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Ten one-minute chapters on the development of the English language

... Before 2010, it was possible to home-school in Sweden. But new laws now ban the practice in almost all cases and forces private schools to teach the state curriculum. Swedish human rights lawyer Ruby Harrold-Claesson calls what's happening in Sweden a "parental inquisition." "Sweden's treatment of parents in the area of education is totalitarian, essentially. They want to take children from birth to graduation and control them," said Michael Donnelly, director of international relations at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. Donnelly claims Sweden's treatment of parents violates established standards of human rights. "In fact, the U.N. Declaration on Human...

I don't engage in vanities very often, but I thought this one might be interesting to some folks, and I wouldn't mind a little (courteous) input. Some of you may remember that we homeschooled our two sons through eighth grade and then sent 'em off to a local Catholic high school. The older guy, who is registered here as swotsonofsitetest, graduates in June and will be off to college in the fall. We're now coming to the end of the college application and admission process and it's decision time. I'm interested in folks opinions about that decision. After eight years...

On February 13, 2012, Representative Bob Evans (District 91) filed a bill in the Mississippi Legislature that would require parents to obtain permission from a judge to homeschool their children. House Bill 464 would impose a duty on school attendance officers to collect and maintain unspecified and unlimited information on all children being homeschooled and to report this information to the judge of the youth court or chancery court. This information would be used “for the purpose of exempting such children from the truancy laws of this state.” There is no requirement in the bill that there be any case...

Seattle libraries will not allow patrons to eat or sleep or go barefoot. But they can watch all the hardcore porn they want in front of children. Seattle PI reported: The Seattle Public Library has a long list of rules of things you can’t do in the library, to ensure “comfort and safety” of staff and patrons. You can’t eat, sleep, look like you’re sleeping, be barefoot, be too stinky or talk too loudly. But you can watch graphic porn on a public computer in front of kids. Despite repeated complaints from female patrons about men watching porn in full...

Would any concerned parent willingly send their children to an average public school in this country if there was an option available? The word “concerned” in the question should be a tipoff that the answer is no. Still, states, localities and the federal government continue to dump billions of our hard-earned tax dollars into a system that is rotten to its core. Don’t think things are that bad? A student in Washington state named Austin took a video camera into his school’s cafeteria and asked students basic questions about U.S. history. The answers, although funny, are pathetic. Progressives say it’s...

They raise chickens. They grow vegetables. They knit. Now a new generation of urban parents is even teaching their own kids. In the beginning, your kids need you—a lot. They’re attached to your hip, all the time. It might be a month. It might be five years. Then suddenly you are expected to send them off to school for seven hours a day, where they’ll have to cope with life in ways they never had to before. You no longer control what they learn, or how, or with whom. Unless you decide, like an emerging population of parents in cities...

America is in shambles from sea to shining sea. Unemployment is nearly at Great Depression levels. The real estate is still week and near collapse. And, of course, our U.S. Triple A credit rating is gone for the first time in history. But this is National School Choice Week and all of that terrible economic news is child’s play (excuse the pun) compared to our failing government-run education system. The accelerating and dramatic decline of our public school system is the shame of this once great country. I call our public school system "Every Child Left Behind." The failure of...

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. Parents—not the federal government and certainly not the president—are the ones who should decide how children are educated and when they’re 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...

This is young comedian jokes around about the lies about homeschooling. He nails it. Messy Mondays: Seven lies about homeschoolers

CHARLESTON, South Carolina -- Rick Santorum has no more loyal base than the crowd of home-schooled children and their parents who gathered here Thursday night. Not only are all of Santorum's children home-schooled by his wife Karen, but the family is committed to holistic medical treatments, health food, and Christian-inspired learning, popular causes with home-schoolers.The topics covered at the Charleston town hall varied widely, but the conversation always returned to education. And Santorum, whose late grassroots rally in Iowa was built on the foundation of endorsements from various home school advocacy groups, was all too happy to rally the...

The Kindle and Nook may make for not only the most important advance in reading since Gutenberg, but also, quite likely, a major lesson in unintended consequences. Especially for the educational establishment, because for the first time in history, Americans should be able to envision a future without public-school teachers -- indeed, a future without public-school administrators or state departments of education with their rigidly enforced, politically correct social-transformation curriculum. A future without onerous school taxes, "education president(s)," self-preening school boards, or million-dollar classrooms. But most happily, a future without a single supercilious finger wagging in our face as we're...

The American tradition of public education began in one-room school houses when frontier farm families hired dedicated teachers to teach their children. When I attended public schools in the 1950s, I received an excellent education. American schools were rated the best in the world. Those schools prepared me for Caltech, and Caltech prepared me for a wonderful life in science. I owe my career and accomplishments to the great start I received in the public schools. Those public schools were locally controlled and locally funded. Teachers and parents worked together on the content of curriculum, student discipline, and all aspects...

Despite the clear evidence that America's educational system is mired in failure, opposition to vouchers remains fierce. While much of this opposition comes from quarters easily anticipated (such as teachers' unions and the prostituted politicians on their payroll), resistance to vouchers is also surprisingly strong among a much less likely demographic -- wealthy, white suburban parents. Many such parents feel that their own kids are doing just fine under the present system -- because at their schools, there are no gangs, murders, or graffiti. Their kids get good grades, and can get into college. Also, these parents are content to...

Home schools emerged in many places of China today due to the parents' concern about the public education, the China Youth Daily reported Monday.A growing number of parents in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces are choosing to let their children receive an education at home rather than attend public kindergartens, primary, junior or senior middle schools.Some parents think their children cannot realize the happiness of learning, acquire useful knowledge effectively and master learning for a modern society through the current methods taught in schools. A recent seminar about launching home school projects was held by 21st Century Education Research...

On July 25, 2011, the Miami-Dade grand jury released several sweeping recommendations in a detailed report on the Nubia Barahona case. The murder of 10-year-old Nubia, apparently at the hands of her adoptive parents earlier this year in Florida, was a heinous crime for which the perpetrators should be severely punished...While it is right to conduct a thorough review in the aftermath of tragic events in an effort to prevent similar tragedies, it is also important not to overreact. Unfortunately, the grand jury report overreacts in its recommendations to amend Florida’s homeschool laws because of Nubia’s adoptive parents’ claim that...

West Virginia’s Monongalia County Board of Education is proposing a new homeschool policy. In the document’s “statement of purpose,� the board refers to stale objections, which reveal a flawed and stereotyped view towards homeschooling. Despite the fact that homeschooling has decades worth of practical and scientific evidence documenting its success, there are still public school officials who re-use the same old criticism of homeschooling—teacher competency and socialization. Here is the proposed policy’s first paragraph: “Monongalia County Board of Education encourages the enrollment of all school-age children [who] are residents in Monongalia County or in registered parochial or private schools so...

In her first address to West Virginia’s joint standing committee on education this week, incoming West Virginia State Superintendent of Schools Jorea Marple criticized homeschoolers. According to a West Virginia homeschooler who posted to an Internet group, Speaker pro tem and Delegate Ron Fragale told her that Mrs. Marple said “West Virginia homeschoolers need more oversight, better standards, better evidence of progress; homeschoolers have too much flexibility.” Delegate Fragale told the homeschooler that “he’s not sure why Mrs. Marple is so negative about homeschooling. Perhaps there are some new board members who don’t have a good impression of it. However,...

Looking for contacts for homeschooling in western North Carolina, support groups, ways of dealing with state government. Am inquiring on behalf of a friend.

Over the last decade more parents are choosing to have their children taught at home as opposed to in a traditional school environment. According to a study conducted by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), during the spring 2010 there were a little more than 2 million K-12 homeschool students in the U.S. A driving factor behind homeschooling becoming a more accepted way of learning is largely due to the accessibility of curriculum on the Internet, according to Rebecca Kochenderfer, senior editor of Homeschool.com and author of Homeschooling and Loving it! “[Children] can study with some of the best...

My wife and I had initially been planning on sending our two boys aged 1 and 2-1/2 to private school. We decided to examine all of our options and that is when we first decided to give homeschooling a fair consideration and started researching it. In the two weeks since we have become sold on the merits of homeschooling. First some background on our family: Me: Socially and political conservative with vigerous libertarian leanings 31 year old. I work full time and then some as a paramedic and volunteer locally as a firefighter/EMT. Believe firmly in the concept of independence,...

In 1992, I earned my "15 minutes of fame" with an MS thesis about "Social Maturity of Home School Children." I've decided to make it more widely available, starting with this extract (CLICK HERE to open the .pdf document). FReepers, this is my gift to you. I formatted it into a dozen or so attractive pages to read on screen, or to print out and give to worried friends and family. I found it interesting to cull trenchant observations on the state of public education from a variety of sources: Ayn Rand, the atheist capitalist. Ivan Illych, the Marxist Jesuit....

HSLDA is conducting a survey on the impact of homeschooling on politics at the state level. We are seeking information regarding the number of state legislators who are homeschooled. Ultimately we’d like to send them a short survey. First we have to find them. If you know a state legislator, please take 10 seconds to click the link below and provide just four pieces of information to help us take the next step. Thank you for your help! Fill out the survey >>

If you're in college to get teacher certification, you'll probably be required to attend classes on "multicultural education." This is supposed to bring diversity to the classroom and prepare teachers to teach pupils of various ethnic or national backgrounds. The textbooks in these courses typically include "Teachers as Cultural Workers" by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian socialist who preached that society is divided into oppressors and oppressed. Other required readings teach that Americans are an institutionally racist society and are designed to train teachers to create political radicals to promote "progressive" social change. The monthly journal Education Reporter published an expose...

How much should a college education cost? According to the College Board, the average cost of earning a degree at a private, 4-year university is now more than $100,000. If tuition prices continue to rise as quickly as they did during the past decade, a college degree will cost more than $200,000 by the time today’s third-graders are applying. That price tag is enough to cause most parents to break into a sweat. Is a college degree really worth this cost? Some bright minds think Americans are paying way too much. In fact, Bill Gates--one of the country's most famous...

A proposed Illinois bill to mandate homeschool student registration was dropped after 4,000 home schooling families flooded the state capitol to protest. Homeschoolers and advocates from several state groups including Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE) and Home School Legal Defense showed up at Tuesday’s hearing to urge state lawmakers to leave them alone. The overwhelming response against the bill led lawmakers to reconsider the proposal. “I would love for Sen. Maloney to understand that this is a hot potato and to leave well-enough alone,” said David Smith of the Illinois Family Institute. Illinois is one among a dozen states where...

Anne Gebhardt’s kids are learning about geography -- in her dining room in Bedford, Texas. It’s not your typical schoolhouse, but it’s one that Gebhardt says is serving her six children well. "We can teach our religious values to our children freely,” says Gebhardt. “We can teach anything that we want." Gebhardt is part of a growing trend. Across the county, an estimated 1.5 million children are home schooled and that number's growing. In the span of eight years, home schooling has grown nationally by almost 75 percent. The reasons parents choose to home school vary. According to the National...

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...

SPRINGFIELD — Parents of home-schooled children would have to register their kids with the state under a proposal that could be debated in the Illinois Senate in coming weeks. State Sen. Ed Maloney, D-Chicago, says his proposal could be a way to track how many students in Illinois are schooled at home. “I was surprised to learn that in Illinois, there are virtually no rules or regulations relative to the concept of home schooling,” Maloney said. “This is just the first step toward establishing, I think, some accountability. I think people do a good job at this, but how do...

Brenda Voydatch leafs through her daughter’s school books inside her single-story home in Meredith, New Hampshire. “These are her math and science books,” she says. Like many parents who home-school, Voydatch believes in the importance of teaching the basics of reading and writing. But she also believes in the importance of a religious education. “I believe it’s a parents fundamental right to teach a child the beliefs within their home,” she says as she looks up at the painting of Jesus holding a child. “I believe that’s every parent’s right.” It was that religious education that led to her ex-husband’s...

A new study from the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) estimates that there are over two million children currently being home schooled in the United States. The author of the study, NHERI’s president Dr. Brian D. Ray, analyzed data from both state and federal education agencies as well as private home-school groups, concluding that there are as many as 2.346 million home-schooled students across the nation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010 there were about 54 million children between the ages of five and 17 in the U.S., meaning that nearly four percent of school-aged kids —...

Fifteen-year-old Tess Rodrigues is a typical teenager: She spends her free time at the mall, hangs out with friends and stays connected on Facebook. But unlike most 10th-graders, Tess is home- schooled by her mother, and supplements her studies in marine biology, Spanish and world history with help from a weekly home- school co-op group. “My mom and I laugh a lot and have fun,” Tess said. “And with the work, I get to go at my own pace, unlike a regular classroom. I can speed through lessons that are easy, and take time to go over things if I...

Back-to-School Virtues: Three qualities that help your child succeed in class and in life. By Louise Perrotta An editor for The Word Among Us.Slightly modified by the Central news desk of L'Effort CamerounaisAs the new school year begins discussions have come alive with suggestions for success in the schoolroom. There's enthusiasm, and often good advice, for parent-teacher teamwork, helping kids learn, believing in your child's potential, and making this "the best school year ever." Provided it's well directed, enthusiasm is a gift! Every effective educator has it; every learner needs it. So as we gear up for the academic year,...

NASHVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) - When asked why they do it, homeschool families consistently answer that they do it because it is the absolutely best way to educate children. Far from being elitist however, or the statement of simple, ignorant, or deluded homeschool parents, it seems that two decades of research affirms this answer with empirical evidence, according to a recent study. In February of this year, Brian Ray published a study of the largest nationwide sample of home educators and their children in the United States. Also a review of existing research on homeschooling, it asserts an incredible fact...

CARMEL, Ind. -- A family has filed suit against Carmel Clay Schools after they said a bus driver was caught on tape berating their daughter about her religious beliefs.

This is a clear, incisive message about federal spending that is good for all ages. Homeschoolers would want to ping it.

Hello homeschoolers! I'm in the market for history curriculum. Previously we've done aBeka US History...son is in 5th/6th grade and I am feeling the need for something more comprehensive. Just for fun, I've ordered the "Drive thru History" Soldiers/Jamestown DVD and love it, but it is hardly a comprehensive curriculum. What do you currently use or have you used in the past?

NEW LONDON, Conn. -- Sexually transmitted diseases is a topic that many people don't like to talk about, especially with teenagers. But, the director of the regional health department in New London is calling for the mandatory testing of teenagers from eighth-grade through 12th-grade students in New London and Groton. The hope is that other shoreline communities will follow suit and begin testing their teenagers as well. Vanessa Reed works for the school-based health clinic that operates inside New London High School. She said there's an epidemic of STDs infecting Connecticut teenagers, particularly teenage girls, and it's no surprise that...

Question Of the Month: What do you think of a Christian being employed by The Youth Ministry of the State Church of Secular Humanism as a teacher? A Loaded, but Important Question I often receive ‘loaded’ questions, but this one wins the prize. It is obvious that the reader not only has an opinion on the issue; it is also clear what that opinion is. Nevertheless, the question (in it’s less ‘loaded’ form) is one I receive frequently. I have chosen to answer this one, because it’s phrasing will help me get straight to the point. I have made no...

While the number of people in academia who are openly critical of homeschooling are few, every now and again an article will be published in a university periodical which attacks homeschooling. The critics in academia come from the far left of the political spectrum. One such critic, Robin L. West of the Georgetown University Law Center, recently published an article titled “The Harms of Homeschooling,” which appeared in the Summer/Fall 2009 issue of the University of Maryland’s Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly. Before we answer the specific charges Ms. West makes against homeschooling we’d just like to give you a...

One of the most persistent criticisms of home-schooling is the accusation that home-schoolers will not be able to fully participate in society because they lack "socialization." It's a challenge that reaches right to the heart of home-schooling, because if a child isn't properly socialized, how will that child be able to contribute to society? Since the re-emergence of the home-school movement in the late 1970s, critics of home-schooling have perpetuated two myths. The first concerns the ability of parents to adequately teach their own children at home; the second is whether home-schooled children will be well-adjusted socially. Proving academic success...

Other than taking time for the Lord on a daily basis and learning to abide in Him, what else is important? As promised, here’s my list: 1. Time for my family: Yes, I homeschool, and yes, my kids are with me 24/7. So how much more time do I want with them?

Free Republic Homeschoolers’ Forum 2009-2010 A spot for homeschoolers on Free Republic to share information The Free Republic Homeschoolers’ Forum is an annual thread where homeschoolers share tips and talk about curriculum. Included on this year’s forum: GET STARTED HOMESCHOOLINGThis year, in response to requests from other parents, we have put together a guide for anyone interested in homeschooling. (See below.) HOMESCHOOL RESOURCES (in alphabetical order) Scroll down for the latest list of educational resources recommended by homeschoolers on Free Republic. Corrections and updates were made to the previous list. Links to any product or website no longer available were...

A spot for homeschool families to share advice and offer support as we prepare for the 2005-2006 Homeschool Year Many home-educated children continue their lessons throughout the summer, but we parents often look to purchase new materials and begin new projects in September. In the past, FR homeschoolers started a thread every year to post links and recommend books and materials to each other. I haven't seen that done recently, so I'm creating one here. (My apologies if I missed anything). If there is anything you'd like to recommend to other home educators, please do so: Are there books, CDs,...

Free Republic Homeschoolers’ Forum 2006-2007A spot for homeschoolers on Free Republic to share information First, a big, hearty CONGRATULATIONS to all those students who graduated this year! May you enjoy happiness and success in all of your endeavors. For those of us still working toward that goal, this forum has been a wealth of information. News articles and legislative alerts keep us up-to-date here. Many thanks to Jim Robinson and Free Republic! Last summer, we shared homeschooling advice with each other on this thread. All of the books, curricula, and resources mentioned on that thread – as well as a...

Free Republic Homeschool Forum 2008-2009A spot for homeschoolers on Free Republic to share information Once again, we are reviving our Free Republic Homeschool Forum where homeschoolers can share tips and talk about curriculum for the upcoming year. Below is a list of educational books, curricula, and other resources recommended by homeschoolers on Free Republic. This list was compiled, updated, and reformatted using the suggestions many of you gave on our last thread. (If any corrections are needed, please advise.) Feel free to add more of your favorite books and products to the comments below. Which curriculum has worked well for...