Ruben Navarrette's ~California court overreached on homeschooling case

When you think about it, much of education reform revolves around this notion of escaping. Those who advocate vouchers, or call for failing schools to be shut down, or - in this case - defend the right of parents to homeschool their children want to give students a means of escape from low-performing schools, poorly managed districts and all the rest. Those who resist such efforts have constructed all these elaborate arguments against reform efforts, but mainly what they want is to keep students from escaping in order to keep power concentrated in the public schools and the bureaucracies that run them.

Luckily homeschoolers have powerful allies.

And they have a heavyweight in their corner. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately denounced the appeals court ruling and promised to change state law to guarantee that parents have the right to teach their children at home. Parents should decide what is best for their children, he said, and "not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education."

The governor is quite correct, and I'm glad to see him in this fight. Homeschooling isn't perfect. But look around. Neither is the public school system, which needs all the reform it can get. That's why we can't stop looking for viable alternatives that augment traditional teaching - and, just as importantly, challenge traditional thinking.

Read the whole column here.

Enlightening

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30 percent of the nation's public schools aren't making adequate yearly progress

About 30 percent of the nation's schools aren't making adequate yearly progress - mostly because students didn't make steady gains in required math and reading exams given in grades three through eight and once in high school. Schools are judged not just on average scores but according to how groups of students perform, such as those with disabilities, limited English skills or minorities.

115th Carnival of Homeschooling: Oh, The Things That You’ll Do!

115th Carnival of Homeschooling: Oh, The Things That You’ll Do! hosted by Janice Campbell.

Enjoyable Column by Daniel Leddy

Putting the shallow pretense aside, opposition to home-schooling is really driven by its implications for the nation's public school system. However, rather than denying parents what must be deemed a fundamental right, the focus should be on making public education so attractive that more parents will select it.

Instead, the trend is in the opposite direction. Among other things, obsessive secularists and alternative lifestyle advocates have commandeered public education and are holding students hostage to their agendas.

For fed-up parents, home-schooling is one way out. No wonder so many of them are taking it.

Daniel Leddy's On The Law column appears each Tuesday on the Advance Op-Ed Page. His e-mail address is JudgeLeddy@si.rr.com.

Read the rest of Home-school decision gets a failing grade.

Home school student wins bee for second time

Home school student wins bee for second time read the rest of the story here.