Homeschooling grows quickly in United States

reuters via cnn ^ | 3-2-06 | none listed

[LouAvul]

Elizabeth and Teddy Dean are learning about the Italian scientist Galileo, so they troop into the kitchen, where their mother Lisa starts by reviewing some facts about the Renaissance.

Elizabeth, 11, and Teddy, 8, have never gone to school.

Their teachers are primarily their parents, which puts them into what is believed to be the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. education system -- the homeschool movement.

For their science lesson, Teddy and Elizabeth are joined by three other homeschooled children and their mother, who live down the street in their suburb midway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Before the lesson starts, all five kids change into Renaissance costumes -- long dresses and bonnets for the girls, tunics and swords for the boys.

"We definitely have a lot more fun than kids who go to school," Elizabeth said.

.................

But there is no disagreement about the explosive growth of the movement -- 29 percent from 1999 to 2003 according to the NCES study, or 7 to 15 percent a year according to HSLDA.

This growth has spawned an estimated $750 million a year market supplying parents with teaching aids and lesson plans to fit every religious and political philosophy. Homeschooled children regularly show up in the finals of national spelling competitions, generating publicity for the movement.

Parents cite many reasons for deciding to opt out of formal education and teach their children at home. In the NCES study, 31 percent said they were concerned about drugs, safety or negative peer pressure in schools; 30 percent wanted to provide religious or moral instruction while 16 percent said they were dissatisfied with academic standards in their local schools.

[gobucks]

bump

[RKBA Democrat]

"I want to do away with socialist schools all together. Return to a capitalist, free market, system."

I don't have a problem with taxpayer funding for education per se, at least in cases of significant poverty. I just don't think that paying for education on the one hand means that you also have to turn around and provide the service on the other.

I really do like the idea of a child tax credit for all kids in lieu of "free" tuition at a government school. If you want to put your kid into a government school, fine. But YOU would have to scratch the check to do so. It also conveniently avoids the Constitutional question with vouchers in that the Government is not directly paying the bill if you chose to put your child into say a parochial school.

People don't respect or value something they don't have to pay for directly.

That said, I don't see it happening anytime soon.

"I think the greed that kept Boomers on the dole will help kill the program when their lifestyle is no longer being subsidized."

You raise a very good point. Nothing seems to motivate like greed, and as these folks go into retirement, they aren't going to be willing to subsidize the existing system as much.

[SUSSA]

I don't have a problem with taxpayer funding for education per se, at least in cases of significant poverty.

###

I find subsidizing the very poor less objectionable than subsidizing everyone including the rich and the middle class. Why should a retired cop or nurse subsidize a doctor or lawyer’s lifestyle by paying for their kid’s schooling? Why should your grandmother subsidize an investment banker’s lifestyle?

Socializing the education industry makes no more sense than socializing the medical industry. Socialized schooling makes no more sense than socializing housing, and providing every family with a house. All these things are just redistributing income.

For some reason, people who are against socialism in every other area are all for it in schooling. Even less understandable, is that so many people don’t see that vouchers and tax credits are just masks for socialism.

Hopefully, that will change.

[GOPrincess]

"Even less understandable, is that so many people don’t see that vouchers and tax credits are just masks for socialism."

I see them as exactly the reverse -- it's not government money and thus not "socialistic," but a chance to get our *own* money back to use for education as *we* see fit.

Of course, I would rather the government never even took the money from us in the first place!

Just another point of view --

[SUSSA]

it's not government money and thus not "socialistic," but a chance to get our *own* money back to use for education as *we* see fit.

###

The government has no money until it takes it from those who earn it. Vouchers just mask the real problem and allow people to think they are not on the dole. Few people pay enough school taxes to cover the cost of even one kid in a socialist school. The rest is taken by force from others.

Vouchers are the no different than food stamps, except they would go to everyone and not just the poor. Would you support giving everyone vouchers for health care? Would you say that isn't socialism?

[Constitution1st]

Precisely right. We have the numbers of homeschooling (2 million+) and the growth rate. Then there are the numbers of students who are in private schools. The public system is a failure, and is being abandoned as it should be.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Unfortunately, public schools are being abandoned by the same people who are forced to continue paying more and more for them with each passing year.