Posted on 01/12/2008 4:52:07 AM PST by Man50D
Ok. Thanks. Didn’t think that I was missing anything by not watching TV.
But, which ones prohibit home schooling?
None. All states and U.S. territories have some mechanism for homeschooling. Some states’ requirements are quite burdensome, while in the lovely State of Oklahoma, the State Constitution gives parents complete freedom in managing their children’s education.
I call them "free states" vs. "slave states." "Free states" (like OK, MO, etc.) don't require any state permission or notification to homeschool.
Also, to the poster who mentioned the 1925 Pierce decision - Pierce codified the right to send one's child to private school - but also in Pierce, the court established that the state did have the right to regulate private education.
In MO, there was a federal court ruling called Ellis vs. O'Hara, which said that the old state law provision requiring homeschools to be "substantially equivalent" to public schools was unconstitutional under the Pierce decision. Unfortunately, most of the states that still have "substantial equivalency" in their state laws are not in the jurisdiction of that federal court, and to my knowledge not even HSLDA has filed a federal suit to remedy that.
Very interesting. I've always thought the "equivalent to public education" concept was insane, since the courts have ruled that school districts have no obligation to see that any individual child is educated - only to provide "schooling," i.e., wareshousing, to all resident children.
North Carolina requires an annual registration, postcard-size, and that homeschools keep attendance and immunization records, and complete an annual standardized test (any test in general use in the country). The DPNE tries to get us to mail in the records and test results, but we don't have to. We just have to have them available if any of the half-dozen homeschool inspectors in the state happens to draw our card from the bin :-).
These were papers for the previous school year. Someone was looking to escalate this and it wasn’t the mom.
http://parentalrights.org/learn/the-attack-on-parental-rights
I think this is a must read. I fear that internationally is where the biggest threat will come.
None of anyone's business. My kids, my responsibility, and I will have to stand in front of the Creator and give an account for how I raised them, not you or anyone else.
If that scares anyone, might I suggest praying? Ask God to give the parents around you the wisdom to make the right choices.
It was the 80's that we fought this all down in Maine. We even had an 'underground railroad' to spirit parents and children into Canada when the state was about to take their kids.
Like the couple, both diminutive, with their two children. They has seasonal jobs and one bad season, were laid off and had to ask for assistance.
That opened to door to the stare 'overseers' = they opined that the children were not average size their age - thereby showed a "failure to thrive syndrome" and moved to take the children.
Their family doctor, who had taken care of the children since birth, testified that they were always well cared for and he and other testified as to the obvious: They were smaller than average because they had diminutive parents = i.e., it was genetics.
The state brushed this aside with "You can go around and around with this genetic thing, but we are the experts."
The judge threw the case out, and blasted the state.
However, the state refused to remove the parents from their list of parents who had to be watched and be ready to swoop in and grab the kids at any pretense.
The parents didn't dare stay in the state.
Just one of many cases we fought through. Absolute insanity.
We won the battles back then= but as you point out - they will never give up. The UN is intent on controlling all children...usurping parental rights, collecting all guns, submerging our country sovereignty, etc/
I fear for my children and grandchildren.
It's time for another Tea Party.
If they moved out of state, the Utah courts no longer have jurisdiction on the family.
Exactly why I don't homeschool "in front" of people...what we do does not look a lot like what most people would consider school, particularly traditional schoolers and more structured homeschoolers. We have turned down requests more than once from people (media and potential homeschoolers) to see "how it's done." We are in our sixteenth year and we have
Daughter #1 - college grad, summa cum laude from a top tier school,
Son #1 - national merit scholar, on track to graduate summa cum laude from a respected engineering school, already hired by a large defense contractor, starting in June,
Son #2 - Freshman in college, Presidential Scholar, straight A's his first semester at the same top tier school as his sister,
Daughter #2 - still trying to get her to like learning, but we are very optimistic!
I can assure you that no one would be impressed with what we do in our homeschool, yet my kids can all carry on lively conversations about a variety of topics, work individually and in groups, lead when necessary (both boys got their Eagle) and are interested in what is happening in the world beyond pop culture and what is on Oprah....
Not that any of us watch her or know what the homeschoolers on Wife Swap are like, but we have observed that homeschoolers that make it to tv, reality shows or dramas, are not typical, so I hope people won't judge us by them.
“Very interesting. I’ve always thought the ‘equivalent to public education’ concept was insane, since the courts have ruled that school districts have no obligation to see that any individual child is educated - only to provide ‘schooling,’ i.e., wareshousing, to all resident children.”
I don’t know - looks like the ideal loophole to me. It takes very, very little to teach a child sufficiently to score near the median of the public school population.
“Equivalent to public education” is an extraordinarily low standard, especially if measured by actual outcomes. You could almost sit a kid in front of a TV for six hours a day and get those sorts of results.
“Your honor, I admit that my child isn’t the best student, nor the brightest bulb in the box, but he easily scores within one standard deviation of the norm of his public school peers.”
sitetest
I now travel around the country and train school districts on the latest AV technology. There is such an enormous difference in quality of education between any of the smaller districts and mostly Southern districts and the older urban districts.
It is not about the effort being put forth to educate as much as it is the attitude of top officials to create a kingdom in the education bureaucracy that will pad their nest.
Hey, I get it that it can cost more for property and maintenance in a large city than it will in a smaller town. So what? There urban districts have two - three times the money per student to manage the process.
The recent mess in Washington DC schools should be enough to convince normal people that if a process is broken then it needs to be fixed. Multiple administrators in DC are accused of malfeasance and dereliction of duty. And that is just the few cases that have hit the press.
Unless one is part of a truly great school system that still values education, you should homeschool. I personally think that we could save a great deal of money by requiring everyone to homeschool, but that isn’t practical policy.
Thanks again.
That's true, but in the states that use this "standard," they often mean equivalent in terms of hours spent in "instruction" and content of lessons. I certainly wouldn't comply with that; I don't want my children to learn much of what's being taught in our local school!
You are judging homeschooling by how the substitute "wife/mother" teaches? Someone who only stepped into the role for a week on a TV show? That is absurd.
I guess, though, the ultimate defense is equivalent results.
If the state takes a homeschooler to court because the homeschooler’s METHODS are not the equivalent to the state’s, but the homeschooler can demonstrate equivalent, or even superior results, I think that the state’s case will founder on Supreme Court precedents recognizing the right of parents to control the education of their children.
The Supreme Court affirmed that states have an interest in requiring parents to make sure that their children are educated, but denied states the right to dictate the means of education. If your kids do well on the standardized tests, or by other measures of academic achievement, I think it'd be tough for the state to make the case that you've failed to educate your kids.
Thus, ultimately, if it were tested in the courts, I think that “equivalent to public school education” amounts to a large loophole.
I’m also not sure that “equivalent to public education” generally means using a curriculum that mirrors in content that which is used in the public schools.
I don’t know if we have any sort of clause like that in the law of Maryland, but generally, the state mandates that students receive instruction in specific fields of study each year, dependent by grade. Thus, our sons’ portfolios must show evidence of instruction in writing, mathematics, reading, history, physical education, health education (beyond a certain grade), etc.
Maryland is a moderately liberal state, and the mandates within the public school system are becoming onerous. A nearby county now addresses topics of homosexual activity in middle school - mandatory for all public school children. We have mandatory public service to graduate from high school, which is bad enough of itself, but made worse when that’s controlled by public school teachers. Last year or the year before, in my own county, the “public service” project pushed on thousands of high school students was to go down to the state capital and protest for higher wages for teachers.
But the state hasn’t even bothered to try to jam content down the throats of either private schools or homeschoolers. There is an obligation to "instruct" 180 days per year. When reviewing portfolios, the county folks don't look for paperwork to prove 180 days of instruction, but are looking for something that shows that instruction is taking place regularly. "Instruction" is pretty loosely interpreted. A trip through the shopping mall can provide a day's instruction in several subjects.
The state seems remarkably unconcerned with the content in each subject area. Thus, we’re using a Catholic-oriented history text for our older son. They don’t care. For physical education, we’ve listed activities as mundane as bike-riding, playing one-on-one football in the front yard, or taking walks around the neighborhood. It’s physical activity? That’s fine. Our older son is reading Belloc, Chesterton, and reading about St. Thomas Becket, for literature. There are words on pages? That works. The younger guy studied juvenile brain tumors. The county is happy to regard that as the science requirement. And so on
I would prefer an end to compulsory education requirements. Then, there wouldn't be any need at all for "homeschool regulation," which to me seems idiotic, both in principle and in practice. But I think that even using their own rules, like "equivalent to public education," and interpreting in light of the judicial precedents on the books that already recognize our rights, we homeschoolers can homeschool as we choose.
sitetest
Not true, the supreme court found the right and the case is used to counteract all these laws set up by the states successfully. I think the case had to do with trying to force the Amish into the public school system or force them into school for longer than just the 8th grade. I don't remember though.
Even though my children were in community college and completely finished with **all** college general education course and Calculus III ( at the age of FIFTEEN!) they were still required to file those utterly asinine reports! No, the government pin heads would NOT accept a college transcript as proof of their being educated. What idiots!
Also...If the standard for passing in the government school is complete illiteracy and innumeracy then that should be the passing standard for homeschoolers as well!
Hey! I have a better idea! If the government schoolers are below average on their standardized exams, I think the government teachers, parents, and kids should be forced ( under threat of police action ) to report to a HOMESCHOOLER!
Please remember that behind every government teacher and school bureaucrat stands an armed policeman with real bullets in his gun on the hip!
I always do.
We have to keep attendance records ("Record dates on which you conducted academic instruction or educational activities," which is every day, but I only count days when we sat down for work or had a field trip other than the Wal-mart, church, or library.)
The state is allowed to verify that we *have* the attendance and immunization records, but they're not authorized to review them. They can inspect our test results, but they can't have an opinion on them. Pretty easy.
The DNPE has been trying to get homeschoolers to bring their records, school work samples, and children to meetings (one was planned at a Police Station!), but HSLDA reminds everyone to tell the state to Go Fish. If they show up on my doorstep or call, I'll be happy to arrange to meet their rep at the library and show them the 3 required pages per school-age child.
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