I read Tom's
A Dim View of Homeschooling and thought I would respond.
Tom says
This boy had come to me after a previous bout of homeschooling, essentially two years behind his peers, but was just beginning to make steady progress
I know many public school students who are two years or more behind their peers. Maybe you should spend more time worrying about them Tom and less time worrying about homeschoolers. In fact when I started homeschooling my children Youngest Son had come home with a large packet of school work after completing third grade in public school and a letter stating
This is all the material that we didn't have time to teach during the school year. Please teach this material to your child over the summer break so he/she will be ready for fourth grade.
So all the third graders in one public school were behind and the parents were expected to catch them up over the summer. Seems to me if the school officials thought I was capable of teaching material that they failed to teach and that was vital to a successful fourth grade school year I could just as easily homeschool full time. My Eldest Son who had just finished fifth grade in public school was behind in Math because his teacher for the second semester in fifth grade wanted to teach kindergarten and didn't like higher Math, so she just skipped it. So all the fifth graders in one public school class didn't have Math for an entire semester.
Tom said
before long her son came to into view and began chanting, "I wanna go back to school, I wanna go back to school."
Remember we are talking about a third grader here. Kids chat a lot of things "I want ice-cream", "I don't want to go to bed" ........................ Just because a kid is chanting something doesn't mean it is good for them or that they should get it.
Tom said
Discussing the visit on the drive back to school, we both had the strong feeling that the mom was just plain lonely. She wasn't working at the time, seemed depressed and wanted her son around to keep her company. The incident at school may or may not have happened in the manner that her son described it, but we suspected that she was using it as a way to justify having her son home with her for essentially selfish reasons.
Some public school teachers could be accused of teaching a class for essentially selfish reasons. Certainly all my Eldest Son's Fifth Grade Teacher for the second semester was interested in was the pay check. She didn't even want to be a fifth grade teacher she wanted to teach Kindergarten. His original fifth grade teacher had resigned during the middle of the school year in order to take a higher paying job as a school counselor. Although to give him credit he did pop into the class and try to help out Miss I want to Teach Kindergarten whenever he could, but I really can't say either one put the children's welfare over their own economic well being.
Tom seems like a decent public school teacher who genuinely cares abut the students under his care but all public school students aren't lucky enough to have a teacher like Tom.
Parents have the right to homeschool their children without having to jump through hoops imposed by the states. As homeschool parents bear the full financial burden for educating their children the states have no right to impose regulations.
My eldest son started college at sixteen after being homeschooled sixth grade on, he now has a BS degree in Computer Science and is working on his Masters. My youngest son is in his first year of college full time after being homeschooled since fourth grade. He took two classes his senior year of Homeschooled High School at the local community college for dual credit.
~Alasandra, a retired homeschooling Mom
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