Posted on 01/25/2012 12:27:51 PM PST by scripter
WASHINGTON, D.C.Last night in his State of the Union address President Obama called on all states to raise their school compulsory attendance age to 18, unnecessarily adding to bureaucratic requirements for homeschoolers.
Homeschool advocates at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) are dedicated to protecting the educational relationship between parents and their children. Parentsnot the federal government and certainly not the presidentare the ones who should decide how children are educated and when theyre ready to graduate from high school.
But President Obama presumptively spoke on behalf of parents and the states: So tonight, I am proposing that every stateevery staterequires that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.
Michael Farris, founder and chairman of HSLDA, expressed the shock felt by homeschoolers: There appears to be no limit to the presidents desire for power. Car companies, banks, doctors, and now schools and the family. Hes gone way too far this time.
State-mandated attendance has not been the historical norm. In 1642, the Massachusetts Bay Colony stipulated that parents provide religious instruction for their children. For the next 200 years, most education laws were minimal and focused on family-centered education, giving children the tools to read, write, and do arithmetic, helping them understand what it meant to be virtuous citizens, and allowing them to learn a trade.
Ultimately, a formulaic and compulsory approach to education fails to instill in children a love of learning or a quality education. HSLDA President J. Michael Smith confirmed, HSLDA has consistently protected homeschool families from the harmful effects of compulsory attendance education in their states, reinforcing the parental right to choose the method and duration of education most fitting to the individual needs and gifts of their children.
Home School Legal Defense Association is a nonprofit advocacy organization established to defend and advance the constitutional right of parents to direct the education of their children and to protect family freedoms. Visit us online at www.hslda.org
This is just about Obama sucking up to the teacher’s unions. Pure and simple.
The thing about homeschoolers is that they (we) are by nature... well... zealots. We’ll go to the mats to defend our rights to homeschool,
and the commies need to understand just what that means.
Help me understand the controversy vis-a-vis homeschoolers. The proposal Obama iterated was that students stay in school a.) until they graduate; or b.) turn 18. So, for instance, if a homeschooled student completed the requisite coursework for HS graduation at 16 years of age (i.e. graduated), then the 18 years of age restriction becomes moot. Are not most homeschoolers educating their children up to and including HS graduation?
Baby steps with a goal of forcing all children under the tutelage of a communist indoctrination “educator” from birth to age of majority.
Money. They get paid per body, engaged or not.
The more & deeper a distant bureaucracy gets in trying to dictate educational processes, the worse public education in America gets. (See Public Schools: Issues & Reality.)
But, of course, with the influence of the NEA, many public schools are avidly pushing a pro-Obama indoctrination. That explains a lot.
William Flax
This ping list is for articles of interest to homeschoolers. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping List. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added or removed from either list, or both.
The keyword for the FREE REPUBLIC HOMESCHOOLERS FORUM is frhf.
“and had been excepted to UNC Willmington”
That’s racist! What did you do when your child was denied entry? :) :) :)
Yes, I understand these communists’ agenda, and their incremental erosion of our individual rights and privileges. I suppose I can see this as another “camel’s nose under the tent” situation. Just trying to understand the specific implications for homeschooling if this becomes another federal mandate.
Actually, I don’t.
My youngest is a sophomore in college and we’re no longer members of HSLDA.
So, if you see anything from them that should be known, by all means, ping me again.
“...until they graduate....”
What’s the problem?
We signed up as “lifers” when my oldest was 4...
I guess I’ll be getting emails & publications for a while.
Between this and the message from HSLDA I saw on Facebook Monday regarding the “Homeschool Study” from the Dept of Education (http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2012/201201200.asp), I am getting concerned.
I’m still curious as to how the federal gov’t got the names and addresses of homeschoolers to send out this study...I’m assuming that I had never heard of it before because we previously homeschooled in Texas and Germany (on a military base) where we didn’t have to report to anyone. Now we are in a state that I have to report in, but I did not give our county permission to pass along my info to the Dept of Ed.
Massachusetts now has a LAW against doing this, don't they?
The notion of compulsory education is for the most part ridiculous, and ignores the obvious fact that the only thing many students kept against their will do, is to interfere in many ways with the education of students that *do* want to be educated.
1) Teachers try to teach “to the middle” of their classes abilities. If the class has more smart, motivated children, the teacher can, at least theoretically, teach at a higher level. However, poor, unmotivated, and disruptive students can drag down a class proportionately much more than smart, motivated students can uplift it.
2) Schools need some means of culling disruptive and even criminal students. As was demonstrated by principal Joe Clark, once even an inner city school was purged of its troublemakers, it was able to thrive.
3) Students are often very aware of their own intellectual interests and shortcomings, seeing no practical advantage to graduating or even attending school beyond a particular point. While later, as adults, they change their minds and get their GED, efforts to persuade or coerce they earlier just creates a wall of resistance, and even anger from them.
Thanks for the ping. Homeschoolers were the first ones I thought of when I read this latest madness of King Barry.
Last night, the Washington Capitals vs Boston Bruins hockey game is the only thing I watched on TV.
It was an exciting game, and I became so absorbed in it that I actually forgot Obama was giving a campaign speech...
...I wasn’t going to say anything...
; - )
You have to remember that public education is primarily a (union) jobs program.
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