Homeschoolers: Poor, Ignorant and Easy to Command

The isolated introverted home schooled child is a very nasty myth. My experience with home schooling was one of community involvement. I interacted with a diverse strata of people. I was mentored by shamans, tutored by used car dealers, I sat at the feet of the frail and old, and in turn taught some of our youngest citizens. I was one of the founding instructors in my home towns first community recreational program before my 17th birthday. I was more at ease interacting with diverse peoples and challenging situations than my age mates. Home schooling turns out mature, seasoned young men and women, often with a more varied experience than home school alternative options offer. I am currently a very successful professional, and I was prepared for these responsibilities and duties as a home schooled child in a very poor and rural setting. And I am one of many.

It's ironic, but my parents choose to home school me to protect me from continued persecution from from the heavily Baptist teachers and students in the public schools. :)

I've always liked your home school friendly columns.

Franklin,

Was anyone on this particular posting really all that harsh towards public schools?

In past forums, we've had people come out and say that homeschooling parents are presumed sexual abusers--ie. that the state should send a case worker there at least once a year to look around to make sure there is no abuse of the children.

And I have to say, teachers' organizations have not exactly been friendly or even tolerant of homeschooling.

I understand your thought of one size does not fit all, and truth be told, I wouldn't totally rule out sending my kids to public schools. I admire you for staying in to correct the system.

Rod,

Please fix typographical mistake in line eight of this column! Thank you.

Franklin,

In my experience, homeschoolers' defensiveness comes from two sources. First, many homeschoolers were badly hurt in their interactions with the schools, and are speaking out of their pain and rage. Second, if a parent or teacher in the school system admits to real problems, people say "What can we do to fix them?" If a homeschooling parent admits to real problems among homeschoolers, people say "Make it illegal (or regulate it to an extent that makes it impractical)."

I'd love to talk about some of the issues I've seen among homeschooling families: "unschooling" that amounts to educational malpractice; terribly lonely children; bullying; and parents with clear psychological disorders whose children are stuck with them 24/7. And homeschooling parents do talk about these things, privately. But homeschooling is too recently legal to be handing ammo to its enemies, so nobody talks about these things.

Homeschoolers will get less defensive as reaction against the public schools (or parish schools, in the case of us Catholic homeschoolers) becomes less of a primary reason for homeschooling and homeschooling becomes instead just another educational option (this is already happening), and as non-homeschoolers stop crying out in the editorial pages for the outlawing or regulatory strangulation of homeschooling (this is beginning to happen, too).

In the meantime, I'm sorry for the unkind things homeschoolers have said that have clearly caused you and your family pain. You know and I know that all of us parents are just trying to do what's best for our families.

--The Opinionated Homeschooler

Erratum: Second paragraph should end "...in public."

Homeschooling should be seen as a valid option for parents to make for their children. In many cases, the child himself requests to be homeschooled.

We made the decision to homeschool four years ago based on many factors. We actually considered public school this year (private school is beyond our means) but realized that we are zoned for an all-but-failing school system. Needless to say, we are forging ahead at home. The oldest of our five is in third grade, the youngest an infant.

We have many friends who homeschool. We also have friends who send theirs to public or private schools. In each case, the parents have done what is best for their children. We feel that we are doing the same.

People meeting us for the first time comment that our children are bright, creative and well behaved. About 90% of those people are surprised to find out they are homeschooled. Our children are comfortable with a wide variety of people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds. They enjoy learning and are curious about everything. We will continue to monitor their progress and make decisions on schooling year-by-year.

Two semi-related comments (maybe "rants" is more appropriate), one personal and one professional.

1. (personal). Clearly one size does not fit all. Unfortunately that is what many (*note, I did not say "all") public schools offer. I'm a product of public schooling, as are my brother and parents. My brother and I are 2 years apart, are both reasonably bright (now both PhD students), and were both bored silly through most of school. I had an out in high school to some extent through honors classes--I was in the last high school class in which students were "tracked", or put into honors, regular, or remedial classes based on their grades and test scores from middle school. If a student felt he/she could do well in honors, he/she could petition to get in (usually granted). My brother hated being bored and tormented by behaviorally-challenged classmates throughout elementary/ middle school and was anxiously waiting to get out the "lowest common denominator" class and into an honors class. But no! The school board in its great wisdom felt that this hurt students' self-esteem. So no more tracking. Anyone could take any class. So all classes again tended toward mediocrity. Our HS had some wonderful teachers, but instead of letting them actually teach, challenge students, and give the ones who wanted to learn some extra attention, they were forced to deal with bringing kids up to speed who shouldn't have been in their class in the first place and dealing with behavior problems.

2. (professional). The other issue I have with public schooling--most private as well--is not the quality of the teachers or their dedication. They work hard to do the best with what they're given. My issue is with the system itself. As a college instructor I am working with the fruits of that system and I can't say I'm terribly impressed. My students are for the most part academically prepared--they know their Spanish grammar & vocab--but they don't have anything to say.

They are are great at working for a good grade on a test but are often baffled by having to investigate something on their own or to really weigh evidence & form their own opinions. Maybe it's the socialization aspect of high school--no one wants to stand out & learning is a "school thing"--and maybe it's the huge emphasis on tests of all sorts. My students are great at filling in the blank and giving me back what I said in class, but many of them don't know how to think critically.

Also, most of them have no idea who they are and what they believe (again, likely a socialization issue). I think no one ever asked them to really think about who they are--what they like/dislike, what they believe and why--possibly because exposing students to different belief systems in an authentic way could be construed as promoting one culture/religion over another.

Add this to dearth of critical thinking skills and you get students who take what their professors (authority figures) say is true at face value. I can't count the number of essays I've read in which students say they were brought up thinking "A" and they got to college and one semester later they think "B" (diametrically opposed to "A") because their professors/friends think it. But now they wouldn't change their beliefs for the world.

So, my question as I contemplate having children becomes, public or homeschool, or some combination of the two? I want children who are self-confident intellectually and socially so that when they are where my students are now, they can really engage intellectual and social issues.

When...you at least imply bad things about traditional classroom schooling, you've insulted me, my wife, my children and all the teachers we encountered in our public school careers, not to mention my wife and her present colleagues.

Franklin, this is unfair.

For example, I did K-12 in a "high performing" public school. I think it sucks and is generally damaging to children. But for me to say so does not insult you, your wife or your children.

Another example. I homeschool. But people who think homeschooling sucks do not insult me. They merely voice their opinion.

In summary: everyone has a right to their opinion. But not to the facts! And it will be informative to compare my kids SAT scores and people skills to those kids in the public schools.

Question: did that one letter actually say 'homo schooling', or is that a typo on Rod's part?

Naturalmom and M_David, I ask that you read (or reread) my response to Don, then my original post. NM, I acknowledged that I'm ranting (more than a bit, eh?); M_David, I think you missed the full context of the part you quoted. Allow me to generalize my point: no one on either side has any room to declare that "their way" is the "right way". What they have is a collection of ways and a whole bunch of individual children.

My experience closely matches Spanishgrad's. I was tracked; at the time, it was called Advanced Placement (AP). I earned my first high school credit in 7th grade while still in junior high (this was before the move towards middle schools) along with 60 or so of my peers. The only thing preventing me from graduating as a junior was a year of phys. ed., and I'd not have been the first to get a waiver.

Yeah, I've got an IQ well above average. I find some things very easy. I have memories of being deathly bored back to 2nd grade.

I know many people who were just like my "less gifted" peers while they were growing up. They are managers, supervisors, software engineers and quality assurance testers. I see no qualitative difference between their lives and mine. It is all subjective, and inside my head.

Sure, I could have turned out differently. Anyone could have. The differences are subtle, and they are totally overwhelmed by the one-size-fits-all mentality of politicians eager to please as many registered voters as possible, regardless of the fact that they will bear zero accountability for the outcome.

Zero.

It's the teachers who are there, year after year. They are the ones who are the ultimate, easy, visible scapegoats. I suspect, from O.H.'s post and from personal acquaintances, that home schooling parents will at some point come to realize just how difficult, thankless and even dangerous it is to be a teacher.

I've spoken to many teachers in my lifetime. With rare and unremarkable exceptions, they all have one desire: to teach children to find and meet their potentials. One-size-fits-all is their greatest enemy.

We started to homeschool in large part because my kids were the "bad kids". As a matter of fact, I often joke when complimented on how attractive my kids are (They are - not sure how that happened!) that they have to be beautiful because they're bad and no one would put up with them otherwise. When my oldest son was in kindergarten, his teacher was sure I was the problem, but it was really just a matter of temperment. (There's a family history on both sides of notoriously difficult people.) Now he's 12 and he's really a great kid, but boy, up until age 9 or 10 he was a real peice of work. As for my 8 year old, we often joke that if we ever feel like torturing some poor teacher, we'll enroll him in school for a month. Like his brother, he's starting to show real signs of change, but I can't imagine him in a classroom setting everyday.
Now we are continuing to homeschool just because we love it for dozens of reasons rather than as a particular reaction against public schools. For now though my point is really that you should all be glad that I homeschool my boys - think of all the disruptions your own kids have avoided by not being in a classroom with them! :)

Growing up, my family used all three - public, .Christian, and homeschool - to educate my three siblings and me. I'm not "for" or "against" one over the other, but rather see them all as potentially good or bad options. I think sensible parents will not fall into the trap of becoming dogmatic about the "rightness" of any one choice, but rather keep their eyes and ears open and continually reasses how their child is fairing in their current environment.

Rod, of course it is senseless for anyone to make negative generalizations about homeschool or Christian schools. But I would caution against making positive generalizations either. The problem with Christian schools who hold themselves out as providing a morally superior environment, is that when something evil happens, such as sexual abuse, the Christian schools usually react by wanting to hide the problem for fear it will ruin their school's Christian image (and I'm not being melodramatic...I've seen this happen over and over again).

I think what bothers me most about public schools is their size...it is impossible for kids to get a very customized education when their are so many other students with needs and problems. Homeschooling can work great for some, but I've known some pretty lazy homeschooling parents, too. Homeschooling also means the mother is usually forgoing paid work and this poses risks to her future financial security.

To sum it up, I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong choice in deciding the type of education for your child, but I do think their is a wrong attitude - thinking one's choice is more righteous, responsible, or enlightened than all others will probably lead to you "missing the signs" when a serious problem has arisen with the choice you've made.

Franklin, have you ever read Isaac Asimov's short story, "The Fun They Had?"

It's an interesting little piece which can be read online, in which Asimov's characters, two adolescents in the year 2157, find a 'real' book (that is, not a sort of e-book, which is all they are used to) about an old-fashioned school--where the kids actually went to a big building together and were taught by a human being, instead of remaining at home to be instructed by a state of the art computerized "teacher." The children end up wistfully thinking about the fun those children must have had.

Granted, Asimov couldn't have foreseen in 1951, when he wrote that story, that people wouldn't have to learn to write machine code and create their own punch cards in order to "talk" to a computer; but he also couldn't have seen how unfathomably swift and incredibly powerful the forces of societal destruction would be, and how these forces would seep into the orderly, disciplined classrooms of 1951 and turn them into the chaotic and frequently problematic entities they are now. (I refer to violence, discipline problems, unrealistic teaching mandates, uncooperative students with equally uncooperative or absent parents, politically-oriented programs that have little to do with education and everything to do with the talking points of one political party or the other, funding issues, the tendency of the general public to demand that the schools act like free daycares but nothing more, and the new emphasis on constant test-taking, NONE of which is the fault of teachers.)

The point, though, is that Asimov, an atheist, scientist, and secular humanist, wrote this story thinking it at least plausible that the natural trend of public education in the scientific age would be to maximize the individual character of the education provided in order to maximize the potential of each individual student. And as Elizabeth pointed out earlier, the first homeschoolers were not generally the fundamentalist Christians, but left wing/countercultural types who thought there was far too much corporate involvement in public education (i.e., the perception that public education exists to create worker bee drones who will be conditioned to sitting for long periods of time, obeying orders, and providing consistent and reliable--if mediocre and uncreative--work).

It is probably true that some form of public education will always be necessary, and it is certainly true that the teachers who put up with the mess day in and day out in the hopes of creating a handful of positive outcomes are heroic in their struggles to do so, but none of that changes the fact that we have to be willing to look creatively and honestly at the model of public education if we're going to reach the point where we can even begin to talk about creating an educational system that will exist with the goal of maximizing each student's potential--but in the meantime, that is exactly what homeschooling attempts to do. That there are individual failures in the attempt to do this doesn't change the fact that the goal for nearly all home educators is to provide each child with such an education.

I would like to see every child in America educated with this goal in mind, but until we can be completely honest about the fact that the present structure of the education system is predicated upon an outdated societal model that no longer exists in reality, we're not going to get anywhere. I think that Asimov, who in his "futuristic" story penned in 1951 thought that the family model of 2157 would still largely consist of intact nuclear families with mothers who could stay at home and monitor their child's "public" education, would tend to agree.

I agree wholeheartedly that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to education. I was positively bored from first grade until I went to college, which the exception of the math and science magnet school I went to for half the day during high school. I was always on the honor roll, but slept through classes and hated every second of school. During elementary school, my mother spent a lot of time after school helping me learn more. I went to Hillsdale College and had to learn from scratch how to read literature and think critically about it, then how to write a proper MLA paper. I loved college!!

My brother, on the other hand, two grades below doesn't have anything negative to say about school.

I don't know what we'll do about school when we have children. I'm aldready concerned about it! I just don't want our children to go to school hating it every day.

I laughed so hard at the idea of sending a child to California public school for a "horizon-broadening experience". If you want your horizon broadened in a bad way, the the California public school system would be the way to go.

Speaking as a third generation native Californian who is raising a fourth I'd like to say that in my view, and that of many standardized tests, CA public schools are the WORSE in the country. Their spending per student on education is the lowest in the country. More often than not they are in the bottom five of states ranked for educated children.

It was while living in CA that my husband and I decided to home school our children.

I was educated in very good public schools, but was bored. Often. And I suffered a lot as a result of the peer culture where smart was bad. After I became a religious person, I was appalled by some of the values that the public schools had tried to inculcate in me and my peers.

So I was determined to send my kids to a parochial school, and did so for nine years. Then I ran into a problem with my oldest kid, and decided to homeschool the others for K-8 (what choice did I have left?).

The first year was really, really tough. I have never appreciated the work that teachers do so much. But as we have gone along, I have also grown to appreciate aspects of homeschooling that I did not anticipate. Our family grew closer and sibling rivalry faded (but didn't disappear). Less structured schooldays meant less frustration and less boredom (mind you, I run what others tend to call a "school at home" program). My children have been able to advance in subjects where they are strong (math for one, music and languages for another). They read much more than their peers, because their reading is part of their schoolday and not part of their homework, which means there is simply more time to read.

Is it perfect? No. They are lonely sometimes. Their social circle is small, partly because they are shy and partly because we live in an area with relatively few homeschoolers. We have had "re-entry" difficulties in high school.

Having sampled pretty much everything across the spectrum, I would agree with Heather that every family has to make choices based on its situation and on the individual children involved.

Taking your children to California is like Lot moving into Sodom. Talk about "Eros unbound," in the California public school system the Pederasts - both Sapphic and Traditional - rule over children with complete power. And the mean to have them perpetually.

You may as well check your children into a well run brothel. It's healthier than what happens to them in the education process in California.

Which of course means stooping your westward journey at Nevada.

I would like to see every child in America educated with this goal in mind, but until we can be completely honest about the fact that the present structure of the education system is predicated upon an outdated societal model that no longer exists in reality, we're not going to get anywhere.

Boy, Erin, I couldn't agree more with this.

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Franklin, I think I get your view. I was worried when you made opposition to public schools a personal thing because I dislike the model of public schools. If I was king, I would outlaw them. I think institutional settings for young children is a very bad thing, like a mild form of child abuse, and is bad for the child and thus our society. Just don't hate me for the view :-).

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My view of school and education:

Americans love education, believe in it, and pay big for it.

But nobody agrees on what it should accomplish, or what method should be used to achieve it.

And thus schools have not done well. Many students have good grades, impressive transcripts, and high test scores, but when you examine them closely, they are generally poor writers, cannot handle logical reasoning, and are poor thinkers. They think in cliches, and think reason is a popularity contest based in ideology. Even at the university level.

In reality, getting a good education is up to the student alone. It's hard work. No shortcuts. School cannot do it for you.

One cannot educate another, only himself. Thus the problem with institutional school with teachers. Teachers teach away, but only students can educate. The only use of a teacher is to inspire the student to educate himself. This inspiration is very important, but unfortunately teachers are so hamstrung by the rules of the institution they have a hard time inspiring anyone, even if they are good.

So public schools are a failed model. They should be abolished and replaced with a voucher system where parents hire teachers to inspire and guide students, and make their own plans for what they plan to accomplish and what method is best to do this.

Excellent exchange, M_David and Daniel. Between you, you hit the nail of the nubbin in the head. ;-)

I see public ed as a service. It has a delivery mode, players in the various roles (providers, service deliverers, customers, etc.), and all of the benefits of economy of scale along with all of the detriments as well.

A big problem is that too many have acquired the perspective that they have a right to dictate one or more of those roles and what they perform. I hasten to point out that how well they perform has, is and always shall be a critical aspect, and parents must be involved with that and have input and feedback opportunities.

Anyway, Daniel points out the fatal flaw: at the encouragement of the factory model of public ed, people see the process and their children as dehumanized and mechanical. Stick a kid in at the beginning, get a college-ready young adult at the end.

M_David, it doesn't have to be bad. It is, in too many places; I'd be worse than hypocritical to shoot you for being the messenger with that message. Q.E.D.: there are millions of us out there who did the K-12 thing and took no (lasting) damage from the experience. I don't begin to suggest that this should be a selling point for it. It's what we have.

I tell you something, though. I'm personally involved in this year's mayoral race. I want to see major tax reform, and public ed is right in the thick of things. I see two things happening: the next mayor will spend the first year selling his ideas and seeing committees and panels and commissions get started; his second year he will see his various ideas get shot down; the last two years he'll either get an ulcer, or become bitter and hostile. Taxes, education, health care, it's all so f'''ing embedded and entrenched that it would take a catastrophe and total rebuilding to have any chance of making significant changes.

A teacher should have two responsibilities: identify the best form a child should have; go about delivering that form. It means as well saying to a parent: this is not the right place/school/method for your child.

A parent should have two responsibilities: finding teachers committed to finding the best form of education for their children; biting their tongues and taking the professional advice at face value.

I don't really want to hear about the exceptions to that. I've seen them myself. I lived one. There is no one right way to approach education; there is only one right outcome. If the outcome is not achieved, then I don't care who you are, teacher or parent: you've failed your responsibility.

Franklin, with all due respect, I think this: "A parent should have two responsibilities: finding teachers committed to finding the best form of education for their children; biting their tongues and taking the professional advice at face value..." shows that you're still not quite accepting the new social realities that will have to be a part of any real educational reform.

One of these realities is that those parents who are most committed to and involved in their children's educations are the same parents who are *least* likely to bite their tongues and take the professional advice at face value. We've learned, sometimes at great cost, how often the so-called "professionals" are wrong when it comes to our children's health, safety, discipline, morality, and, yes, education. Your generation is the one that started all of that, questioning authority, rejecting "expert opinion," tearing down the walls of societal trust. That particular clock can't be turned back to a time when people gave unqualified trust to their doctors, teachers, accountants, clergy et. al. absent the kind of radical social restructuring Rod has alluded to once or twice (the "intentional community" model, where you trust the teachers, for instance, because a prerequisite of their being involved in your child's life is their willingness to prove that they share your values and respect your role as the most important authority in your child's world, to whom they must be willing to defer when necessary).

I don't see a return to the unquestioning trust you call for here aside from that, though, because parents no longer have the basis to trust anyone who has regular access to their children. We're a highly fragmented society whose members can't agree on the answers to basic questions concerning the common good, so how can we find any sort of agreement when it comes to education?

As a newspaper reporter, I've interviewed a number of families who homeschool. The best of the lot were extremely creative people who were trying to give their kids more than the local schools provided. One family raised goats and drank goat's milk, the eldest girl sang in a children's choir and they did a lot of reading and traveling. The children were well-mannered, outgoing, and seemed to get along better with adults than a lot of kids I've seen in the public schools. They were also religious conservative Christians, but that didn't seem to be the major focus of their homeschooling. It was incidental.

The worst I've encountered come across as absolute control freaks. The curriculum in one case out of 40-year-old textbooks, outdated, dogmatic and limited. Homework was worksheets. The kids "yes, ma'amed" me to death and didn't seem to feel free to offer an opinion on anything I asked. I'm not sure if some of the difference I noticed was a more authoritarian Southern parenting style (I'm in North Dakota.)The lecture at one homeschool convention I covered was about how parents should give approval for any man the girls married. The kids at the convention were freaked out to encounter a newspaper reporter and fled from me as though I were the spawn of Satan. All I'd asked them was "What do you like about being homeschooled?" I've heard public school teachers note that the home schooled kids who come into the high school after being home schooled are well prepared academically, but they are very poorly socialized. I wonder sometimes how some of the latter kids will adapt to college or life outside their parents' house. However, the state homeschool association here is advocating "college at home" for homeschooled kids instead of sendign them away to one of the universities. "College at home" would consist of on-line classes and uncredited apprenticeships with people in their churches. I don't think it sounds like much of an education.

The parent I watch for, the one I hope to see, will say two things in the same breath (as accurate and appropriate, of course).

1) My child is progressing at her own pace, and is now reading three years ahead of her age.

2) My child is progressing at his own pace, and is proud of his progress in math even if it's two years behind his peers.

Home, private or public schooled, I don't care. If you (general) can say those things with equal sincerity, you have my utmost respect and undying admiration.

I live in the DC area. I know many homeschoolers. So far without exception their children have impressed me with how they get along both with their peers and with adults.

Contrary to your reader's beliefs, DC,with its many homeschoolers is hardly some rural backwood. In fact, it is leading the nation in the percentage of inhabitants with college degrees and income. It has plenty of educational institutions from which choose -- public, private and charter schools. Yet, a fair number of people choose to homeschool. Not all are religious. Both religious and non-religious home schoolers share one thing in common: a desire to allow their children to develop in a positive environment that allows them to become people who are respectful of others and of themselves.

I know several who are secular humanists. They do homeschooling because they see the dynamics at the schools as a toxic mix of varing degrees of unruly, uncharitable, criminal, or petulant children combined with school teachers and administrators whose days are regulated in such a manner that instruction takes a back seat to almost everything and one size fits all is the rule. The DC school district's administration is so overbloated that the new chancellor is having a hard time finding out just how many people are in administrative rolls only. The union is trying to prevent her from reorganizing by getting rid of ineffective, administrative bloat. The union is unconcerned that children are once again going without books that are sitting in warehouses undelivered because people are not doing their jobs in a effective manner. It's really quite unbelievable.
To escape, local homeschoolers form groups with other parents -- Christian and not. Those who are experts in science teach science, math, math and so on. They have their own sport leagues and activity groups. The children's classrooms are the many museums and libraries in the area. Field trips are a big part of their education.

To Andrea, the journalist(in the comments)-- I don't know where you did your interviews or what convention she attended but her experiences are not representative of the average home-schooler in the DC area. Nor were the representative of the types of people I met at the Catholic Family Convention that featured a lot of homeschoolers. As far as 40 year old textbooks -- at least they had text books (see comments on DC schools below.) I went to public school. Our textbooks were so old that the science books were saying that someday man will build a rocket to go into space; that same year we were landing on the moon!

As far as the control freaks go, there will always be control freak moms and dads. Who hasn't met the parent who micro-manages and schedules every move their poor children make?

No school really provides a child a complete social experience. They will be missing out on certain experiences no matter where they are. What about the mom and dad that send junior off to the extremely expensive prep school with a "certain" culture? Will they have an idea of how to interact with a person whose parents lived pay check to paycheck? For the first two years of college, I spent a fair amount of time with my room mates friends who were fast tracked in a medical program (starting sophomore year they transferred to medical school). They would be doctors by the time they were 22. Most came from very wealthy areas and they went to the best public and private schools. They were some of the most emotionally immature and disturbed people I ever met in my life. They were incapable of interacting with themselves in a responsible way never mind other groups. Most abused drugs or alcohol.

One might think, well those are examples of mixed up private school kids who parents are too busy for them. Well, let's look at the public schools. One that is not in the boonies as your reader might imagine but one that is in the metropolitan area. A thoroughly modern school. What happens to young persons in these mega schools where each person is just one of 1000 people in a graduating class. How many microseconds do you think it takes them upon stepping foot in the school to figure out: I am not in the top 25 in anything so I am nothing. Or, no one is paying attention to me, so I can get into as much trouble as I like. Odds are I won't cross paths with one teacher who even knows who I am outside of class. No one in authority is paying attention to what I do -- its a free for all.

Here's an example of what happened to one child. A friend of mine had her well-behaved, likeable, well-adjusted, above average intelligence, Kentucky rural raised child transferred into one of these schools. The first two years -- until he was in 7th grade all was fine. Then he hit middle school and within 2 years he was a druggie who was selling drugs and having mosh pit parties in the basement. The stories his young female friends told of what was going on in the schools would raise the hair on your backs: young girls being raped by the boys and drugs being sold and gangs. I found this out from the girls when I baby sat for a weekend early on before he went drugie. Parents absent and uninvolved. It was sad. And if this was only one report of such happenings, I would say, oh it was a fluke. Fact of the matter is that a few years before, a woman who had not gone to college at work asked me to help her daughter submit paperwork to go to school She had the same stories of girls being raped by the boys in their classes. It happens between classes. Threats are made. She hated going to school. She lived in fear just as the friends of my friend's son. This was a different school district -- also in middle class suburbia.

Last example is to move to a town in a rural area of Pennsylvania that is becoming a long distance bedroom community for New Yorkers. Two of my friend's 3 sons were subjected to incredible bullying. The The eldest had a learning disability that went undiagnosed even though if you talked to him for any length of time it was obvious he was of at least average if not above average intelligence. The teachers just called him "stupid" for 12 years. I kept telling my friend to have him tested. My friend tried everything but they wouldn't work with her. Finally when he went to college (he was a talented artist), the school diagnosed him and he started to get study skills to cope but its been a long hard road. The youngest was so tramatized by bullying by a certain click that he needs therapy. The teachers knew (there are only 60 kids in each class) but did nothing.

So if these are examples of the kind of "socialization" and "opportunities" that home schooled children are missing -- all the better. I think actually if you were to survey most youngster's few would say that they liked school or many of the children at school. Most look for ways to survive what is sheer agony from a social, intellectual, and self-esteem stand point. How many children can't wait to get out of high school and emotionally abusive situations with their classmates or frustrating situations with teachers? How many can't wait to get away from the pigeon holing that entraps them in lives of misery? They don't have enough money to wear the good clothes? They are not in the right clicks? They are not the smartest? They are not athletic? They are not good looking? They are not "whatever". They become damaged because instead of learning to appreciate both their strengths and weaknesses and be in an environment were respect of the other is of paramount importance they are thrust into a box of self-hate or agrandizement (in the case of the lucky few who rise to the top.)

No,its way too simplisitic to chalk up the home school movement to "religious fanatics who want to indoctrinate their children." The educational system in our country is failing our children in a myraid of ways. Homeschooling is just one attempt to fix the problems. Unfortunately, the folks who are most against homeschooling are those who most rely on indoctrinization to keep the myth that any constraint on a child's abilty to make a choice is necessarily bad. In their fictional world, all choices are good choices especially those connected with addictive behaviors -- sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. What will these folks do, if the children and their parents discover that life is MORE FREE when certain constraints are in place???

It's the North Dakota Christian Homeschoolers Association, so presumably the lot I saw were extremely conservative Christians. The presentation I was referring to was a line of thought I've seen discussed elsewhere -- "courtship" instead of dating, the daughter gives her father her heart so he can keep it in trust until she's ready to get married, parents should approve dating and the child's marriage partner. At the most recent homeschooling convention I covered, there were religious and educational presentations. A number of the textbooks I saw on sale at the textbook sale were the reprints that seem popular in certain segments of the homescooling community, the very old histories, pre-1960, the McGuffy readers, etc.

Like I said, I've certainly seen homescoolers who don't fit that mold. I worked with another reporter years ago who described how he got on a roof of a car with his young daughters while his wife very slowly drove it in circles so the girls could feel what it was like to fly. One of my old college classmates is teaching her kids using a combination of Charlotte Mason and classical homeschooling and had just taken her kids on a rock hunt somewhere out in the country as a geology lesson when I interviewed them. A number of the homeschoolers have their kids taking lessons or joining groups in the community and often they will take half or more of their classes in a local high school once they reach 14 or 15. The four time state geography bee champ, who also placed at nationals, was home schooled and did go onto the public high school when he turned 14. These folks also all noted that they're conservative Christians and I highly doubt that their kids are out partying or having lots of premarital sex anymore than the other kids are, but there was a difference between them and the scared kids I interviewed at the home school convention. I hope that parenting approach doesn't backfire on their moms and dads. Reining kids in too tightly tends to make them run wild once they're finally out from under parental control.

The home school association was actually pretty happy with what I ended up writing about the convention. I wasn't out to write a negative story or ask the kids questions their parents would have objected to. I've seen the public schools here too, by the way, and they're hardly drug dens or teaching immorality by California standards.

Can we have a show of hands from all those who sincerely wish their father had picked a wife or husband for them? I'm afraid mine will not be among them. Earnest graduate students whose idea of a date is taking me to the Republican Ox Roast have never been my cup of tea. Somehow I seem to have maximized my genetic potential rather effectively with my own un-pre-approved choice.

Well, Mr. McMinn, I respectfully suggest you prepare yourself to be wrong. Your opinion is based on either faulty information, or a very narrow horizon, or both.

To be fair, and to offer you an alternative perspective, none of us should stop at just one or two motivations for those parents. Except for the (I hope you realize) rare example of an extreme isolationist attitude, most home schooling parents that I've spoken to and read about have a list of reason. Some put quality at the top. Others put social environment (as in, physical danger) at the top. And in keeping with my previous statements that there is never only one way to approach education for all children, the feedback that some parents get -- about how well adjusted and socialized their children are in general -- I would personally support the option of home schooling just for that possibility for some children.

I am committed to public schools for a variety of reasons. None of those reasons means that I turn a blind eye to the problems that provide those motivations I list above. There was a period of several years where I was in daily fear for the safety of my wife, a special ed teacher in an inner city middle school during those years. No one, including my wife, breathed a longer or louder sigh of relief when she transferred to an elementary school, then later to a high school with a good discipline record.

I have a full store of arrogance, myself. I also pride myself on facing reality. I get the feeling, sir, that you possess a similar pride. Don't let your arrogance get in the way on this issue, because as a taxpayer you have a stake in the quality and effectiveness of public education even if you don't have children, because the children who go through it will be your doctor, nurses, store clerks, delivery persons, taxi drivers and police officers. If home schooling results in improvements in public ed (an effect I am open to seeing, thought I don't see it yet), then you and your tax dollars benefit directly from it.

Oh, and I have never seen a more beautiful woman than one who is pregnant and happy with her condition... except perhaps a nursing mother.