Posted on 01/05/2007 5:53:42 PM PST by Lorianne
In their never-ending effort to "help" homeschoolers, public school bureaucrats periodically try to increase homeschooling regulations. This makes K-12 education perhaps a unique endeavor: it's a field in which the failures regularly, and astonishingly, insist that they should be able to regulate the successful. Never mind that homeschoolers consistently outperform children institutionalized in government schools or that the longer a child is institutionalized in a government school the worse he does in relation to homeschooled children. Never mind, also, that international surveys of academic performance show that in the course of 12 years government schools manage to turn perfectly capable children into world-class dullards. No, the same education bureaucrats who consume an annual cash flow of roughly $600 billion to achieve previously unknown levels of semi-literacy and illiteracy among otherwise normal American children feel compelled from time to time to abandon their diligent pursuit of intellectual mediocrity to offer proposals for regulating homeschool parents.
The latest outbreak of education bureaucrat compassion comes from Mississippi. There the Grand Panjandrum, indeed, the very Mikado of Mississippi education, Superintendent Hank Bounds, is working at creating a panel of Quisling homeschool parents to determine whether homeschool families should be further regulated.
Why does the estimable Superintendent Bounds think that homeschooled children would benefit from more attention from Mississippi's crack team of government educators? Well, because he worries that some parents might take their children out of government schools and then fail to educate them. As Bounds inarticulately put it in a November news conference:
"… [Y]ou must realize we all have this moral and ethical responsibility to deal with those situations where clearly it's nothing more than a child abuse situation when parents pull their children out of school, say they're being homeschooled just because parents ... don't want to be involved in the education of their children. ..."
Subsequently, the editorial staff of Jackson''s Clarion-Ledger came to Bounds' aid by translating this gibberish into English. Evidently, Bounds and his Clarion-Ledger cheerleaders think that Mississippi parents are removing their children from Mississippi's government schools just so that they can deny them an education at home.
Interestingly, neither Bounds nor the Clarion-Ledger point to any evidence that this is a significant problem in Mississippi or anywhere else. In fact, a little reflection would indicate that this expression of "concern" is more than a little disingenuous. After all, if you really don't want your children to be educated, the most effective strategy is to institutionalize them in one of Superintendent Bounds' government schools. That obviously requires much less effort than keeping them at home.
Moreover, if Bounds really wants to characterize a failure to educate as "child abuse," then what is to be said of him and his bureaucrats who are responsible for a school system in which a catastrophic failure to educate is the norm? According to the U.S. Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, often known as "The Nation's Report Card," Bounds' bureaucrats have failed Mississippi's children and taxpayers as follows:
Reading: 82 percent of Mississippi's fourth-graders cannot read at grade level, with 52 percent not being able to read at even a basic level. By eighth grade, 82 percent of Mississippi's children still cannot read at grade level, with 40 percent being unable to read at even a basic level.
Mathematics: 81 percent of fourth-graders are below grade level in math, with 31 percent lacking even a basic grasp of mathematics. By eighth grade, math illiteracy is burgeoning in Mississippi: 86 percent of students are below grade level in math, with 48 percent lacking even a basic understanding of mathematics.
Science: 88 percent of fourth-graders are below grade level, with 55 percent lacking even a basic knowledge of science. By eighth grade, 86 percent of Mississippi's children are below grade level, with an amazing 60 percent lacking a basic grasp of the subject. Lest anyone be under the impression that the NAEP has unusually high academic standards, testimony before the Board of Governors for the NAEP indicates, for example, that the "advanced" mathematics questions for the eighth-grade NAEP are at best comparable to fifth grade questions in Singapore's math curriculum. So, while the NAEP may not require high levels of academic competence, it does highlight Mississippi schools' systematic failure to educate.
And just where does the performance of Superintendent Bounds' Mississippi education bureaucracy put Mississippi's children nationally? Dead last in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math (tied with Alabama), and third from last in fourth-grade math and eighth-grade reading. Note that Bounds' schools manage to produce these prodigious levels of academic failure by spending roughly $7,000 per student per year, an amount that would pay tuition at many, many excellent private schools. One shudders to think what Bounds' "educators" might accomplish with even more money.
Apart from worrying about the possibility that a homeschooling parent somewhere might be lying in bed eating bon bons instead of teaching junior, Bounds and his editorial friends also fret about homeschooling parents who have not finished high school. With a little research, however, anyone, even including editorial writers, can discover that there is evidence indicating that children homeschooled by parents without a high school diploma are at no disadvantage at all compared to public school students.
As it turns out, in a basic battery of tests that included writing and mathematics, homeschooled children whose mothers hadn't finished high school scored in the 83rd percentile while students whose fathers hadn't finished high school scored in the 79th percentile. Bear in mind, too, that children in Mississippi public schools do not on average come close to doing this well on any legitimate, nationally normed test. Moreover, there are also studies that indicate that regulation does not have any positive impact on the academic achievement levels of homeschooled students.
Of course, no attack on homeschooling is complete without someone raising the "socialization" question. At least in this Bounds' pom-pom wavers at the Clarion-Ledger did not disappoint: "Can homeschooled children cope with social pressures, people skills? More is learned in a classroom and school setting than A-B-Cs. …"
Again, like the other "worries" deployed in scaring the public into supporting expanded homeschool regulation, a little research would have shown this to be a baseless concern. In 2001, Greg Cizek, associate professor of educational research at the University of North Carolina, summarized what researchers know about the "socialization" question: ''It is basically a non-issue. … If anything, research shows that because parents are so sensitive to the charge, they expose them [their children] to so many activities." More recently, a study of 7,000 homeschooled adults found, among other things, much higher levels of civic involvement, participation in higher education, and life satisfaction among them than adults who were not homeschooled.
By attacking homeschool parents, Bounds is playing a familiar game. The goal is to distract the public's attention from the abject failure of the public schools for which he is responsible. After all, no government school system so thoroughly fails to educate as Bounds' schools. Nevertheless, Bounds wants the public to believe that the same bureaucrats who daily busy themselves producing massive illiteracy in Mississippi's public schools should have more power over homeschool parents, even though homeschooling parents are already doing a magnificent job with their children.
Perhaps we can all agree with Superintendent Bounds in one respect, however. Mississippi does need more regulation of education. Consequently, as a public service, here is my modest proposal for reforming Mississippi's public schools: Homeschooling parents should regulate Bounds until the students in the government schools for which he is responsible academically outperform homeschooled children. Unfortunately, this recommendation is not likely to be accepted, which means that state superintendents of education around the country will continue to be able to tell parents upset about the job their local schools are doing, "Well, at least we're not Mississippi."
I think that homeschoolers should regulate the public schools.
Link please.
Here in Alberta the parents of homeschooled kids get the money that was set aside for them if they were to enter the public system. With that money the parents purchase all the tools needed to teach. The only stipulation is that the kids need to pass the same standardized exit exams that the public schools kids take. Works like a charm here...
My family has just left Pennsylvania for Oklahoma with homeschool regulation being a major factor in our decision. I personally know at least 6 other families that have left for the same reason.
Ooops, I forgot to include the link:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53622
"… [Y]ou must realize we all have this moral and ethical responsibility to deal with those situations where clearly it's nothing more than a child abuse situation when parents pull their children out of school, say they're being homeschooled just because parents ... don't want to be involved in the education of their children. ..."
What a laugh. Parents wanting to be involved in the education of their children is EXACTLY the reason parents homeschool.
This isn't an issue for homeschoolers. It IS an issue right now in LA where the "refugees" living in Government sponsored trailers are not sending their children to school because "they are too depressed", and nothing is being done about that.
"Here in Alberta the parents of homeschooled kids get the money that was set aside for them if they were to enter the public system. With that money the parents purchase all the tools needed to teach."
Wow. What a dream come true. Just thinking of what I could buy if I were able to use the money that my public school spends per pupil.......
PA has an atrocious regime of homeschool regulation. You would think dat homeschoolers were da Philly public schools, or somethun...
At the college where I teach, I have been able to observe a small number of home-schooled students. Home-schoolers are not only well prepared, but they are more mature than their public-school classmates. I think that this comes from their having spent much quality time with adults. They are not shy, and can speak without stammering, nervousness, and the uncertainty which characterizes the attempts of many state-schooled students in class.
So, who looks more mature socially? I have found that home-schooled children often have had plenty of play-time with other home-schoolers and with siblings, and (perhaps most importantly) with people not of their own age group. Their confidence level is generally high, and is reinforced by their relatively good success.
It is time we sank this ignorant "socialization" argument once and for all.
FReepers and Christians - KEEP IT UP! Homeschool your progeny and give them all the essentials to succeed. We need our youngsters to be ready to carry on the battle for freedom.
Read tomorrow!
Posted before: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1762907/posts
But unnecessarily excerpted.
Thank you for posting the entire article.
Thank you for posting this. My boys (homeschooled since birth) both took college classes while they were in high school and they stood out in this way, too. It's so funny that people always try to make it sound like these homeschooled kids will have a hard time in a classroom someday because my kids went into their college classes without batting an eyelash. My second son started taking college classes in tenth grade where he frequently had to do presentations and he just went in and did them. I never heard a word about being nervous or not knowing what he'd say. It surprised me because when I was his age, I was scared to death of standing in front of my class and talking.
I homeschool 2 of my 4 kids, though I've put them all in public school from time to time depending on our financial or living circumstances (Hurricane Katrina, selling house, more time for wife to teach older kids, etc.). Here's my experience:
-K-3rd grade in public school is as good if not better than anywhere else you can teach them, including home school or exclusive private school. The teachers are more dedicated, the classes can be better-controlled, and the parents are more involved. That's why I'm not afraid to put my 1st grade twins into public school.
-4th grade on, that's when the quality of education goes down terribly. I think there's some study out there that shows how US children go from being near the top against other children up to 4th grade, but near the bottom of the industrial world by 8th grade. We'll definitely have our kids homeschooled through Middle school.
What aggravates me is the teachers and administrators who come up to me and claim they're "concerned" about the quality of my kids' education. When we had to put the older kids into public school temporarily after Katrina, they regularily tested 2-5 grades higher than the norm. My little girls, going to a new school after home-schooling for a semester, graded up to 2nd and 3rd grade in every subject.
Are we high-speed, hard-core homeschooling parents? Not necessarily. We tend to be pretty lazy and actually let the kids get by with things we should be tougher with them on. However, we're still giving our kids a better education than you could give them in school (public or private). There's something to be said for 3-5 hrs. a day having a parent standing over you and helping you as opposed to being one of 20-30 having to share attention with other students.
Hank Bounds sounds like one of those arrogant know-it-alls who's upset that homeschoolers do consistently better than his students, and wants to bring them down to his level.
I hope that's what you meant. Otherwise, the display of ignorance typed out on your keyboard would make me question how you made your way to the internet in the first place.
Otherwise, the display of ignorance typed out on your keyboard would make me question how you made your way to the internet in the first place.
Excuse me. I am a homeschool mom of many. A module on government and activism sinks many a bad homeschooling law.
Fair enough. Maybe you should FReepmail Mrs. L,TOWM. She might appreciate having a little bit more time, let alone "all the time in the world". You may be able to point out ways to optimize her schedule...
;-)
I hate to say this but in the next few years, State government will make home schooling illegal. You watch.
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