Bounds Bad News for Mississippi

I have always been thankful it is so easy to homeschool in Mississippi. You just register your child as homeschooled with the school attendance officer for your school district. So Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds' threats to scrutinize homeschooling and his equating it with child abuse were chilling.

Visit the Homeschool Cafe to read Natalie's post about how Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds plans to scrutinize homeschooling.

According to Bounds

he wants homeschooling organizations to help craft ways to ensure homeschooled students are truly being educated. State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds called some situations “child abuse.”

Exactly what homeschooling organizations is Mr. Bounds referring to? There is no requirement that homeschoolers in Mississippi belong to any organization. Certainly PEAK (the homeschool support group I belong to) isn't set up to monitor what individual families do. Is he going to force all homeschoolers to join HSLDA in order to homeschool? I don't support HSLDA's agenda and I have no wish to fork over my hard earned cash to a homeschool organization. Money that could be better spent on textbooks and enrichment activities. Of course considering the public school system spends more money on administration then anything else, I don't expect Mr. Bounds to understand my desire to spend our funds on classroom supplies that directly benefit the students. I am also outraged that a government official would equate a LEGAL educational choice with child abuse.

But then Mr. Bounds and his cronies at the Department of Education have a vested interest in getting rid of the competition (private schools & homeschools). I don't know of any other field in which a competitor would be allowed to scrutinize the competition. Sorry I don't buy the moral and ethical responsibility BS Bounds is using. For every student that is homeschooled or sent to a private school the public school system loses federal & state funding. And I have ample evidence that public schools are less about whats in the best interest of their students and more of what is best for the bottom line.

Bounds' time could be better spent scrutinizing the public schools he is in charge of and fixing them, instead he wants to scrutinize an educational option that is really none of his business. So, I'll return the favor and scrutinize the public schools, it's my moral & ethical responsibility.

1.) Sexual abuse by public school teachers: These two Mississippi Teachers are prime examples, unfortunately there are more.

David Ozbourn was a biology teacher at Richland High (Richland, Mississippi) for about 5 years. Ozbourn had been having sex with a student on campus possibly since she was 16-years-old. The girl is now 17.

Stephen W. Harris,, a Newton native, taught junior high school math and served as an assistant baseball coach with the Newton County School District for about two years, said Newton County Superintendent Billy Pierce. He was arrested Tuesday on a charge of sexual battery faces other charges elsewhere in the state, Marion
County Sheriff Richard "Rip" Stringer said Thursday (Columbia, Mississippi).

Perhaps Bounds should spend more time scrutinizing how he can prevent Mississippi's Public School Teachers from sexually abusing their students. Then he could work on the verbal and physical abuse. That should keep him busy for awhile. Corporal punishment is statistically most prevalent in Mississippi schools where, during the 1997-1998 school year, nearly 50,000 students -- 10 percent of the total school population -- were subjected to corporal punishment.

2.) Student Violence

(Pearl, Mississippi)Luke Woodham went on a shooting spree (October 1997) at Pearl High School.

Granted the school shooting was a rare occurrence (thankfully) but bullying is rampant in our public schools.

Four out of five middle school students say that they act like bullies at least once a month, according to a new study that found such aggressive behavior to be more common than previously thought. The study of 558 students in a Midwestern middle school found that 80 percent said their behavior included physical aggression, social ridicule, teasing, name-calling and issuing threats within the previous 30 days.

If you think it isn't a problem in Mississippi, read BAY HIGH BRAWLS in the Sun Hearald.

Several teachers say the school is seeing at least one severe fight a week and tension on campus seems to be growing. Last month, a teacher spotted a Bay High student reaching for a .25-caliber handgun hidden in a small side yard. No one was injured and school officials said the student, who was expelled, was not targeting anyone on campus.

3.) Public School Drop Outs & Low Graduation Rates

“Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis in the South.” Southern states have some of the lowest graduation rates in the nation, and this study, which focused specifically on the states of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina, cited research that has identified a high correlation between racially and socioeconomically segregated schools and very low graduation rates. This trend is particularly discouraging because, according to the study, blacks in all southern states have experienced increasing segregation since 1990, and approximately 90 percent of highly segregated black and Latino schools are located in areas of concentrated poverty.

4.) Low Academic Performance

5.) Large student to teacher ratio

And the list could go on and on. It sure looks like Bounds has enough to scrutinize within the public school system without interfering with parents who choose to homeschool.