Saturday, March 01, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
BNN Homeschool Community is up and running
The BNN homeschool community! is now live. It's very impressive. Drop by to check it out. Dana did a wonderful job on it.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Oh Brother, If It's Not the "S" Word, It's the Money
Homeschooling: Education not confined to school walls
A financial impact on school districts By Bryan Marshall
There are 365 homeschool students who would regularly attend a school in the Madison County School District, said Assistant Superintendent Paul Baker.
Based on the average daily attendance rate, the district would receive $4,435 per student if they attended school.“We’re not receiving $1,618,831,” Baker said. “That’s what homeschool costs us.”
At least he was honest enough to admit that after hiring more teachers and buying more materials they wouldn't get the full amount.
“However, I don’t know that we would receive all that money as a plus because with 365 more kids, we’d have to have another 10 or 12 teachers hired,” he said. “You have to figure that, plus you have to have more materials and things like that. Of that $1.6 million, we would gain probably $800,000.”
It really ticks me off when public school officials imply that homeschoolers are costing them money. Why not accuse couples who choose not to have any kids of costing the public schools money, it's just as logical. Homeschoolers like everyone else pay property taxes that support the public schools, without for the most part receiving any of the benefits. And why don't they ever mention how much private schoolers are costing them? Why single out homeschoolers?
Perhaps one of the biggest problems with the public schools is this feeling of entitlement. They seem to see children as nothing more then a warm body to provide state funding to the school district. And they seem to believe they are entitled to your child's warm body even if they don't do an adequate job educating the child or keeping the child safe.
Children are more then a source of state funding and their parents should be able to choose the best educational option for their child.
A financial impact on school districts By Bryan Marshall
There are 365 homeschool students who would regularly attend a school in the Madison County School District, said Assistant Superintendent Paul Baker.
Based on the average daily attendance rate, the district would receive $4,435 per student if they attended school.“We’re not receiving $1,618,831,” Baker said. “That’s what homeschool costs us.”
At least he was honest enough to admit that after hiring more teachers and buying more materials they wouldn't get the full amount.
“However, I don’t know that we would receive all that money as a plus because with 365 more kids, we’d have to have another 10 or 12 teachers hired,” he said. “You have to figure that, plus you have to have more materials and things like that. Of that $1.6 million, we would gain probably $800,000.”
It really ticks me off when public school officials imply that homeschoolers are costing them money. Why not accuse couples who choose not to have any kids of costing the public schools money, it's just as logical. Homeschoolers like everyone else pay property taxes that support the public schools, without for the most part receiving any of the benefits. And why don't they ever mention how much private schoolers are costing them? Why single out homeschoolers?
Perhaps one of the biggest problems with the public schools is this feeling of entitlement. They seem to see children as nothing more then a warm body to provide state funding to the school district. And they seem to believe they are entitled to your child's warm body even if they don't do an adequate job educating the child or keeping the child safe.
Children are more then a source of state funding and their parents should be able to choose the best educational option for their child.
Bending the Twigs: Homeschooling and "The Mommy Myth"
Bending the Twigs: Homeschooling and "The Mommy Myth"
The authors' bias is obvious in their treatment of the National Center for Educational Statistics study statistic about 30% of the homeschoolers surveyed citing the desire to "provide religious or moral instruction" as their primary motivation for educating their kids at home. Now, those of us inside the homeschooling community know how broad that statement is, and how extremely diverse the group of families are who might concur with it. No one group has a monopoly on morality and people of any faith or none whatsoever might decide to homeschool in order to teach their children in accordance with their family's values.
In my inclusive homeschool group we have pagans, atheist, agnostics, Muslims and many different beliefs represented. Some of them choose to homeschool to "provide religious or moral instructions" to their children. But authors of books like "The Mommy Myth" never take these groups into consideration when writing their dribble. In fact one of the pagan parents in our group confided that she homeschooled because of the Christian bias in the public schools and that one public school teacher told her daughter that she was going to hell because she was a pagan.
Yet to Drs. Douglas & Michaels, they're all ultraconservative fundamentalists motivated by:
"an insistence that their kids never encounter the words 'evolution', 'birth control', or 'Oscar Wilde'."
Guess we aren't real homeschoolers then because I teach evolution, which included having my students read Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, not only have I taught my children about 'birth control' I am pro-choice and we enjoy Oscar Wilde.
Please stop by Bending the Twigs to read her whole post.
The authors' bias is obvious in their treatment of the National Center for Educational Statistics study statistic about 30% of the homeschoolers surveyed citing the desire to "provide religious or moral instruction" as their primary motivation for educating their kids at home. Now, those of us inside the homeschooling community know how broad that statement is, and how extremely diverse the group of families are who might concur with it. No one group has a monopoly on morality and people of any faith or none whatsoever might decide to homeschool in order to teach their children in accordance with their family's values.
In my inclusive homeschool group we have pagans, atheist, agnostics, Muslims and many different beliefs represented. Some of them choose to homeschool to "provide religious or moral instructions" to their children. But authors of books like "The Mommy Myth" never take these groups into consideration when writing their dribble. In fact one of the pagan parents in our group confided that she homeschooled because of the Christian bias in the public schools and that one public school teacher told her daughter that she was going to hell because she was a pagan.
Yet to Drs. Douglas & Michaels, they're all ultraconservative fundamentalists motivated by:
"an insistence that their kids never encounter the words 'evolution', 'birth control', or 'Oscar Wilde'."
Guess we aren't real homeschoolers then because I teach evolution, which included having my students read Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, not only have I taught my children about 'birth control' I am pro-choice and we enjoy Oscar Wilde.
Please stop by Bending the Twigs to read her whole post.
The "S" Word is Back
Dana post about Those Socially Inept Homeschoolers. Lively discussion going on in the comments.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Food for Thought at Mother Crone's Homeschool: Musing: When Our Choice Becomes Their Problem
Angela explains how our choice to homeschool can sometimes make our friends feel bad when they don't put their own kids first in her post Mother Crone's Homeschool: Musing: When Our Choice Becomes Their Problem
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