After watching the FOX discussion between Laura Ingraham and education expert, Dr. William Bainbridge regarding the California ruling, I couldn't help thinking what a condescending jerk Dr. Bainbridge is.
The statement that really got my blood boiling was "If they are so smart they can work hard and afford to put their children in private or charter schools". This may come as a huge surprise to him but even parents who can afford to send their children to private schools may opt to homeschool. In my area the only private schools are Catholic. While I don't have anything against Catholics, not being Catholic, why would I choose to send my children to a Catholic school to be indoctrinated with a religion different from my own? There are no charter schools in my area. So my choices were limited to a public school system that couldn't meet my children's needs, a Catholic private school or homeschooling.
I was also enraged when he compared homeschooling to parents smoking in a car with their children in the car. What an outrageous statement and I dare say more public school parents are guilty of smoking in the car with their children in it then homeschool parents ever will be.
I got a laugh when he choose to use teaching Japanese as an example of why parents couldn't homeschool highschool. Knowing that colleges require a foreign language I asked my eldest son what language he would like to take and he choose Japanese. I got online and did some research and ordered Japanese Ultimate, and we learned Japanese together. Funnily enough IF he had still been stuck in public school he wouldn't have been able to learn Japanese as the public school in our school district doesn't offer it. We reinforced our language studies with a trip to Oahu, where we were able to converse with the Japanese tourist.
He went on to say children have the right to choose? OK, what IF they choose to be homeschooled? Mine did as they readily saw the advantages. At 16 my eldest son had earned early admission into college and had started working on a computer science degree. At 19 he is a senior in college.
Before Dr. Brainbridge sets himself up as an expert on homeschooling, perhaps he should do some research and discover all the advantages homeschooling has to offer, even to high school students.
HT: Spunky
It's always so annoying! Like these government employees should actually have a say in how we choose to educate our children.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find amusing is how lacking their own educations must be for them to make statements like "no one can teach all high school subjects".
ReplyDeleteHonestly are they incapable of learning anything outside their own narrow field of study?
Dr. Bainbridge needs to get a clue about how much private schools cost in many areas. My DH is plenty smart (2 master's degrees from Harvard) and hardworking, but to send 3 kids to private school in our area would cost about $60+k/yr for elementary and $90+k/yr for high school. I made a decent salary at my last paid position, but after taxes, commuting costs, etc. I didn't have that kind of cash left over to pay for private school tuition...
ReplyDeleteCrimson Wife,
ReplyDeleteWow, those prices are outrageous. 90K would buy you a house here. In fact 90k is more then we paid for our house. In fact it's more then my eldest son's college tution.
So in some areas people that have really good paying jobs and are well educated can't afford private schools and in other areas people can afford the private schools but are limited to religious schools (of the dominant religion in the area) because there are no secular private schools/private schools of other religions in the area.
You know the more I think about it the more annoyed I get because what he is really saying is only the rich should have a choice in sending their kids to public school.
ReplyDeleteI just read a statistic in my local paper this morning that over 10% of households in the Bay Area have a liquid net worth (so that's excluding the value of one's home and retirement savings) of over $1M. So there's a significant number of families here who wouldn't blink at dropping $20-$30k to send their child to private school. In fact, most schools get lots more applications than they have slots for. A friend of mine began homeschooling because her DD did not get into any of the 5 schools to which she applied.
ReplyDeleteSo that's another thing Dr. Bainbridge failed to consider. Maybe the parents have the money to send their kids to private schools but their aren't any slots for them. So now, not only do you have to be rich in order to have any school choice you have to be well connected in order to insure your child gets one of the private school slots.
ReplyDeleteSo apparently Dr. Bainbridge thinks the majority of Americans should be forced to suffer a public school education while the wealthy elites can escape to private schools.
And some of us even pulled our children out of private schools to homeschool. :)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this guy is clueless about homeschooling, how kids learn, the economic realities of life,the vast resources available for learning outside of the school box, and probably many other things as well.
I don't trust people who are overly concerned about the 1% to 2%of families who homeschool. He could do a lot more good working to fix public schools (or harm...). I think people like him are motivated by a sort of disdain for the kind of people he sees homeschooling. Since his opinions are rooted in emotion, his arguments come out ridiculous. And that tie and shirt combo...if he was really smart, he could afford a personal stylist.
ReplyDeleteSLM