Homeschoolers for Obama doesn't seem to think so.
When asked this was Obama's response
Q. Do you support home schooling?
A. Barack Obama respects the decisions reached by some parents to home school their children, provided those parents are conforming to the laws and regulations set forward by their states governing home-based instruction.
(HT: HERP&ES)
Nothing on the Obama website leads me to believe that he is opposed to homeschoooling and other then his plans for universal pre-school there isn't anything in his education plans that I object to, he seems to have some good ideas for improving public schools, and making a college education affordable for everyone.
- Support College Credit Initiatives: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will create a national "Make College A Reality" initiative that has a bold goal to increase students taking AP or college-level classes nationwide 50 percent by 2016, and will build on Obama's bipartisan proposal in the U.S. Senate to provide grants for students seeking college level credit at community colleges if their school does not provide those resources.
- Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.
- Simplify the Application Process for Financial Aid: Obama and Biden will streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be used, and eliminating the need for a separate application.
- Provide Universal Health Care and Lower Health Costs: Barack Obama and Joe Biden are committed to signing universal health legislation by the end of their first term in office that ensures all Americans have high-quality, affordable health care coverage. Their plan will save a typical American family up to $2,500 every year on medical expenditures by providing affordable, comprehensive and portable health coverage for every American; modernizing the U.S. health care system to contain spiraling health care costs and improve the quality of patient care; and promoting prevention and strengthening public health to prevent disease and protect against natural and man-made disasters.
For more information on Barack Obama and Joe Biden's health care plan, please visit the Health Care Policy page - Create a Universal Mortgage Credit: The current mortgage interest deduction excludes nearly two-thirds of Americans who do not itemize their taxes. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will ensure that anyone with a mortgage, not just the well-off, can take advantage of this tax incentive for homeownership by creating a universal mortgage credit. This 10 percent credit will benefit an additional 10 million homeowners, the majority of whom earn less than $50,000 per year. Non-itemizers will be eligible for this refundable credit, which will provide the average recipient with approximately $500 per year in tax savings.
- Strengthen Fatherhood and Families: Barack Obama has re-introduced the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act to remove some of the government penalties on married families, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, ensure that support payments go to families instead of state bureaucracies, fund support services for fathers and their families, and support domestic violence prevention efforts. As president, Obama will sign this bill into law and continue to implement innovative measures to strengthen families.
Overall I believe Obama is the best choice for President. But I encourage everyone to decide for themselves. Visit the candidates websites (McCain website), review the debates. Listen carefully to what each candidate has to say. I also implore you not to believe everything you read online. Many falsehoods are being spread.
Contrary to what many fundamentalist bloggers claim Obama has a valid Hawaiian birth certificate.
FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.
Funnily enough the same people who want to make an issue of Obama's birth place are mum on the fact that McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. But guess what they are both U.S. citizens so it doesn't matter.
Why I won't vote for McCain
- Health Care - The value of the employer provided insurance will now show up as additional income for the employees.
- Doesn't have any concrete plans to make college affordable for everyone.
- McCain & Palin's record on animal welfare issues.
- The fact that Palin thinks it's not terrorism to blow up abortion clinics.
Thank you for posting this! I was really upset after reading Sprittbee's post today (not enough to change my vote, but still). :)
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome.
ReplyDeleteIt is always upsetting when we here that something/someone will threaten our homeschooling freedoms and there is so much misinformation being put out this year it's hard not to panic.
From listening to the debates I believe that Obama may actually be the more homeschool friendly of the candidates. But really homeschooling is more of a STATES issue and less of a Federal one so I don't think anyone has to panic.
While I object to the fear tactics used by others to dissuade people from voting a certain way...I looked at Obama's stance on education. The one mention that he gives homeschooling is in his statement where he says he understands stay-at-home moms. huh? How? Because he says, he is a father of two daughters. Not the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI think it is naive to think that a person who believes that it is the federal government's place to ensure birth to college graduation education for every person, will support non-regulated homeschooling.
Homeschooling is a state issue, but for how long? Education, period is "supposed" to be a state issue. There's nothing in the Constitution which gives the federal government the power to regulate or fund public education.
Nothing is free.
I think Obama is being realistic. In many families both parents work outside the home and they need quality care for their children.
ReplyDeleteI just don't think it's my responsiblity to fund it through my tax money.
But overall Obama's policies appear sound and much more thought out then McCain's policies.
I also have seen no evidence that McCain is pro-homeschooling. In fact of the two McCain seems to be the one who would be more likely to interfere with homeschooling.
Handled right, the Fed District Court throwing out Berg for lack of standing can present a political check-mate “win” on appeal for the anti-Obama side (if not in law, in the Court of Public Opinion). Here’s how: SIMPLY SPREAD AROUND OBAMA’S APPELLATE BRIEF HAVING TO ARGUE AGAINST AN AMERICAN VOTER’S RIGHT TO RAISE THE QUESTION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. Should be a PR disaster for the Dems and Obama!!!
ReplyDeleteOne has to wonder why the McCain supporters have to stoop to such underhanded tactics.
ReplyDeleteBut then maybe not the Republicans shot themselves in the foot when they went with the McCain/Palin ticket. Since they can't defend their candidate all that's left is smearing the Democratic candidate.
Obama produced his birth certificate and considering what mine from Mississippi in the 1960's looks like I am willing to bet it is the real deal. I guess I better never run for higher office because nobody would buy it's a real birth certificate. Funnily enough the government accepted mine just like they accepted Obama's. But I guess the loonies that claim it's not real think they know more then the government officials who verify documents.
I don't think Sen. Obama is himself anti-homeschooling but I do worry about the kind of individuals he might appoint as Federal judges. We've already seen the havoc that activist judges could wreak on parents' right to homeschool with the initial 2nd Appellate Court ruling in California earlier this year. Fortunately, they did back down in that particular case but there's always the chance that some homeschool-related case could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court some day.
ReplyDeleteWould an Obama-appointed justice be inclined to support government interference with homeschooling? I'd be very concerned that he/she might very well do just that...
My worries are not just with his views on homeschooling, but his ties with the UN - which scares me to death with their "rights of a child" treaty. It is the same treaty that was used to jail homeschooling families in Germany. Socialism is one step away from Communism... but it really doesn't matter since we are headed that way anyway with this rigged 2 party system. I'm being a part of the solution. I'm voting third party. Maybe if there is another free election in this country, they will have to listen to the Constitution party in the next debate.
ReplyDeleteA very nice Iraqi man (in Baghdad) asked my husband when they were having a friendly discussion about the differences in Iraq and America... "You tell me, what is freedom? We Iraqis have one person on the ballot. You Americans have two. How is that more free?"
Don't be a sheep. Vote for real change. A change for the better - for our constitution to not be trampled. For the IRS to go away. For us to get out of countries we don't belong in. Ron Paul endorses Chuck Baldwin. ;)
Ron Paul & Chuck Baldwin are both ANTI-Choice and will not get my vote.
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty I would prefer either McCain or Obama to Baldwin who appears to be a puppet for the religious right. I do not want to live in a theocracy. Thankfully there is very little chance Baldwin will even get enough votes to be noticed.
I don't remember there being anyone named Baldwin on the ballot here in California. IIRC, my choices were Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, Alan Keyes, and former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
ReplyDeleteBaldwin isn't on the ballot for Mississippi either. From what I can gather Fundamentalist are planning to write his name in. This is his website.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.baldwin08.com/
How can a candidate who is a socialist and has socialistic ideas and policies support homeschooling? We are studying socialism, totalitarianism, marxism, & communism and even my 10yo and my 9yo could see the correlation between Obama and these ideologies without me pointing it out. Wake up America, Obama is not in favor of the Constitution. He said himself that the founding fathers did some things wrong. Excuse me?
ReplyDeleteI guess if he is elected and we start losing our basic freedoms, then we will understand what history was trying to teach us.
Obama does NOT support homeschooling. He wants our children in school starting at 3yo. Look at his website and see the all encompassing government control over our children that he plans.
It's what we ourselves do, not what a president does, that will determine our home education freedoms.
ReplyDeleteEvery time we engage our children in community contributions without government requiring it, every time we exercise good citizenship voluntarily and exercise obviously well-developed reasoning and problem-solving (applied for good instead of evil!) and yes, every time we join rather than fight, collaborate rather than control, approach rather than appall, help rather than horrify our political opposites, etc. we help ourselves and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our (homeschooling) posterity.
And of course every time we get up a blithering mob of fools to yelp and yawp like the "idiot wind" referred to in the Washington Post today, we do our homeschooling freedoms harm.
That's just reality.
We can learn it and live it, or perish on the pyre of our own self-righteousness imo. Doesn't matter 's president, they won't be able to protect home education from a fed-up public sick enough of trying to explain why our divisive separatism isn't worth it to them any more.
Oh -- and please, leaving aside the religious creationism anti-science stuff and the wacko stuff about how public education if not the whole income tax system is unconstitutional, here's something simple you can do if you're seriously committed to securing the blessings of liberty for home education.
ReplyDeleteSpread the word to all your friends and fellow homeschool parents and especially home education bloggers, to never, ever make some Hitler-Nazi comparison AGAIN! About anything or anyone! Think it if you want but never ever write or even say it -- unless you make sure no one suspects you homeschool!
Obama is black, and it's black helicopters that will be coming to whisk Sprittbee off to the UN re-education camps on Nov 5.
ReplyDeleteCoincidence?
He said himself that the founding fathers did some things wrong. Excuse me?
ReplyDelete*******
Your curriculum doesn't mention even one thing that we would do differently today if we were writing the Constitution? Not one thing?
Nance
LOL - everybody the original constitution disenfranchised (women and anyone with African blood, for example) should be able to answer that one without a curriculum . . .
ReplyDeleteYour curriculum doesn't mention even one thing that we would do differently today if we were writing the Constitution? Not one thing?
ReplyDeleteNance,
Of course not! The Founders were perfect, after all. And founded a perfect Christian nation. Huh? What's that? Separation of Church and State? Never mind.
My youngest son did an interesting paper on the heroification of George Washington for his college class.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think he said something very profound (course I am a tad prejudice since he is my son). He said "When we insist on creating heroes out of the Founding Fathers we dishonor the memory of the men they really were".
Our Founding Fathers were human, they made mistakes just like everyone. And of course they were men of their times. Times have changed, I like to think for the better.
Here's a constitutional interpretation for ya, you betcha! Not a reassuring presidential posture in terms of whether she'd defend and protect my rights and yours under the constitution, unless they happen to coincide with what SHE wants next.
ReplyDeleteSalon: Sarah Palin Speaks on the First Amendment
Hi Alasandra, what a smart son you have! :)
ReplyDeleteActually, until Obama does away with our First Ammendment rights I will make comparisons as I see them and blog about them and tell them to anyone I am talking to. That is my right, you don't have to like it. By the way, some of our public school friends have made the same comparison!
ReplyDeleteGo ahead and endanger all our home education freedoms with that kind of ignorant nonsense, but expect to be called out on it from now on -- no more silence from the Thinking Parents who also homeschool and love America (and homeschooling) too..
ReplyDeleteI find it sad that the McCain and Baldwin supporters can't find anything good to say about their candidate so they have to stoop to attacking Obama.
ReplyDeleteI sincerely doubt Obama has any plans to take away our first amendment rights. On the other hand Bush with the Patriot Act seems to be headed in that direction and I don't see any indication that McCain wouldn't follow in the same path.
You know it's ironic the Fundamentalist Homeschoolers are up in arms with the idea the GOVERNMENT MIGHT TELL THEM HOW TO EDUCATE THEIR CHILDREN, but these same people have no problem with using the GOVERNMENT TO FORCE WOMEN TO HAVE CHILDREN THEY DO NOT WANT.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the government has no business being involved with a woman's decision to have a child or a parents decision on how to educate their child.
I've never posted on a homeschool blog before, but I have to say that as a homeschooling mom of three, I hope that my children will learn to be educated enough to read the actual constitution, Marx, Rouseau, and compare and contrast ideas about government and make a choice of what they think is best - it kills me to see people throwing around words like socialism - sounds like McCarthyism all over - and although I beleive in a parents right to be as involved in their children's education as they wish - I am a practicing pediatrician with 15 years experience - and I DON'T beleive that all parents can or will make the right choices for their children, whether about education, or otherwise...that's why we have a government - to ensure the rights of those unable to do so themselves (oh, and I like roads, etc...)maybe that makes me a "socialist" -
ReplyDeleteI am not worried about my right to homeschool my children. I am confident that they are doing well, meeting the state's requirements, learning and demonstrating that homeschoolers can be mature, social, educated and contributing members of their community and society. And I am prettey sure that any one elected president has much bigger fish to fry, then chasing after a small group of families whose children generally do very well, compared to public school students. Would any of you wish to leave children without parents who can give as much as we choose to to bad schools and no health care? Hard to justify that, especially if you align yourself with the pro-life movement (ie protecting innocent children...)
Erin in Oregon
Very well said Erin.
ReplyDeleteI have often thought that if those who are so concerned with the unborn would devote the same time, money and care to those already born the world would be a better place.
I will be relived when Tuesday is over the smear tactics and plain meanness this campaign season has been very depressing.
It's an honor and a privilege to "meet" another Thinking Homeschool Parent, Erin. The other kind have been pretty stressful as the stridency of their Obama smears rachet up and up and up in these last days before they have to face change we can believe in.
ReplyDeleteAlasandra knows a whole bunch of us here and there; visit any of us and comment when you feel so moved. :)
"When we insist on creating heroes out of the Founding Fathers we dishonor the memory of the men they really were".
ReplyDelete*****
What a smart guy you've got there!
This is one reason so many people enjoyed the HBO series on John Adams -- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472027/ -- it showed him warts and all.
Some of the shine is taken off when we know more, of course. I can't look at any movie set in a castle quite the same way since I saw something about their bathroom facilities -- or lack thereof. :)
Nance
Lack of modern plumbing would be a real downer to living in Camelot.
ReplyDeleteRe: imperfections in the Consitution
ReplyDeleteA Newsweek journalist on cable news just pointed our we should remember in this historic election that "our first 16 presidents could have owned Barack Obama as property."
Alasandra said:
ReplyDelete"I sincerely doubt Obama has any plans to take away our first amendment rights. On the other hand Bush with the Patriot Act seems to be headed in that direction and I don't see any indication that McCain wouldn't follow in the same path."
John Dean has a new research-backed essay at FindLaw that helps explain why this is so. Important to national politics and government, but also it illuminates so many other issues we homeschool moms care about and debate online, like school choice, child abuse, bullying, book censorship, family privacy, etc.
I blogged about this essay today and compared it to a classic horror movie, Invasion of the Body-Snatchers.
Look at the extreme emotional valence packed into this one short post supposedly about "protecting innocent life": violence, rape, severely beat, slaughtered.
ReplyDeleteStart from there and reason is going nowhere.
For example, education doesn't just go away as a state obligation to all children. So what happens if enough voters are moved by such emotional words to translate their beliefs into binding secular legal definitions, such as the one voted on this week in (was in Colorado?) -- then you have to think about everything that applies to an American child, e.g. custody battles in which the father argues the mom is a smoker, say, so the embryo must be extracted and reimplanted in some other woman for its protection, etc. (likely a government employee we taxpayers pay under CPS?)
Eggs that implant on fallopian tubes will be a death sentence not just for the legal "child" but for the mom too.
And it's still an education issue btw. If a fertilized human egg in or out of utero (will fertility lab eggs count too?) is ruled to be exactly the same as a child, then it has full equal rights which would include a free and appropriate special needs education. That will be an interesting school program . . .
I read something today about the nurse who originally made the “infanticide” charge against Obama, even though the Republican sponsor of the Illinois bill in question said himself that’s not what Obama was advocating by opposing his bill.
ReplyDeleteShe’s totally off the deep end now, talking about how sinful it is for women even to use contraceptives or choose sterilization at any point in their own lives, and so public policy must force them not to sin by forcing babies upon them, as “blessings.”
There is no way to reconcile with that. Any more than 21st century America can reconcile ourselves to the rule of the Taliban or Iranian ayatollahs.
When I went back later and Googled for the source, it was World Net Daily, of course. I choose not to link it but her name is Jill Stanek.
You brought up a good point about a tubal pregnancy JJ.
ReplyDeleteEvery time the nuts start talking about the unborn I can't help but think about the UNDEAD http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339840/
And it's really weird they are so hellbent on giving the UNBORN rights but they object to the rights of children. Serious dissonance there.
IF they ever gain control fertility labs will probably be done away with as it is my understanding they object to women getting pregnant by any means other then the 'normal' way.
ReplyDeleteOh, silly me, you're right of course Alasandra. No fertility labs. No contraception. Also no choosing not to have sex in the first place, for the woman at least, considering that those "blessings" are god's plan for her purpose on the earth so who is she to question what the men say god told them she must submit to . . .all this is a lot to sell if you discredit science first . . .
ReplyDelete