From Why Homeschool

Why Homeschool has an excellent post on U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf's ruling. Henry makes an valid point here.

The really important issue here is what are the rights of minorities and the rights of parents. In the past public schools have stayed away from teaching doctrine or pushing agendas. But now based on the ruling of Judge Wolf if the majority wants to teach that all Jews will go to hell, the minority can send their children to private schools, or homeschool, or try to elect a majority of people to the school committee. If the majority wants to teach that communism is good, the minority has little recourse. If the majority wants to teach creationism, the minority has no say what their children are taught.

Henry also has a post(with directions) reminding you to submit your own post to the Carnival of Homeschooling. Natalie at The Homeschool Cafe will be hosting this weeks carnival.

National Test Find Only 18% of Mississippi 4th Graders Proficient In Reading

No Child Left Behind, the federal education law, should be toughened to judge teachers and principals by their students’ test scores, and to block chronically ineffective educators from working in high-poverty schools, a private bipartisan commission recommended on Tuesday.

Excuse me does this mean the middle and high income schools will be stuck with the ineffective educators?

Its report compared the way in many states, students considered proficient in reading on the state tests were not considered proficient on the National Assessment. In Mississippi, for example, the state test found that 87 percent of fourth graders were proficient in reading. According to the national test, only 18 percent were.

Mr Bounds how do you explain this?

Lesson Plans

Funding For Community Colleges

Whenever I speak to local civic groups about community college issues, people always appear deer-in-the-headlights stunned to learn how their taxes are invested in education. Specifically in FY 2007, for every tax dollar out of the state’s General Fund expended on education, about 74 cents was disbursed to the K-12 system; about 20.2 cents went to support public universities; and about 5.8 cents was invested in the community college system.

So we squander the most money on a public school system that doesn't work while short changing the community college system that does work?

From HE&OS

Daryl explains how Republicans are confusing homeschooling with part of the public education system.

Republicans are also committed to providing parents and students with the tools and choices they need to succeed. Charter schools, home schooling and online education are all choices that parents should have when they consider which environment will help their children meet with greater success. These options are particularly valuable to at-risk students, who in traditional public school settings often struggle to keep pace. All of these schools help to form our public education system, and deserve our support. We should always be looking for ways to help them advance and improve, while still demanding the accountability that our taxpayers deserve.

This is Beyond Stupid

A school bus driver let Rachel Armstrong's three children board the bus Monday morning, but he warned them that he wouldn't give them a ride home that afternoon, nor could they ever ride his route again. The problem: Armstrong's 10-year-old twin girls and 8-year-old son speak English. According to their mother, the driver told them the route had been designated for non-English speakers only. Armstrong said Wednesday that she got a call from a worried daughter who didn't know how she was going to get home. "She thought they had done something wrong," she said.

This reminds me of when Shining Celebi started Kindergarten. It took me forever to find out what school district we were in because no one with elementary children had ever lived in this house before. I finally found out (from a member of the School Board) that we were in the more desired "North" school district. So we registered at North, Shining Celebi meet his teacher and learned how to get to his classroom. The day before school started I got a call from the Supervisor of Busing, they didn't have room for him on the "North" bus, therefore he would have to go to East (a less desirable school, a school neither of us had laid eyes on and a hastily assigned teacher). Luckily the principal at North worked with me to get him on a bus to "North". But needles to say there was one upset Mother till his bus driver stopped on her way home that evening to tell me that he could ride her bus and not to worry about it, and introduced herself to Shining Celebi.

Kennedy said the breakdown happened when officials discovered the family lived outside of Phalen Lake's attendance area. The family moved last year. The plan had been to tell them they would not be legally eligible for bus service after the winter break."We made a mistake. The family was not properly notified," she said. Armstrong can keep sending her kids to Phalen Lake, but under regulations must provide their own transportation, Kennedy said.

I honestly don't see a problem with them riding the bus, it obviously goes by their house.

A High Price To Pay For A Fashion Faux Pas

It started over a dress code violation, hardly reason enough to throw away an academic career and certainly no reason to be charged with a felony."I have goals I want to achieve and this is stopping that," says 17-year old Sabrina Herndon. Herndon was wearing a jacket and strapless top and was changing in the girl's locker room at Palm Beach Gardens High School. A teacher noticed the strapless top which is a dress code violation. Herndon says with the jacket though, the top is within dress code.

And note she was changing out of it, so what was the problem?

A male assistant principal then entered the girl's locker room, and within minutes Herndon was in a choke hold.

What was a male doing in the girls locker room????? There is no reason for a male assistant principal to be in a girls locker room. That alone should be considered sexual harassment. Why did he put her in a choke hole, unless she had a GUN or KNIFE he had no excuse to resort to violence. As far as I can tell all she had was a strapless top he objected to.

Herndon says she doesn't understand why she's the criminal, when she's the one who was choked.

You know I can't figure that out myself.

"It's his word against mine and mine is being overlooked." Herndon is now facing expulsion and her college career is in question. A high price to pay for a fashion faux pas."For the whole thing to go out of proportion over a dress code issue is ridiculous," she says.

I agree.

From the Blogosphere

Let's be clear public school at home isn't the same as homeschooling. If people choose to do public school at home that's fine and dandy, but they are not homeschoolers. I can only wonder if Bounds desire to scrutinize homeschoolers is due to the states need to drum up business for the Mississippi Virtual Public School.

And this is totally outrageous homeschoolers are being harrassed at public parks.

The Careys, were asked by the principal of the neighborhood public school to stop bringing their two homeschooled children to the park during school hours. The public park is being used as a playground for public schoolchildren. The Careys, who had only recently withdrawn their children from this public school, wanted their two boys to continue to have an afternoon recess following a morning of busy homeschooling.

It's a public park for crying out loud, homeschoolers have just as much right to be there as the public school students do.

Visit Motherhood is Hell...a....Cool! to read her post Why I Homeschool: By Me.

This adversarial relationship that many public schoolers have toward homeschoolers (including the propagation of stereotypes that homeschoolers are "weird" or "unsocialized") was brought about because the lack of a butt warming a seat translates into a lack of payment to the school for said butt. This was spun to mean that a homeschooling child is actually stealing funds from your child's classroom!

News & Views

Teens & Guns

Why are parents allowing teens to handle guns unsupervised? It's more then apparent that these teens lack "good judgement" among other things. We don't allow teens to smoke, we don't allow teens to drink alcohol, so why do we allow them to have guns?

A 14-year-old fired a pellet gun at a school bus Monday morning, cracking a window, police said.

***************************************************************

Teacher Guilty of Fondling Student

The Mississippi Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of former high school music teacher Julian Mingo for fondling of a student.

***************************************************************

Flu Shuts Down Public School

Schools in Prentiss County were closed for a second day Friday after more than 250 students were out with stomach and flu viruses, according to Superintendent Kenneth Chism.

Amelia Bedelia

Vancleave students got a treat, Wednesday, December 6.

Students at Vancleave Upper Elementary were surprised when the author of a popular series of children's books (Amelia Bedelia) admitted that many of the wacky mishaps the main character finds herself in are taken from real-life occurrences.

For those of you who enjoy Amelia Bedelia and want to incorporate the books into your classroom, TeacherVision has enrichment activities, About has a lesson plan based on idioms, and An Educators Reference Desk has a lesson plan on the Amelia Bedelia book.

Educational News

In New Jersey we have Hell in the Public School Classroom.

Sixteen-year-old junior Matthew LaClair says he was shocked when history teacher David Paszkiewicz, who is also a Baptist preacher in town, spent the first week lecturing students more about Heaven and Hell than the colonies and Constitution. He said Paszkiewicz told students that if they didn't accept Jesus, "you belong in Hell." He also dismissed as unscientific the theories of evolution and the "Big Bang.".

Illinois Parents are upset about Penguins in New Your City's Central Park Zoo.

A picture book about two male penguins raising a baby penguin is getting a chilly reception among some parents who worry about the book's availability to children - and the reluctance of school administrators to restrict access to it. The concerns are the latest involving "And Tango Makes Three," the illustrated children's book based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City's Central Park Zoo that adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own. Complaining about the book's homosexual undertones, some parents of Shiloh Elementary School students believe the book - available to be checked out of the school's library in this 11,000-resident town 20 miles east of St. Louis - tackles topics their young children aren't ready to handle. Their request: Move the book to the library's regular shelves and restrict it to a section for mature issues, perhaps even requiring parental permission before their child can check it out.

Both of these examples demonstrate why ones personal beliefs need to be kept out of the public schools. Parents who believe homosexuality is sinful should not be forced to send their children to schools where books promoting a homosexual lifestyle are available to students. I also think it was unnecessary for the books author to make the penguins "gay". As everyone knows I disagree with censoring books, but I do think that parents; especially parents of very young children should be able to determine what is appropriate for their children to be exposed to. It's equally wrong that high school students should be forced to listen to their teacher rant about Christianity and that the non-Christian students in the classroom were told they are going to hell, because they didn't share their teachers beliefs.

Educational News

Educator urges mobility for degrees, proof of skills

So instead of just saying a student got a B+ in "environmental design," for example, an electronic card would summarize the course requirements, highlight special projects the student did outside class and mention her study abroad. Adelman said the system would give students a lifelong transparent and certified summary of accomplishments for employers and other schools.

In Philadelphia


The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers plans to call for a moratorium on the creation of charter schools in the district to help ease the budget crunch.

"I think it's a bad idea because charters are working," Hardy said. "The parents like them. The kids like them. I think charters are something that's here to stay. And every time there's a financial hiccup, you can't put charters on the table. Why don't they close some of these bad [traditional] public schools?"

Study: Virtual-school enrollment explodes NACOL symposium states the case for online learning By Corey Murray, Senior Editor, eSchool News

Virtual schooling, and its potential to increase student achievement, was the focus in Plano, Texas, as more than 500 educators from across the nation gathered for the annual Virtual School Symposium Nov. 5-7. The three-day event featured the release of a study detailing a dramatic surge in online enrollment among school-age children--up to a 50-percent increase in some states, researchers said--as well as a new guide for teaching online courses, among other resources.

Charter Schools are Not the Same as Homeschooling

The director of school communications said virtual charter schools are not the same as home schooling. "We supply the computer, printer, we reimburse for the internet connection and we supply the curriculum, the text and that sort of thing," explained Joe Lyons.

California Threatens Homeschoolers

The information provided by the school district regarding their investigatory powers has been considered by some homeschoolers as an implied threat, and the conclusion is, you should enroll your children in a public-school-at-home program.

Public Education is Inherently Destructive

One of the big problems with the public school system is that the schools are not accountable to the parents. Parents have their children's best interest at heart; unfortunately public schools often do not.

Public education is inherently destructive. Public education involves forcing people, via taxation, to pay for public schools. This makes schools directly accountable to government bureaucracies, not to parents. Individual parents are thereby denied the right to choose which school will receive their education dollars, i.e., the right to reward schools for performance. If parents could pay schools directly, schools would have to earn those dollars by satisfying individual parents. And since parents are primarily concerned with the interests of their children, schools would have to deliver real value to children, which would require focusing on the child's educational needs.

Then of course there are the teachers who see their classrooms as an arena to brainwash their students.

Unfortunately, there is much confusion about both free speech and academic freedom. At too many schools and colleges across the country, teachers feel free to use a captive audience to vent their politics when they are supposed to be teaching geography or math or other subjects.

For example The Jay Bennish 'Diatribe as Geography'

This kind of indoctrination is by no means restricted to Overland High School. School teachers, at all grades, often use their classroom for environmental, anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti-parent propaganda. Some get their students to write letters to political figures condemning public policy the teacher doesn't like. Dr. Thomas Sowell's "Inside American Education" documents numerous ways teachers attack parental authority. Teachers have asked third-graders, "How many of you ever wanted to beat up your parents?" In a high school health class, students were asked, "How many of you hate your parents?"

If you happen to have an exceptionally smart child the public schools are no place for them.

Unfortunately, the idea of treating the brighter or more serious students as a problem to be dealt with by keeping them busy is not uncommon, and is absolutely pervasive in the public schools. One fashionable solution for such "problem" students is to assign them to help the less able or less conscientious students who are having trouble keeping up. In other words, make them unpaid teacher's aides! But the very thought that high potential should be developed more fully never seems to occur to many of our educators -- and some are absolutely hostile to the idea. It violates their notions of equality or "social justice" and it threatens the "self-esteem" of other students. As a result, too often a student with the potential to become a future scientist, inventor, or a discoverer of a cure for cancer will instead have his time tied up doing busy work for the teacher.

Cheri Pierson Yecke decries these social experiments with out children.

Heterogeneous grouping is a staple of cooperative learning -- one of the many educational fads that have seeped into middle-school education over the past 50 years. Cheri Pierson Yecke, former secretary of education in Virginia and commissioner of education in Minnesota, describes this movement to make all middle-school students equally mediocre in her book, “The War Against Excellence.” She decries the effort to “promote social egalitarianism by coercing students who are gifted/high ability to be like everybody else” as well as the way educators tend to use middle schools as laboratories in which to conduct their perverse social experiments.

Unfortunately bright students are often resented not only by their peers, but by their teachers too.

In regular public school classrooms, these gifted students have been too often resented by their classmates and their teachers alike. Some teachers have seemed glad to be able to catch them in occasional mistakes. Given the low academic records of most public school teachers, it is hard to imagine their being enthusiastic about kids so obviously brighter than they were -- and often brighter than they are. No small part of the gross neglect of gifted students in our public schools is the old story of the dog in the manger.

Thanks to these articles in Capitalism Magazine parents are at least aware of the pitfalls of a public education.