This past month, I felt shocked on a daily basis when I read the newspaper and saw the evening news. So many stories seemed to include public schools. We all have MANY reasons to homeschool, of course. But let’s take a quick tour of the news this past month, and count 10 more reasons to homeschool.
1. School violence
Pink Slime For School Lunch: Ammonia-Treated Meat
School soda ban ineffective
3. Excessive technology
District Embarks on Widespread iPad Program
4. Bullying
Death of CA girl after fight ruled homicide
New Film Takes An Intimate Look At School Bullying
Teenagers poured gasoline on boy walking home
5. Test troubles
Mock Test Concerns from a Teacher
Damage caused by test-driven schooling
6. Incompetent teachers
Violent Math Problems Lead To Teacher’s Firing
7. Unethical behavior
Band teacher pleads guilty, sentenced to 12 years
8. Bizarre policies
‘Scream Room’ Controversy Heads to Hearing
9. Crazy curriculum
Afraid of Your Child’s Math Textbook? You Should Be
10. Good news about homeschooling
Urban, Educated Parents Turning to DIY Education
Home-schooling demographics change, expand
Four-day school schedule improves math and reading
In Praise of Homeschools
Texas homeschooling grows
Why more black US families are Homeschooling
Homeschooled student wins Oklahoma Spelling Bee
It’s important to remember that tragedy can happen to anyone, and bad things don’t only happen in schools. Not all schools or teachers are bad, and nobody is perfect. However, as I was reading the news last month, I was very glad we homeschooled!
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J W says:
Heartrending. I can’t do more than read the headlines. I just can’t bring myself to click on those links.
I remember a few years ago a big-name magazine did an article on home schooling. The one thing I remember is some pro-public-school bigwig said it’s our civic duty to put our good, smart, mature home school students back into public school to help bring up the standards. But here’s the thing – the schools were bad before parents had the right to pull their good, smart, mature kids out!
I ran this by my student. She identified the argument presented in the magazine as a part-to-whole fallacy. Just because there’s a few good students in a school doesn’t mean the whole school will be better.
(I wish logic had been offered at my high school).
March 23rd, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Rebecca says:
While I agree that it seems so much negativity comes from the public school arena, please note that the “violent math problems” for which the teacher had been fired were downloaded from a homeschooling website.
March 23rd, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Lee says:
Rebecca,
That’s so true! Plus some awful things can happen in homeschools and to homeschoolers as well. I was just expressing some feelings
Blessings,
Lee
March 24th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Ann says:
I wonder if the “violent math problems” website for homeschoolers and others wasn’t thrown out there by someone whose purpose was to falsely malign homeschoolers. Or maybe the examples were done in a tongue-in-cheek way, not meant to be taken seriously. It seems hard to believe that a teacher would choose problems like that otherwise.
March 25th, 2012 at 5:51 pm
Lois says:
Lee, I was curious about the violent math problems from the homeschool web site. I went over there, and the man who created the worksheets has a nice letter to his viewers about the teacher who was fired. Apparently, he received a lot of feedback! He explained himself a bit, and then said he was taking down the web site. I thought you might want to know. I don’t happen to agree with his rationale, but I do recognize he is not American.
March 28th, 2012 at 6:57 am
Lee says:
Lois,
I agree, it was a very interesting study in different cultural norms
Blessings,
Lee
March 28th, 2012 at 12:37 pm