Posted on 11/16/2006 7:13:57 AM PST by quesney
I'm looking into effective, *proven* home schooling programs and curricula as I come across ongoing reports on the many failings of the US school system. I have an eye toward a future family w/kids, but have a limited budget to pay for private school.
Can expert Freepers out there advise me on the best home schooling programs, curricula, support groups and testing programs out there? I could also use any advice on the U.S. states most receptive to and supportive of home schooling programs.
I'd really appreciate the help, especially from homeschooling parents.
Your analogy is a false one. Teaching patently is not brain surgery, much as you'd like it to be so, much as you portray it as such. As I stated before, you are plainly attempting to act as a gatekeeper to the professional fraternity known as "teachers."
I'm sorry...your monopoly, if it ever existed, has been forever broken.
Scratch that, it's not quite true. I'm not sorry.
That's a laugh.
Most schools are as far from training for a "real world" environment as you can get.
All cases where specific, individual attention is given for specific problems.
Occasionally a parent will call on a professional tutor to handle individual education needs as well.
But the cattle pens in schools are quite different than the scenarios you cited above where a specific type of attention is needed.
Dear meandog,
"Studies also show that while homeschooling may have merits for some kids, most children do not get what they need to excel in a 'real world' environment."
Please cite these studies.
I guess, my own experience is that our little homeschool has done pretty well for our two sons.
Both of them are bright, likely would have been tagged as "talented and gifted" in the schools. Our younger son, however, likely would have been tagged as "learning disabled," in that routine testing didn't catch the fact that he is mostly deaf in one ear, at least not until very recently. I guess it would have likely made it harder for him to have successfully skipped a grade, which he did by homeschooling.
The older son is in 7th grade, now. We're thinking about what to do after 8th grade, whether to homeschool through high school, or send him to the prep school that I attended.
We went to the prep school's open house on Sunday. Everyone in our little family was suitably impressed, and it will be a serious consideration.
Although admission is competitive - about 700 students per year mark the school as their first choice, they select 280 for the freshman class - we weren't concerned about whether our 7th grader might make the grade.
Apparently, there really wasn't any reason to be concerned. It seems that the folks at the prep school were also suitably impressed. Yesterday, they called us offering our older son early entry, in 8th grade, on a part-time basis, tuition-free, in an effort to get us to commit to sending him there for his high school years.
The school actively recruits those homeschooled through 8th grade because these students uniformly: 1) perform well academically; 2) have excellent study habits; 3) are easy to administer; and 3) often take leadership roles, and get along well and graciously with their peers. Last year's valedictorian from this school was a homeschooler.
I guess I'll have to tell the folks over at the school that their experiences over the last 10 years with about a hundred homeschoolers just aren't valid. Some poster named "meandog" told me so.
LOL.
sitetest
When your child is hungry, do you go to a nutritionist? When your child misbehaves, do you call the police? When your child has a crush, do you call a therapist/marriage counselor? There are all sorts of "professionals". Parents are probably kid professionals, don't you think?
We used Seton for all 12 years also. It is the best IMO. It is acredited and there is tons of support. After graduating from Seton, our daughter has made the deans list her first 2 semesters of college and felt very well prepared for college.
>>Is that the same charter school that the Santorum family uses?<<
Yes.
Is that not a widely known fact?
Three out of the six homeschooled kids in my family have graduated college. The fourth is in her Junior year at Notre Dame, the fifth is having a very successful freshman year at TAC and the sixth is set to graduate next year from highschool.
Seton's da bomb baby!
Correct.
When you begin your homeschooling, you will soon find out which curriculum works and which one does not.
And through the years, you'll know to pick and choose from a variety of publishers. I think this is fun as it gives us parents an opportunity to review and choose what they our kids will use.
Send him to the prep school--unless you want him to end up with the redeeming social skills of Borat!
Doesn't his first name begin with an A? Which is what the A stands for in ABeka.
You've shown your cards. Pro-teacher union; anti-homeschooler. Your rabid distain of those who won't submit to "professionals" is getting old, and reveals your ignorance of the current state of homeschooling. Is this what they're teaching you in the university you're attending? Pathetic.
Why not leave this thread? It's not a debate about the merits of homeschooling. It's a thread to discuss homeschooling materials.
Just go.
I feel sorry for your home-schooled children. The kind of kids I've taught would quickly identify him as an outsider at your community's high school football game and probably give him a "noogie" on the top of his head for lacking in social skills. Also, how do you expect him to compete against gifted and talented students unless he's been exposed to them?
I'm not sure how much more real world a homeschooled child's education can get...the homeschooled children I know have been apprenticing to adults in areas that they are interested in as soon as they were able to hold the tools carefully. They had actual on the job experience in whatever field they were trying out - telecommunications, computers, dairy farming - you name it, there was an adult out there willing to come alongside them and teach as they did the job.
Do you know of a public or private school that can offer such options for $4K a year?
Another wonderful thing about homeschooling is the LACK of the homogenous environment that the ed hacks love to tout: my children consider people of all ages their friends. Not just those who happened to be born in the same year as they were.
Pardon me, I didn't realize YOU owned the place! Outta here!
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