30 every day they are in the government schools, so you have some respite at least.
Hiya Sitetest,
Yes, I've come away with a lot of help from FR on assistance available to homeschoolers. Thank you.
But I wasn't wording my question as per government assistance. I was trying to discipher that if property tax money could be redirected to private schools; then why cannot a homeschooling family apply for that money too?
Did that make more sense?
If property taxes subsidize private schools, then why not homeschooling families?
Is there a homeschool ping list that I can get on?
Either ceased to exist or were cut to the point where they were essentially non-functioning altogether (and yes, they still kinda function now).
I have already seen the trend in many small, mostly rural, communities. The richest people in town ship the kids out of town or state for boarding or day school and then out of state for college. Most often these kids -- the best and the brightest -- never return, even to run the family business. They move to NYC, LA or Chicago. This is the brain drain that nobody talks about.
However, all told, if you remove education or even a reasonable facsimile of it from suburban and rural communities for a percentage of the population, then you'll end up with kids looking to get into all manner of mischief.
:)
Yes, and it gets them away from their chucklehead parents as well.
>>>However, I don't particularly relish the idea of a bunch of uneducated little chuckleheads running around.
Will never happen. Homeschool mom groups are better organized than public school chuckleheads.
When I lived in N.C., we had an interactive playgroup that grew by leaps and bounds. All of us moms had subjects to base the themes on from our strengths. If it wasn't for our time being up in that area, we could have started charging other parents for wanting their kids included. Our group grew so quick, we had put money out to rent a facility for a base.
The public schools feeling the sting is the first step to privatizing schooling. And it can be done in small, interactive play group styles based on MOM power ;) (of course, maybe, if we feel like it, dads can help too) /teas
Gotta protect those paychecks and perks :P
No problem. Royalty checks can be sent to me @FreeRepublic:))
Let's assume that you do a fine job of homeschooling your kid. Let's assume that everyone on this board does a fine job. All the kids are above average and will grow up to be good citizens, etc.
However, outside of this limited pool is a whole world of people in different situations. Hard luck cases. Single moms. Two income families by necessity. And morons of every possible configuration. Actual functioning morons who could care less for the well-being of their children.
It's the kids who won't be getting that quality homeschool education that scare me. They're going to be sitting in front of the tv all day watching jerry springer and playing Grand Theft Auto, then they're going to hit the streets and do somebody some harm -- perhaps even attack one of those homeschooled kids who got a break by having good parents.
WOOOOO HOOOOO!
>>>>However, outside of this limited pool is a whole world of people in different situations. Hard luck cases. Single moms. Two income families by necessity. And morons of every possible configuration. Actual functioning morons who could care less for the well-being of their children.
AND, because of all these different circumstances, we have to put out more money for private schools or sacrific necessities to homeschool. ALL while subsidizing for those who can't.
So, as per your logic, we who can, should not succeed because of the others who can't.
hmmmmmm
THAT was funny!
Why can the private schools justify the reallocation of funds; but the homeschoolers can't?
::curious::
I love you Durasell, but being a fellow New Yorker (and all the statist propaganda that entails), you need to wean yourself away from the idea that the state must take care of everything, whether it be self-defense or education.
Yeah, pretty much. It isn't fair. And it isn't nice. But that's the deal. You pretty much get what you pay for. A good prep school costs $30,000 a year and worth every penny. A lot of people can't afford them. A good public school system costs money, too. But it also boosts the value of local real estate and tend to turn out kids who won't shoot you for meth money. Like everything else in life, communities basically get what they pay for. Some communities can't afford good schools and they will eventually pay the price.
Whenever I hear of a school closing or an educational levy that fails to pass, I am a happy man.
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