Pet theory: Put down of teachers directly related to rise in home schooling.

[Peregrine Took]

I was shocked when I first heard the mope brigade beginning to disparage teachers about a year ago on mope radio shows as teachers had always been revered as far as I had ever heard.

I imagine many home schooling folks secretly feel resentful towards the public school teachers with their teaching degrees, hours, decent salaries and benefits and feel "Hey, I'm paying their salaries?"

I bet that's where a lot of this BS began - just plain old jealousy, as usual.

News flash - think of all the parents who pay their taxes and send their kids to Catholic/private schools.

My parents, relatives and neighbors did that for tons of years and would never have thought to bitch about paying for education twice.

They made their choice and they accepted it.

[OHdem10]

1. It is about Cutlture and destroying the Democratic Party.

Some Republicans do fear their children will be tainted with
Liberalism. They assume all teachers are Liberals.

The Republican Party is out to bust the Unions. WHY?
UNIONS tend to Support Democrats, which is true because
Democrats are more likely to support Unions.

Why Bust Unions? Bust the Union and they will make the
Democratic Party so weak it cannot win serious numbers
for the next 50 years.

Remember 2000. Grand Plan. Conservative Rule for the
Next 50 years. Just because they lost a couple of elections
means nothing. They picked themselves up and just pushed
harder. The Tea Party came along just in time to get them
back in the Game.

Any Party has to have some big Organization(s) on their side
to win elections. The Union has been this org. for Democratic
Party. The Republicans bust Unions and they have free reign.
This is much faster that slugging out one election after another.

This is eactly why they destroyed Acorn. Acorn was an effective
organization for Democratic Party --enrolling new Democrats and
GOTV.

One Organization down and now the Giant.

[Poiuyt]

2. We are in the midst of an anti-intellectual wave that's been going on since Reagan

Many people do not trust anyone with an education.

[Lars39]

3. Homeschool Legal Defense Association spearheads a lot of it:

http://www.hslda.org/

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. It also keeps school districts and administrators from imposing their views and not the law

Call it a narrow focus ACLU

[Adsos Letter]

4. We sent both of our daughters through private Christian schools (not cheap!)

while gladly paying taxes for public education. As you say about your parents, we made our choice, and accepted it.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Find a new pet theory

Home schooling is minuscule and represents no threat to public education. That it is solely the refugee of fundie bigots is also untrue.

A larger threat is some parts of the charter movement that are essentially money making operations.

The pension and benefit issues for all public employees is a big deal and is resonating as so many people lost their defined benefit pensions and benefits in favor of defined contribution ones and no benefits. It is not just about teachers

[MedicalAdmin]

7. I just don't see it.

I know some folks who homeschool and they are a varied lot. One family is pretty religious, but the other 5 homeschool for varied reasons. One lives in the sticks and decided that 5 hours a day on the bus was too much so they home school until the kids get older. Another is a pair of highly educated professionals and they are seriously more credentialed than a most teachers and their kids are very bright and focussed and enjoy being self directed.

It's a mixed bag. Oh - all of them pay taxes and all of them, including the fundie couple are OK with property taxes because they think it's a good idea for the community to have a school (plus they tap into band and sports and dance...).

It's a pet theory, but it's kind of like this pet.