Tag: homeschooling

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Accountability education and schooling initiative, referendum, and recall

Weak Link in Chain of Corruption

education, indoctrination, public school, private school, home schooling

How do you replace anti-​child school board members with persons of common sense? That is, with those who favor educating children rather than indoctrinating them with socialism and racism?

This is not a battle that all parents need to fight directly on behalf of their own children. Those who can enroll them in a sane private or charter school, or homeschool them, may do that instead.

But parents who are taking on corrupt school boards have found a couple of very effective approaches.

One, recall campaigns. 

Some board members are so horrible that parents will catapult themselves to polling stations for the chance to oust them. Unfortunately, not all voters everywhere have the right to recall crummy officials.

Two, regular board elections.

But to succeed in replacing the zanies entrenched in many school boards with better persons, one must field appropriate candidates.

Among those who have been doing the necessary preparatory work in Minnesota, where “the teachers’ union, Education Minnesota, has largely run our state for decades,” are John Hinderaker of Powerline fame and the members of his organization Minnesota Parents Alliance.

The Alliance reports that in the recent election, its candidates won 49 seats statewide, “with victories in 15 of 19 targeted districts.”

It’s just a beginning. But, wow, a substantial beginning. And fast. The Alliance was created only a year ago. This achievement is also a ray of hope and proof of concept that we parents (and grandparents; and uncles and aunts) in the other 49 states really need.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling ideological culture

Why Homeschoolers Make Good Citizens

Horace Mann promoted the “common school” not primarily to increase literacy or prepare kids for college. No, the movement that gave birth to the modern public school system in America was designed to inculcate good citizenship by putting all kids through a “shared experience.”

A few years ago, Mann’s notion was re-​iterated by a college professor in an essay called “The Civic Perils of Homeschooling.” Public schooling, he wrote,

is one of the few remaining social institutions … in which people from all walks of life have a common interest and in which children might come to learn such common values as decency, civility, and respect.

Are we really supposed to believe that public schools instill decency, civility, and respect?

In “Does Homeschooling or Private Schooling Promote Political Intolerance? Evidence from a Christian University,” Journal of School Choice: International Research and Reform, 8(1), Albert Cheng left bald assertions aside and conducted some research. He concluded that private schooling does not decrease social tolerance, and “those [college students] with more exposure to homeschooling relative to public schooling tend to be more politically tolerant.”

Why might this be the case? Cheng himself offered two possible reasons — greater self-​actualization in homeschooling, and religious instruction — but I can think of others.

For one, public schools bring together many, many kids, but through regimentation and Mann’s desire for “shared experience,” the results tend toward more conformity, and bullying, and less tolerance.

Meanwhile, homeschoolers are doing something different than the crowd, and perhaps are that much more wiling to accept others doing their own thing, even if not the norm.

So, hooray for homeschooling! The cradle of liberty.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling

Earning Public School Privileges

For the last 22 years, I’ve had school-​age kids. None of them went to a public school; instead, we homeschooled.

Though my children certainly didn’t cost Virginia’s state and local governments the more than $10,000 a year they spend on each public school student, I sure never got a letter from the government apologizing for not “earning” my tax payments or a reimbursement check for taxes paid.

PTAWhich went through my mind when I read an email from the Virginia PTA — the Parent Teacher Association. The group’s Janet Ciaravino urged its cadre to: “Let [legislators] know that public school is your choice and team sports are a privilege you earned and expect them to protect.”

The Virginia PTA has come unglued at the thought that House Bill 947, known as the “Tebow Bill,” may pass and allow homeschool children to try out for public school sports. To avoid that unthinkable prospect, the PTA pushes politicians to “protect” their privileges at the expense of homeschool kids who simply want a try-out.

Then come horror stories, unimaginable hypothetical situations designed to overwhelm our emotions. For instance, the PTA email posed a harrowing question, “What’s next? Drama, debate, electives?”

If we’re not careful, public education could break out.

The PTA’s orthographically deviant slogan is “every child. one voice.” Why not allow every one of those children his or her own voice? And an equal chance to win a spot on the team.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling

My Child Before My Country

Last week, NBC launched its Education Nation Summit, stating its goal as providing “every American with an opportunity to pursue the best education in the world.”

Perhaps you see our trouble right from the start: There’s little agreement on what constitutes “the best education.” Best for whom?

NBC says, “Education is the key to our future success as a country …  Yet, we have allowed our students to fall behind.… One-​third of our students drop out of high school, and another third aren’t college-​ready when they graduate.… Our workforce is largely unprepared for today’s rapidly changing marketplace, and we face stiff competition from abroad.… The stakes are high for our economy and for our society as a whole.”

I have three kids: One grown, one a college freshman and one still at home. My wife, with my expert advice and assistance, has homeschooled all three. We have not concerned ourselves with what is best for the country or the economy or how to compete with other nations. We have focused, solely, on what is best for our kids — on what they care about, what inspires them.

As long Americans try to solve “our” education problems as “national policy” to be battled over by politicians and teachers’ unions, we will fail. 

Focus, instead, on each individual child, not an Education Nation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.