Your Child is Not State Property

Your Child is Not State Property
By Thomas A. Bowden

Education, like nutrition, should be recognized as the exclusive domain of a child's parents, within legal limits objectively defining child abuse and neglect. Parents who starve their children may properly be ordered to fulfill their parental obligations, on pain of losing legal custody. But the fact that some parents may serve better food than others does not permit government to seize control of nutrition, outlaw home-cooked meals, and order all children to report for daily force-feeding at government-licensed cafeterias.

The shockwaves from Justice Croskey's decision will likely impact not just homeschoolers but also the apologists for government education--teachers' unions, educational bureaucrats, and politicians. Their political and financial survival depends on a policy that treats children as, in effect, state property--but only rarely is the undiluted collectivism of that policy trumpeted so publicly.

Read the entire post here.

More Homeschoolers In Atlanta

Maryland Home School Robotics Team (TechBrick Robotics) Wins Slot for US FIRST's International Robotics Competition in Atlanta, April 16-19.

Youngest son in really jazzed about going with Team Fusion 364 (his robotics team). He had a meeting tonight to get the details. They (Team Fusion 364) are also making plans for the summer robotics camp they run for young kids.

CLC has no interest in changing homeschooling laws

The CLC, which argued against the rehearing, is preparing its arguments, too.
"From our perspective, the CLC had no interest in changing or impacting the law regarding children who are home-schooled by loving, caring parents who are assumed to want to and are capable of protecting their children and providing for their children's best interests," Ms. Heimov said.

But in situations where parents are not protecting their children — as is the case with this family, in her view — "it is paramount" that society step in and protect these children, she said. "That's what this case was about."

This seems to be a no brainer, the court should have made a narrow ruling that only applied to the family in question. Instead they made a sweeping ruling that applied (or seemed to) to all homeschoolers. And it seems to be that the best thing for the children would be for them to be REMOVED from this abusive situation.

They and their nine children have been involved with the child-welfare system for 20 years, owing to accusations of physical abuse by the father and sexual molestation of several daughters by a male family friend whom the parents permitted to come around.

No child should have to endure physical and sexual abuse. One can only wonder WHY the child welfare system has allowed it to go on for 20 years.

The Computer Ate My Grade!!!

Lousy luck if you had good grades, Computer bug eats Ind. students' grades. I wonder how sympathetic teachers and school officials would be if a student told them a computer bug ate their homework?

I am now a lady of leisure as I am not certified to do anything

I often wonder if these people ever realize how absurd their arguments for requiring teacher certification of homeschooling parents are. Maybe I should stop cooking healthy nutritious meals for my family. After all I am not a certified chef or a certified dietitian, therefore I can't possibly do an adequate job cooking meals for my family. Oh I better tell my husband to call a plumber the next time we have a plumbing issue, since he isn't a certified plumber. I should also tell him to stop working on our automobiles and lawn mowers since he isn't a mechanic and I guess the greenhouse he designed and built for me will have to go. After all he isn't an architect and doesn't work in construction. Hey maybe we should require people to be certified to do laundry and clean houses. In which case I am now unqualified to do any house work, so I can spend more time in my butterfly garden. Oh wait, I don't have a certification in horticulture so I guess I am unqualified to weed the flowerbeds. I am now officially a lady of leisure.

HT: The Common Room: Some People Commit Crimes, So Investigate Everybody

Confederate History ~ Jefferson Davis

Little known facts about Jefferson Davis

• Davis was a West Point graduate who fought in the Mexican War under Zachary Taylor and married the future president's daughter.
  
• As a U.S. senator from Mississippi, he had a hand in building the Smithsonian Institution.
• He bolstered the nation's defenses as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce.

Why Homeschool: Carnival of Homeschooling - The April Fool's Day Edition

Why Homeschool: Carnival of Homeschooling - The April Fool's Day Edition . This delightful Carnival is well worth a visit.

Bayou Regional

Team Fusion 364 Youngest son joined Team Fusion 364 this January. Their colors are orange and blue. Team Fusion 364 is comprised of students from different public schools, private schools and homeschools who live along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Youngest son is homeschooled and we are members of PEAK. During their build season they worked very hard to build a robot that could perform all the task required for the 2008 First Robotics Competition. As you can imagine building a robot and going to competitions is very costly so they look for corporate sponsors. Team Fusion 364's sponsors are NASA, SAIC, Sieman Composites, DuPont Delisle, Knesal Engineering Services, INC. (they are always looking for new sponsors). All donations to Team Fusion 364 are Tax Exempt 501(c) (3), the culmination of their fundraising efforts is a golf tournament run by the students. Team Fusion 364 used some of the money they raised to take the VEX kids in the area to the Bayou Regional Saturday. At the Bayou Regional they competed against other teams from all over the country. States represented at the Bayou Regional ~ Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey and Texas. There were 47 teams in all. Opening ceremonies began with a Mardi Gra parade. Then the seeding matches began. These are the awards Team Fusion 364 won in 2007 at the Bayou Regional Engineering Inspiration Regional Finalist Award Autodesk Visualization Award Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Entrepreneurship Award This year Team Fusion 364 only won ONE award, but it was FIRST's most prestigious award, it honors the team judged to have created the best partnership effort among team participants, and to have best exemplified the true meaning of FIRST. The award helps keep the central focus of the FIRST Robotics Competition on the goal of inspiring greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology. Team Fusion 364 won The Regional Chairman's Award and will be going to Atlanta for the National Competition. Bayou Regional~Friday Bayou Regional ~ Saturday

CA Homeschooling Decision Voided

A state appeals court will reconsider last month's controversial decision that said parents who home-school their children must have a teaching credential.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles granted a rehearing Tuesday, essentially voiding the 3-0 decision until it rules again. The decision will now allow home-schooling organizations that had blasted the decision to weigh in.

A very nice piece on homeschooling in The Washington Post

Contrary to Stereotype, Home-Schoolers Aren't All Religious or Socially Maladjusted -- and They Are Changing the World

So nice somebody finally gets that homeschoolers are a diverse group. Go on over a join the discussion.

Unschooling & Homeschooling not the same

The subject of homeschooling is a decent article on homeschooling in the Times Recorder. One of the commentators doesn't seem to understand that 'unschooling' and homeschooling are not the same thing. Unschooling is a teaching method that a very few homeschoolers choose to use. Other methods used include the Charlotte Mason Method, Waldorf Education Method, Classical Education Method, Eclectic Homeschool Method, Unit Studies, Montessori Homeschooling, and Distance Learning to name a few. You can read more about the different homeschooling methods here.

Homeschooling Today

Gregory J. Millman is co-author, with Martine Millman, of "Homeschooling: A Family's Journey," to be published in August. Read his article on homeschooling in The Washington Post.

Conventional schools are like the nation's Rust Belt companies, designed in the 19th century but struggling to meet the standards of international competition today. School boards and administrators should be concentrating on ways to make schools more like home-schooling -- not on ways to force home-schooled children to go back to schools. People who are free to think for themselves usually get together and find solutions that are better than what bureaucrats can devise.

HT: HE&OS

Senator Dave Cox is a friend to homeschoolers

Sacramento, Ca -- 1st District Republican State Senator Dave Cox has co-authored an Assembly Resolution to call upon the California Supreme Court to reverse the opinion of the 2nd District Court of Appeals as it applies to home schooling.

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

What Makes a Creationist Tick?

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.

According to Time

Sugarman said the fact that both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state superintendent have spoken out against this ruling means that, chances are, even if the case is held up in the California Supreme Court, uncredentialed parents will still be allowed to educate their children — that there is nothing that requires the state to aggressively go after people. Indeed, the education department (which is not involved in the lawsuit) will not want to waste their resources going after such parents, despite the "illegality" of their actions, leaving the Second District Court of Appeals opinion of the law unenforced.