Free Republic

TEMPE - President Peter Likins on Friday tried to dissuade regents from adopting minimum standards of admission for homeschooled students, saying the universities should be allowed to admit them based on their own criteria. But some homeschooled students say a tougher admissions policy, which takes effect in 2006 and grants automatic admission only to students in the top 25 percent of their high school classes, discriminates against students who were educated at home. Those students have no class rank. They want universities to grant home-schooled students automatic admission based on standardized test scores. But Likins said that would create a...

GENEVA — DeSales High School’s director of recruitment was fired yesterday because of her letter to the editor that ran in the Times May 6. “I feel like I was stabbed in the back by the administration,” said Kathy Peters, former director of recruitment, retention and public relations. “I just knew [I was in trouble], but I didn’t think they were going to fire me. I thought I was going to get a reprimand.” Peters, of 17 Huff St., Waterloo, had held the position for two years. Previously, she served as principal of St. Michael School in Newark for nine...

As a homeschooling family (or not, if that's the case) Do you feel that animals and the raising of (specifically)farm animals would be important to learning about science, biology and so forth? I would like to start with chickens and pygmy goats. And later combine the growth of our animals with lessons that we could teach our daughter. Has anyone done this? Our daughter is young so the lessons would be simple, but I thought that some may have constructed lessons around animals they may have had. Kids love that stuff. The hands on approach, in terms of raising animals,...

RICHMOND, Va. -- The House of Delegates rebuffed Gov. Mark R. Warner's attempt to amend legislation allowing parents with high school diplomas to teach their children at home. The House voted 62-37 Wednesday to reject Warner's amendment to the bill, which would eliminate the requirement that home-schoolers have a college degree unless they claim a religious exemption or meet other criteria. Parents with only high school diplomas who do not take the religious exemption can teach their own children if they use a correspondence course or if they get the curriculum approved by the local public school superintendent. Del. Robert...

HSLDA members John and Sandy Astin (names changed) chose to live in an upscale, gated community in Southern California for the safety and comfort it would afford them and their children. They never imagined that their Homeowners Association would threaten their ability to homeschool their children. The Astins homeschool two of their own children. They also work together with other homeschoolers to ensure that their children are getting the best education possible. Twice a week, Sandy takes her children to a friend's home to be tutored in science, and returns the favor by having her friend's two children visit her...

As homeschooling continues to grow rapidly around the country, the National Home Education Research Institute has pinpointed the four main reasons parents choose homeschooling: to keep their children away from crime and drugs, to provide a religious education, to have more family time, and perhaps most importantly, to provide an individualized instruction plan. Of course, homeschool families are well versed in these reasons since the decision to homeschool requires much thought and preparation, but the general public and many in the media continue to have some misconceptions about the motivations behind homeschooling. A recent headline in the Dallas Morning News...

(AgapePress) - While the subject of home schooling may still draw odd looks from some folks, the students themselves are demonstrating that they are no oddballs. An estimated one to two million students of middle and high school age are being home schooled in the U.S. As they make the transition to college life, success usually follows. "As the numbers [of home-schooled children] have increased, and there have also been more admitted to college, they've actually performed quite well," Barmak Nassirian, a policy analyst with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, told Associated Press. One student said...

A 17-year-old high school student from upstate New York faces up to a year in jail for threatening to kill President Bush and attack the White House. "I'm going to blow up the White House and Kill you and your family," John Fellows admitted he wrote in an e-mail message. "You're a stupid peace [sic] of [excrement] and deserve to Die!!!" Police reports indicate Fellows wrote the message to "get back" at a fellow student following a dispute with her last November. Fellows admitted using the girl's name to log on to a computer at Oswego High School. "This thing...

Fla. Boy Told Adults Twice About Dead Body Associated Press MIAMI - A boy who found an eighth grader's slain body in a school restroom had to tell a security guard twice before the man checked, according to documents released Wednesday. The boy - a seventh grader identified by police as B.P.G - alerted the guard after seeing feet in a stall and blood on the floor on Feb. 3, according to his statement to police. But the guard intervened only after the boy went into the restroom a second time with a friend, opened the stall and came out...

It's called "soft dictatorship" – government's attempt to control every aspect of American life for your own good or for the good of the children. The ultimate issue is power. This week's example: government's assault (at all levels) on the homeschool movement, which now includes threats to send homeschool parents to jail. Government's great fear in this matter is not that the kids are being short-changed or abused – it's that they might be getting a better education than the government-educrat de facto monopoly can provide and that the word might get out. Yes, government has an obligation to ensure...

Home Schools: The Hope Of America by Dr. Oliver DeMille Dr. Oliver DeMille is the founder and provost of George Wythe College, the only college in America specifically designed to train statesmen using the methods which educated Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington and other American Founding Fathers. Dr. DeMille affirms that "our society desperately needs leadership. We need statesmen, which in the olds sense was more than just a governmental leader. A statesman is a man or woman of virtue, wisdom, diplomacy and courage who inspires greatness in others and moves the cause of liberty." In this article, Dr....

A revolution is happening in American education. As it grows in size, it should frighten teachers everywhere. Just how bad are American schools? And how deeply do conservative Americans distrust their government? One answer to both these questions is provided by the growth of home-schooling. As many as 2m American students—one in 25—may now be being taught at home. The growth of home-schooling is all the more remarkable when you consider two facts. The first is the commitment of the parents. They give up not just a free public education, but also often the chance of a second income as...

On tonight's episode of Law & Order: SVU, the show makes a shameless smear against homeschooling. The show depicts a controlling and abusive mother who homeschools her two boys, who spout unquestioning loyalty to the brainwashing their mother has drilled into them. The detectives begin investigating her when her 7 year old is found scrounging chicken from a city dumpster. The detectives visit a public school administrator, and that's where a de facto infomercial for how wonderful public schools are begins. The detectives ask how someone can be allowed to take their kids out of the public schools and teach...

New Jersey's child welfare system, like most state child welfare systems, is a corrupt and deadly mess. Children are lost in the shuffle, shipped to abusive foster homes, returned to rapists and child molesters, and left to die in closets while paperwork piles up. So whom does the government decide to punish for the bureaucracy's abysmal failure to protect these innocents? Homeschoolers. And what does the government think will solve its ills? More power and paperwork. Last week, a Democratic assemblywoman introduced a bill that would impose annual academic testing and annual medical exams on home-schooled students in the Garden...

PUTNAM, MA - The school board is standing firm on its 1998 policy to not allow home-schoolers to participate in school sports or other extracurricular activities. "It's disappointing to me that the board didn't (vote) to allow home-schooled children to take part in school activities," said Miles Prunier, a board member since 2001. He was one of two people on the nine-member board willing to relax the policy at a December meeting when the board took up a request by Laura Fisher-Andersen, who home-schools her four children. Allowing home-schoolers to participate "would leave the door open for their return, making...

<p>From the HSLDA E-lert Service...</p> <p>A bill that would force New Jersey homeschool children to submit to the same statewide assessment tests required of public school students, and force their parents to give the local school board proof the student had received an annual medical examination, is set to be introduced in the New Jersey legislature this Thursday.</p>

I need help, quickly. My husband has almost agreed that my children can be homeschooled. My six year old's bestfriend is starting homeschooling as of tomorrow. However, my husband thinks that sending her to school for a week following this Christmas vacation, will get her back into the swing of working (eventhough we did lessons through the break too). Does anyone have any references to help me with the concept of starting her after break rather than doing a week then pulling her? I have the curriculm and we are ready....

The Year's Ten Worst Moments in EducationBy Rick ParsonsYoung Americans for Freedom | December 25, 2003 Our nation’s education system continues to be weighted down with incidences of bias and political correctness. Young America’s Foundation compiled a list of the top ten most shameful campus events in America’s education system in 2003: 10. Gonzaga University (Spokane, WA) administration officials censored a conservative student group’s flyer advertising a Young America’s Foundation organized lecture because the word “hate” was used on the flyer. The flyer in question featured the topic of guest speaker Dan Flynn’s speech, “Why the Left Hates America,” which...

A parent of an elementary school student is upset with a teacher who replaced "Christmas" with "winter" in a carol to be performed during an upcoming concert. Mark Denison, music teacher at Clover Creek Elementary in Tacoma, Wash., revised the lyrics of Dale Wood's "Carol from an Irish Cabin" to read: "The harsh wind blows down from the mountains, and blows a white winter to me," the Tacoma News Tribune reported. Darla Dowell, the parent of a 7-year-old student, thinks the move is "absurd," especially since the children will sing a Hanukkah song referring to the "mighty miracle" of Israel's...

Dear Homeschool Leaders, I would like to introduce myself. I am Attorney Deborah G. Stevenson and I am Executive Director of a newly formed organization, National Home Education Legal Defense. I would like to tell you about this organization and our goals in the hope that you will be interested in working with us. National Home Education Legal Defense, or NHELD, grew out of a Statewide organization that began in Connecticut as Connecticut's Citizens To Uphold the Right to Educate, or CT's C.U.R.E. CT's C.U.R.E. was founded in 1989 and has been instrumental in maintaining the rights of parents to...