I think it's time for us to start embracing home schooling

[bluestateguy]

The cause of home schooling has always been a cause for the Right. For whatever reason: they bemoan the "secular" educators, the lack of quasi-mandatory prayer in schools, sex education, racial integration or maybe they just don't like the curriculum (some people, for example, only want to hear America portrayed in a positive light).
Many liberals and many in the public education establishment have resisted the agenda of the home schoolers, seeking to delegitimaize their cause at every turn.

That was then. This is now. When I read about school districts being forced to revert to abstinence only sex education, or public schools being forced to turn over lists of names to military recruiters as a condition for federal funding, or school boards mandating "intelligent design" as the preferred theory of human development, one must conclude that the tide is turning. The State Board of Education in Texas has already approved textbooks that glorify imperialist US foreign policies of the past, belittle homosexuals and suggest that maybe slavery wasn't so bad after all or that maybe the South had a legitimate reason for breaking with the Union. Because of its size, books written for Texas are often used elsewhere in the nation.

I think we on the Left should rethink home schooling for two major reasons: 1) When conservative parents pull their children out of the public schools, that's one less fundie parent and one or more less fundie student(s) who can burden the rest of their particular local public school community. Wacko parents with kids outside of the public education system will be less likely to pester and annoy everybody else in their public school community to adopt school prayer in the classroom,to say "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, to ban "offensive" books or to demand abstinence only education. If these parents are encouraged to leave the public school system, most of them will abandon their efforts to impose their radical agenda on the rest of us, thus making the public schools more progressive and forward looking. 2) In some states and local school districts around the country, fundamentalist Christians are indeed very firmly in control, or taking control, of the public school system. They feel emboldened after the elections, and now feel as if their agenda has been legitimized. This is an agenda of militarism in the schools, quasi-mandatory Christian prayers in the schools, textbooks that whitewash the dark side of American foreign policies of the past, abstinence only sex education, creationism instead of evolution and absolute obedience for authority figures, rather than questioning authority. They will push this agenda. In some parts of the country they will fail, in other parts they will succeed, meaning that home schooling must be an option for liberal parents who either cannot find or afford an appropriate private school, and/or do not wish to subject their children to the indoctrination of the Far Right.

[phantom power]

1. By the time my daugher is old enough for school, I'm thinking we

may need to home school her, just so we can make sure she learns that the earth is round.

[rkc3]

4. Wait a minute. The earth is round?

Next you'll tell me a giant chariot isn't pulling the sun across the sky.

[wicket]

2. For what it's worth:

I know several liberal parents who homeschool.

[Not_Giving_Up]

3. I would love to homeschool my kids

There's one little problem - I have to work for a living. My son has several friends who are homeschooled, and he has asked me why he can't be too. There's just no way I could afford it.

[cmd]

5. Just what the right wing wants

No public schools to support. More money for the wealthy. Less educated workers for menial labor. I'm not ready to throw away public education.

[ChairOne]

8. Precisely... same as the i'm-leaving-if-bush-is-re-elected stuff...

There is, however, such a thing as, for lack of a ready-made term, "supplementary schooling". For example: my parents routinely had me read books and write reports on em that were not included in my public school curriculum.

This seems to address both issues to a helpful degree: (1) the need to work around the a fucked up school system made worse by fucked up bush education initiatives, and (2) the time constraints introduced by the practical reality of working parents.

Of course, some might look at me and question just how effective this tactic was.... lol....

[katmondoo]

9. This is an excellent way to go

[bryant69]

10. This is it

I mean I think the strength of Home Schooling, if there is a strength is to be found in the fact that it forces parents to spend the time with their children seeing that their children learn. That can happen with public schooling as well--all it takes is a little time.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Nite Owl]

6. It hasn't always been the

cause of the right. The movement started as a way to bring up a free thinking child, a way to educate without the boundaries of the school system. We started to home school back in the 80's and there were few who were right wingers. They started their own little schools, complete with right wing curriculums and religious text books later on.

[gorbal]

7. It Has been a cause for the left as well.

My cousins were homeschooled, they are very successfull young women. The only problem they seem to have in life is bad taste in men, but at least their lives are not defined by the men in their life.

There is a great site about Unschooling here-

http://www.unschooling.com/

I have a friend who is dirt poor, and she is homeschooling her child because children are just so darn mean these days.

[Malva Zebrina]

11. I was against home schooling initially

but now, I have changed my mind. If I were a parent today,in view of all you have mentioned, in view of the mandatory psychological testing without parental consent, I would pull my kid out.

My only other thought is for those who simply do not have the time, because they must work, or those who are undereducated themself.

I often wonder if home schooler parents could not get together, hire a teacher or two, and combine their efforts so they will have time to work, if they must.

[rman]

12. does in include elimination of public education?

there always has been and always will be a place for home schooling, but not as a replacement of public education.