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=opinionsbox1

During 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

here’s the link in case you have trouble viewing it: Interviews with Americans You’ll laugh, you’ll cry!

Love,
Heather

So says the SFGate in the article: ‘..to public schools’ (Thanks Martha H. for sending that!) and just in time to…my middle daughter just learned how to swim (see swimming lessons comic ;o) on her own, because she wanted to. It helped that we got to spend the week visiting the Hilton pool, because granddaddy and April were staying there. Oh, and here’s another quick homeschooling aside…When I mentioned Paris Hilton, because we were at the Hilton my 10 year old asked “who’s Paris Hilton?” that was nice. Unfortunately now, because of my addiction to AM 1150 Talk Radio (especially the Stephanie Miller show and the Thom Hartmann (who I’m listening to right now ;o) in the morning she now knows who Paris Hilton is, but for a while there…it was blissful.

Love,
Heather