Posted on 02/08/2011 9:54:44 AM PST by all the best
The home-school movement is expanding rapidly. No one knows how many home-schooled children there are in the United States, but one U.S. government estimate was 1.5 million as of 2008. Another organization puts it at 2.1 million in 2010. This is a large market. It is growing. There is no reason to think that it will shrink.
The rights of parents to home school vary, state to state. It is still a battle, but there is little possibility in the future that the United States will ever impose what Europe has: a system of state-run schools in which home schooling is illegal.
We see a growing market. We also see information-delivery costs at zero: YouTube, WordPress.com, Blogger.com, and PDFs. We would expect to see a large number of videos and curriculum strategies on-line. But we don't.
As is true of almost every phenomenon, about 20% of the curriculum publishing companies control about 80% of the market. The main ones are Accelerated Christian Education, A Beka, and Bob Jones University. There are others: Alpha-Omega, Rod and Staff. These are printed materials. They are expensive. If you print your own, you can buy low-cost, high-quality materials. By far the best for the money is the Robinson Curriculum: $200, once, for the entire family. It is on CD-ROMs.
Then there is the growing influence of the Khan Academy. Salman Khan, a graduate of M.I.T. and the Harvard Business School, teaches mathematics (K-12), physics, chemistry, and business, free of charge, using YouTube as the vehicle.
Think of what Khan has done. He is a man with no experience in teaching for money or in home schooling, yet he has launched by far the most promising secular home school curriculum on earth. His nieces and nephews told him that he is a good teacher.
(Excerpt) Read more at garynorth.com ...
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The keyword for the FREE REPUBLIC HOMESCHOOLERS’ FORUM is frhf.
Rod and Staff is NOT expensive.
Some of the others can be pricey. Just avoid them or buy them used.
Sheesh, this guy is demonstrating government hand out mentality, where everything should be free. Unworthy of a homeschooler.
Yeah, but how do you get your “me time” or fulfill your career goals if you’re stuck at home teaching your kids?
I think he was referring to those who are offering excuses for NOT homeschooling their kids, even though they feel convicted morally that they should.
Virtually every homeschool kid I know is plenty well socialized. Most homeschoolers have problems trying to curtail their extracurricular activities.
If you think that the kind of socialization that kids get in public high schools today is a good thing, you need to really, seriously, strenuously, reconsider your position.
Approaching it like your doing is an excellent idea.
I think a lot of people think that once you start you’re committed for the entirety.
That’s not true and doing just a trial year is not long enough to *ruin* them (if that what someone is concerned about) but it is enough to show the wonderful results of it.
If you can get hooked up with a good homeschool support group, that will help with the *socialization* concerns that most people have.
What state are you in?
You nailed it.
Some people are so clueless about what it takes to homeschool.
Comments like that show whether the person knows what they’re talking about or not.
Besides, curriculum tailor made for one child is not going to be the best for another.
No need to even respond to the “socialization” argument anymore.
If you want to be direct, simply state that you know what their real objection to homeschooling is, and it’s not “socialization” -
it’s that the kids aren’t being indoctrinated in the secular humanist worldview,
so just “cut the crap” about “socialization”,
and let’s discuss your real issue, shall we?
Now, just imagine whom you would like to say this to and smile.
Actually, I can’t believe that people are still using that tired old canard.
That was what I was hearing almost 20 years ago when we started homeschooling.
My kids are all in college now and very well adjusted and socially ept.
Have you read Farris’ “Third wave of homeschool persecution”?
It will never go. The first step is vouchers. As parents who value education we cannot imagine the gap most minority children face from indifferent parents and broken homes.
Obama shut down the very effective DC voucher system. If Christian conservatives really wanted to win back black America we’d reach out to them with these resources and work to make vouchers a reality in their communities.
It would end Democratic politics as we know it and put blacks squarely back where they belong... on the side of right and liberty.
$200 is ridiculous. (In PA it’d be $300, because the law says you need a professional evaluator to affirm that you’re doing it right, and the average evaluator charges $100.)
$200, though, for what? Books? Get a library card, it’s free. Youtube is free. There are college lectures on youtube, and first grade basics, plus every imaginable elective. All the classics are online, and all the music. You can spend money on paper, paint, canvas...and gasoline to take the student to your favorite historic sites.
There are many homeschoolers who are very successful even without the above.
My homeschoolers are adults now. Internet, e=mail, and printers did not exist! :-) We didn't have a whiteboard either, but we did have a land-line phone.
Honestly, homeschooling for us was very inexpensive. I simply bought one set of textbooks and all three homeschoolers used them. And...Then there was the public library which we used on a weekly basis. I literally loaded up a laundry basket full of books every week.
For paper we used the back side of discarded computer print-out paper from the company where my husband worked.
Today....If parents want high quality textbooks for very little money that will last through several children, it is possible to buy used books on-line, or books that are one edition out of print. ( Very cheap!)
No one has ever mentioned homeschooling or socialization problems to me. I wondered on my own if homeschooled kids might not get enough social life, and might feel left out of school related things that their friends were engaged in. This was simply intuitive on my part, which is why I asked the question.
The quality of homeschooling and social life are parent-dependent, but then, parents willing to take the time to homeschool are probably already dedicated parents. I have seen parents who keep their kids isolated, let’s hope they are a very small minority.
I have no issues with the concept of homeschooling, and I’m glad to hear that homeschooled kids are being successful in their social lives. When one considers how horrid today’s public schools are, homeschooling sounds good, and you’ll get no argument from me on that! Thanks for the insights.
I would add, “It's that the kids aren't being indoctrinated the **godless** secular humanist worldview.”
**ALL** government schools in this nation are GODLESS! All of them, and that is the religion taught in **all** of these indoctrination camps.
Even if your kids are in public school, odds are that you'll still have a computer, internet access, and a good printer. He was referring to costs related to the retrieval of specific curriculum information.
With all due respect to the writer, it is the states' respect for the rights of the parents that varies, not the rights themselves. Those are universally the same. The state has no legitimate right to dictate what the people think, or what our children learn.
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