Homeschooling threatened in California…
Old news to most of us that live here (I’ve been on a bit of a ‘birth’ focus if you didn’t notice ;o) and so never got to this issue…and voila! today, one of the best articles about homeschooling that I’ve seen written in the mainstream press…
Home Is Where the School Is
By Gregory J. Millman
Sunday, March 23, 2008; B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032101451.html?hpid=opinionsbox1During a break in a high school debate tournament not long ago, my 17-year-old son struck up a conversation with a student on the rival team from a New Jersey public school. “Where’s your school?” asked the boy. When my son replied that he was home-schooled, the student probed.
“How do you socialize when you’re at home all the time?” he asked.
“Well, for one thing, I’m here, right?” my son laughed.
My children have gotten used to most of the standard questions from their conventionally schooled peers: Are you super-religious? Do you stay at home in your pajamas and watch TV all day? Is your mom a teacher?
Adults, on the other hand, can be surprising. Like the professor at the community college where one of our sons was taking a course, who went out of her way to pull him aside, sit him down and tell him, “You home-schoolers think you can change the world. But you can’t. Nobody can.”
It’s hard to generalize about home-schoolers, but if there’s one thing we know, it’s that we are changing the world, or at least the world of education choices. Others, though, see us as either misguided or threatening — and probably cheered last month’s California appeals court ruling that all children in the state must be taught by credentialed teachers. At least 166,000 California children are home-schooled. And most home-schooling parents don’t have teaching credentials, so the ruling is worrisome, even though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called it “outrageous.” The decision will probably be appealed, but the teachers’ unions are applauding in the meantime.
Nonetheless, home-schooling is booming. In 2003, the National Center for Education Statistics estimated that the home-schooled population nationwide was 1.1 million. And the National Home Education Research Institute estimates that it may be growing at double-digit rates.
There’s no denying that the modern home-schooling movement was born of the desire to shake off stultifying school bureaucracies and to sidestep the uncertain mission of public schools, which is set by adults with often conflicting priorities for children. A century of ideological struggles has defined the hodge-podge taught in schools, and they persist to this day. Will schools teach evolution or intelligent design? Offer safe-sex or abstinence-only instruction? Encourage art and dance or treat them as distractions from No Child Left Behind tests? Home-schoolers can make our own decisions based on what’s best for our children.
But “home-schooling” is a misnomer, really. Most of it doesn’t even take place at home, and the schooling has little in common with what goes on in school. The legal definition varies from state to state, as do registration and other requirements. In New Jersey, the law only requires parents to see that their children get an education “equivalent” to public instruction…
Gregory J. Millman is co-author, with Martine Millman, of “Homeschooling: A Family’s Journey,” to be published in August.
I was followed around yesterday by a reporter from Norway who is doing an article on homeschooling in the US, photographer too. We had a meeting of our Super Duper Show and Tell Club (a comic subject soon to come ;o) They told me how surprising our children were, so happy, so ’social’. Yes, yes I know. Maybe some of my Norway friends can keep a lookout for the articles and actually do some translating for me?
Love,
Heather
Maria W said,
March 28, 2008 @ 9:27 am
Do you by any chance know what the newspapers name was?
jmcqbigler said,
March 28, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
On the weight cartoon putting a baby on a diet my sil was breastfeeding her baby and her dr said that he was gaining to much weight and should be put on formaula so they can control his feeding and they did:0 So he stopped being breastfed and put on a formula diet to this day that boy is the biggest eater I have ever seen he just eats alot but is not that heavy it may be a problem later but right now I just think that is his metabilism and probably would have just dissapeared when he started walking, the exces baby fat. I was to late to say anything, they had already decided to do the formula, for me to encourage some reasearch that formula is an even bigger problem when it come to weight control. What is with all the dr.’s that say if your breastfeeding either the baby is not getting enough or to much.
mamaof5 said,
March 29, 2008 @ 8:51 am
It is because it can’t be messured. God forbid we trust a woman’s body to do what it is made to do.
Do you all think on some level it is a “man” thing? Jealous that they can not make milk, carry babies… that even though now there are many women in the feild they were taught by this old model that women are incapible of oing this BECAUSE they can not do it?
Heather in Tucson
paxye said,
March 31, 2008 @ 3:54 am
My youngest was born at 10 lbs (UC) and was EBF until 11 months… he gained a lb a week for 10 weeks and was 20 lbs at 10 weeks old… 30 lbs at 6 months and he hit 40 lbs at a year… now at 16 months he has stayed at just about 40 lbs… (thankfully because I wear him everyday and I don’t think my back could take more weight)
Anyway… when he was 10 months we went to the DR because of what we thought might be an allergic reaction and when the DR saw his weight he freaked a bit… he freaked even more when we told him that he had not yet started Solids… he said that I need to not only start Solids but start replacing breastmilk by Solids and for me to nurse less because breastmilk was just “too rich”… he also wanted us to see an endocrinologist…
We went to the endo a few weeks ago and as I knew… there is nothing wrong with him.. now at 16 months he is eating a bit of Solids but still not much… of course the endo said that he should be eating more and nursing less because my breastmilk is too rich…
weirdly though neither could explain to me why my two other boys didn’t have the same weight gain even though they had the same nursing patterns…
also Hathor… I have to say that you greatly captured the beautiful chubbiness in the cartoon!
Robyn L. Coburn said,
March 31, 2008 @ 6:42 am
And these are the same doctors who recommend supplementing with sugar water from birth, then just a few short months later start going on about the evils of sweets in children’s diets.
P~~~~~
ethele said,
March 31, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
My (EBF) daughter ended up in the 100th percentile for weight at 6 months, born at the 50th, percentile, and with her height only at about the 75th percentile. The pediatrician said, “If she was formula-fed, I’d be worried. But I always say, you can’t overfeed a breastfed baby.”
Oh, that baby is now 2 years old and 95th percentile for both height and weight. So her height caught up. My girl knew what she needed
and so did our (wonderful) pediatrician.
julie said,
April 3, 2008 @ 4:31 am
I think anyone should have the right to homeschool and know that homeschooling parents almost always fill their children’s days with education, imagination, productivity, etc.
BUT..
This is in response to the the comic, “Irregular.” Don’t most families do those things? How are any of those activities “irregular”? I know lots of children who attend school that make up stories, do crafts, draw pictures, sew, put on plays.. Of course there are other kids who watch TV instead….
I believe and support public schools. Not everyone can homeschool and we need good educational opportunities and care for all children. And obviously sending the message (in this case through legislation) that parents “can’t” be in charge of their child’s education doesn’t help the situation.
I think people on both sides of this issue are missing an important point: regardless of where the child attends school, the major part of his/her education is going to take place at home. ALL parents/guardians are a child’s primary teacher. We can’t really take away a parent’s right to educate, and in fact, I think it’s more important to stress a parent’s obligation to educate. If more parents took ownership of their child’s education AND sent them to school, that would GREATLY improve the schools.
Wow, all I really wanted to say was that children who attend school do those things too.
yvetteyasui said,
April 7, 2008 @ 4:44 am
Re: Julie’s comment: When I was reading “Irregular”, at first, I thought it was about a TVFF - TV Free Family. Which makes me think that homeschooling and TVFF have alot of time and space to be creative and productive. These are not the same subjects, but philosophically, HSF and TVFF both want to create learning and fun rather than be consumers of it (sold by government institutions or corporations).