Tim Farley has had it. He knows what the state and federal government is mandating is wrong. He knows it hurts children. He will do his best to protect the children from these harmful and spirit-deadening demands. But he will home-school his youngest child. He explains why here:
Tim Farley writes:
My wife and I have finally hit the breaking point. We can no longer sit by and watch the educational system that has been co opted by Bill Gates and his corporate cronies in the name of “education reform”, harm our youngest child. Jessica and I are the parents of four wonderful children (7th, 5th, 3rd grade, and kindergarten). Although we would like to homeschool all of our children, due to several factors, we will only be homeschooling our youngest, John Paul.
John Paul is a bright and energetic boy. He was born with a heart defect, and at two years old had open heart surgery. As traumatic as that experience was for my wife and me, it didn’t seem to have any long lasting impact on him. He is a little spitfire. At least he was. He no longer likes going to school. In fact he hates going to school. It is not his teacher, as one of our older children had the same teacher and had a fantastic experience. It is the developmentally inappropriate standards and the “rigorous” demands placed on 5 year old children that has changed. Kindergarten is supposed to be a time of exploratory learning and developing social skills. Unfortunately, it has become an assembly line environment of “drill and kill”. The inane assignments that lack any sort of creativity have crushed his love of school.
Recently I stumbled upon this video (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FHetioUW4lI) which illustrates what many thousands of children and parents are experiencing on a daily basis due to the Common Core. My child could easily be one of those in the video.
At first, I felt that by choosing to homeschool, we were giving in to the “reformers”. It was our hope that the state legislators would have taken real steps to slow down the rushed implementation that has been widely described as an “unmitigated disaster”, a “train wreck”, and as “institutionalized educational abuse”. The legislators have failed. The Commissioner has failed. The Board of Regents has failed. The Governor has failed. We will not allow our children to be “collateral damage” while the politicians figure out how to fix the mess that they created.
My son will be provided individualized instruction by a loving mom and a former educator. He won’t be reduced to a number. We are truly blessed that this is even an option for us, as many parents lack the resources to make this choice. We only get one chance to get this right. There are no do-overs.
I will keep you posted as we embark on this new journey.
Sincerely,
Tim Farley
(Elementary and Middle School Principal of a school in the Hudson Valley)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Homeschooling can be a good option for some – those who have a stay-at-home parent and who have the ability to teach. But that’s not most parents. Some parents (myself included, for now) have the resources to send their kids to private school. But these are not solutions for the vast majority of families of school age kids. And, thanks to Katie Osgood in the post below, we know what happens to them.
actually, we all have that option…. it’s a choice…. see post below, which gives a passing nod to our two years’ of homelessness and my 2nd time dance with cancer….
there IS another way to live… and it’s not all bad…. people have been programmed to think that there’s only one way and that any deviation from that is failure and nightmarish and a fate worse than death… it’s not….
and there are various forms of “homeschooling” and “teaching”… you seem to have only one, very limited, model of education in mind – doing the classroom thing but in your front room…. access your imagination – EVERYTHING is learning and education – it’s to be found in every moment, every day, every place and situation you/we move through in the day….
Actually, you’re making some incorrect assumptions about me. “Doing the classroom thing in your front room” is exactly what worries me about homeschooling. Parents with no teaching knowledge, experience or aptitude going through homeschool versions of text books, doing the worksheets and considering that learning. It takes a great deal of knowledge and expertise (and a large helping of natural talent) to “access your imagination” and make everything learning and education, “every day, every place and situation”. Most parents can’t do that. It’s what great teachers have been doing, in the classroom and out, for generations, but which they are increasingly being prevented from doing.
And in any case, you still need a stay-at-home parent (or skilled caregiver of some sort), which, especially in these economic times, is simply not a reality for most families.
I’m a parent…. not a teacher, no training… we aren’t doing academics in the ‘traditional’ sense at all…. and yes, it’s challenging living on child support and food stamps…. AND…. we are part of a loose-knit community of like minded/spirited people – over 400 families belong to the major homeschooling community here in Seattle and many are in similar circumstances – and we help each other…. we share food, car pooling, care of our kids, host activities, ‘teach’ what is our area of expertise, trade/barter for goods and services, support each other any way we can… give what we can, take what we need…. it CAN be done….
Again, you are assuming that everyone has access to the same resources you do.
everybody DOES have access to the same resources I do… I have nothing – no money, no home, no assets, no job, no other income of any sort….
my boy and I have what’s left of our “stuff” and our cats, who I was able to keep I hold of during two years of homelessness….
I beg and borrow all the time and I give of myself, my skills, my knowledge, my experience every chance I get – I try to ‘pay it forward’…. it’s hard work… AND… I made a choice – several really… there were some ‘deal breaker’ things happening in our lives, I found out just where my ‘line in the sand’ was, and I refused to cross it…. I refused to take the path of least resistance and we are living with and in and through the consequences of that…
Before you take me to task for white privilege….
My point is we ALL have a choice…. all choices have consequences….
Everyone CAN make the choice I have made and they CAN live with those consequences…
I accept that there are many people who WON’T make the same choice, for their own reasons, and I don’t judge them for that….
The only resource you really need, is the COURAGE to do what your heart/gut says is right for you and your child/ren….
I will sound like Pollyanna now (and maybe my privilege is in this shamanic knowing), but it’s true – it falls into place once you make the choice…
And no, I am not immune to the fear that comes with uncertainty and insecurity – some days, its not a pretty picture inside my head at 3am in the morning…. and yet, there is no certainty and security in life – pretending there is, is foolhardy… so why not get real and let go of that illusion/trap?
The plutocrats can take your government, your home, your job, your pension, your taxes, your healthcare, your education, your future (whether you let them or not, whether you protest or acquiesce)… you can do everything ‘right’ – play nice, live by the rules, pay your taxes, go to school, go to college and end up with a millstone of debt around your neck, with no job, no real future and a planet that in 30 years +/-, will not support human life…. so tell me, what is it we’re gaining by playing ‘safe’?
Just because you have had kids, that doesn’t make you qualified to be a teacher. They aren’t the same thing at all.
I’ve already said I’m not a teacher… no training… no desire to be a teacher in the formal sense….
Dienne, as a current homeschooler, it sounds like you’re constructing barriers. Some parents work and still homeschool. It can be done, depending on the sacrifices the parents are willing to make. In “The Well Trained Mind,” the author describes how she taught the children in the morning and then they took a long break mid-day for lunch/reading/nap. Dad, who had worked all morning and part of the afternoon, taught from late afternoon into the evening so Mom could work. You do what you have to for your children.
As far as having the ability to teach, all it takes is a certain amount of patience. This isn’t controlling a large classroom, which requires formal training. This is one-on-one tutoring, assisting when the child gets stuck, explaining new concepts, and those homeschool textbooks you seem to disparage make it easy. If you look at studies that compared homeschooled children’s test scores based on parental education levels, you’ll find only a few percentage points’ difference between those with only a high school diploma and those who had college degrees and an actual teaching certificate . . . and the scores of all homeschoolers were well above public schooled children. Homeschooling is about providing the child with the resources he needs and getting out of his way. And all parents should know how to “teach.” You taught your child to tie his shoes, to perform chores, presumably his ABCs and 123s prior to Kindergarten. You help him with his homework when he doesn’t understand. How is this any different?
By the time I started homeschooling my son partway through 4th grade, he was in a classroom where math was being done completely via computer, so there was no real teaching being done in that very important subject. The teacher had more than 25 kids in the classroom on varying levels of academic achievement, and he couldn’t get her to answer questions because he was smart. When you were in the highest group, she thought you should be on auto-pilot while she handled the other two groups. He’d have hours of homework each night, because social agendas were considered more important than academics, and only about three hours of the 6.5 hours he was there every day was spent in instructional time. The school had three bomb threats in a month, so the children were standing outside in the cold and starving because all of them were right before lunchtime.
Yes, I can do better than that, and my son deserves it.
Bearing children doesn’t qualify you to be a teacher. Period.
seems to me, Susannunes, you too are stuck in a rigid paradigm relating to what education looks like….
I wouldn’t allow a TeachForAwhiler to be my child’s ‘teacher’ if he was still in school… I would expect, demand a fully credentialled, experienced master of the art of teaching…. and that’s because education within the confines of a school is a different beast to education in ‘unschooling’ mode… where life is the teacher, and the learning is child-driven….
I don’t claim to be my child’s teacher really – I agree with the term facilitator, used above… and besides, my son doesn’t take kindly to direction or help or having schedules and programming imposed on him….
He often says he doesn’t care if he is reinventing the wheel, for example; he says he wants to learn in his own way and find things out for himself… I don’t need a teaching qualification to help him in that… I just need to trust him and try to ensure that he gets what he needs to enable him to build a foundation for a happy and fulfilled/fulfilling adult life…
“my son doesn’t take kindly to direction or help or having schedules and programming imposed on him…. ”
Oh heaven help your son’s future employers!
I’m not raising him to be a cog in the machine Dienne…. IF the planet is still habitable by humans in 20 years – which is not at all a given – it will be a vastly different world he lives in…. we are living in a plutocracy, that cannot last…. he will not be a good little ‘yes’ man, selling his intellect or his muscle for the right to ‘survive’, for a precarious place on one of the lower levels of the capitalist pyramid-ponzi scheme that rules the world now…
So you’re banking on the world being either post-apocalyptic or post-capitalist by 2034? I’d consider planning for a third possibility at a minimum.
Assuming there is a future for my son and his peers, perhaps life will revolve around something like this:
Contributionism
“Let each citizen contribute their natural talents or acquired skills to the greater benefit of all in the community.”
— Michael Tellinger.
Contributionism is a resource-based economic system that says money is not only unnecessary, but counter to abundance. While a money economy is debt-based and designed to keep us chasing money, Contributionism is “creation’s asset based” and designed to utilize each person’s unique abilities and skills.
The moneyless Ubuntu Contribution system is an adaptation of ancient tribal customs and is not based on barter or trade since barter and trading is just another form of money. Everything needed is available to everyone at all times. Hording or accumulating stuff and planning for old age is simply unnecessary.
Contributionists believe ownership of land as unnecessary, and to be frank, impossible. We are custodians of the land and each custodian is responsible for her care. When we act in harmony with nature, she yields abundance for all.
In the words of Chief Seattle in 1854, “How can you buy or sell the sky? We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle on the water. How then can you buy them from us? Every part of the Earth is sacred to my people, holy in their memory and experience. We know the white man does not understand our ways. He’s a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The Earth is not his friend but his enemy, and when he’s conquered it he moves on. He kidnaps the Earth from his children….for whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the children of the Earth.”
http://livingwithoutmoney.weebly.com/contributionism.html
When discussing the results of standardized exams, posters here often point to the relatively small influence teachers have on the academic outcomes of their students. There seems to be some tension between this position and the view that teacher training very important.
“As far as having the ability to teach, all it takes is a certain amount of patience. ”
No.
There is a lot more to good teaching than that.
My son loved his ’emergent learning through play’ kindergarten experience at a Seattle public “alternative” school, based on the democratic school model.
I moved him from the school because the District kept threatening to close it on the pretext that it was a failing school (the school community had for years refused to allow their children to participate in standardised testing), and when it couldn’t succeed in that, it ‘restructured’ the school, replacing the principal with someone who was not aligned with the democratic school precepts, and who, with the staff he brought with him, rewrote the school’s value and mission statements over the summer break WITHOUT any input from parents….
I was a member of the Building and Learning Team, elected on a platform of keeping the school as ‘alternative’ as possible…. At this time, myself and other kindergarten parents had worked our arses off to save the school from closure (4th attempt in about a decade), as the more senior school community members were burnt out from forestalling the previous closure attempts. I was also active at the District level, pushing back against ed reform… Board meetings, rallies, media awareness, lawsuits, votes of no confidence in the Broad Super etc… I couldn’t fight the district AND fight my own school administrators – my son and I needed a ‘safe haven’ where he could experience education without these issues intruding on his daily experience… so we left….
We moved to another public “alternative” school in a nearby school district. I was horrified to find that this school too, also started as a democratic school decades ago, was quickly losing its essence and character because of District ‘reform’ pressure.
I thought that I might be able to find a way to live with unsatisfactory circumstances. First I opted my son out of testing….. that was four and three years ago for grades one and two….
But then, on the first day of 3rd grade, we walked into the classroom, saw the changes being made under ‘reform’ by a teacher much more ‘conformist’ than his previous teachers, we looked at each other, turned around and walked out again…. and we have been ‘unschooling’ since, even through homelessness and cancer…. I’ve been doing a lot of reading over this period – Alfie Kohn, John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, Ivan Illich, Paulo Freire, Howard Zinn… What we do to our children in what passes for ‘education’ is simply wrong…. My son has a say in this, but from my perspective, things would have to change dramatically before I would enrol him in a public school again – probably any school, for that matter…
And yet, here I am spending a good chunk of my life, still pushing back against the ed reformers and their agenda…. our children deserve so much better from us, and I can’t turn my back on all those children who cannot escape their classrooms…
Actually, most recent statistics show that traditional “breadwinner” families only make up about half of all homeschoolers. Others are dual earners or single parents. While homeschooling is not for everyone, it’s important to get the word out about the realities of who is making homeschooling work these days, so that people do not base their thoughts about its accessibility on false stereotypes or old information.
There is a lot of “tag team” homeschooling going on that is proving very effective, partly since homeschooling is so efficient and not bound by minimum standards or bureaucracy.
Sorry — that posted under the wrong comment. I was trying to respond to Dienne, who may not be up-to-date on the current demographics of homeschooling.
Sahila, on behalf of your son, I wish to THANK YOU.
Love is the greatest “Healer” to be found.
You make many fine points!
“My point is we ALL have a choice…. all choices have consequences…. ”
It’s obvious the “Just following orders” CHOICE, to give the
“Standardized Testing”, is STILL harmful to the children.
“The only resource you really need, is the COURAGE to do what your heart/gut says is right for you and your child/ren…”.
You are wise to heed the evidence of your senses, and the stirring
in your heart.
The Underground History by John Taylor Gatto,
Avid Historian, Teacher of the Year NYC 1990, promotes home schooling. He no longer wished to “Hurt kids to make a living.”
He made a CHOICE.
1985: Gatto also ran for the New York State Senate, 29th District in 1985 and 1988 as a member of the Conservative Party of New York against incumbent David Paterson.
1991: In 1991, he wrote a letter announcing his retirement, titled I Quit, I Think, to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, saying that he no longer wished to “hurt kids to make a living.”
1997: He then began a public speaking and writing career, and has received several awards from libertarian organizations, including the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for Excellence in Advancement of Educational Freedom in 1997.
2003: The Underground History of American Education written by John Taylor Gatto was first published in 2003.
I love being a teacher and hope to get to teach in public schools again some day. I quit last fall to homeschool my grandchildren because I knew it would be best for them. Now I am running for school board because I know we have to change schools so that ALL children can get what they need and DESERVE!! http://fansler4schools.org
This is precisely what makes me so irritated with what has been happening in “education reform” The “reformers” continue to build the plane in flight with complete disregard for Piaget, for developmental theory in any way, shape, or form. In addition there is no effort to look at research results as to what really does or does not work in classrooms. So incredibly disheratening.
YES! There was no need to drop prepositional phrases into 1st grade ELA.
How frustrating it is for those of us in the trenches to continue to adapt as the plane is being built in flight by the “reformers” who act as though Piaget never existed. There is no acknowledgement that research has been conducted in areas that directly affect appropriateness of instruction for students. A time and a season for all of the kiddos is never on their radar; just the target on our backs.
I want our public schools to be better. I know that when I left teaching in a Title I school, it was because I could no longer be a part of what was happening to the children or to myself. My daughter is pregnant and a Montessori teacher. She will have her child attend her school. Luckily, she can do this for a small fee, because she teaches there. Her school also offers some scholarships to low-income students–not all Montessori’s do. I do think homeschooling is challenging for those who are not educators. Please read Myth 6 of “Myths & Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools”. As taken from Drs. Berliner and Glass: “This myth wrongfully targets all public schools as institutions that provide a second-rate education, in comparison to the alternatives. Supports the kind of thinking that “defunds ” public education. Promotes the naive belief that all parents have the same academic, cultural, and financial capacity to sustain an excellent schooling environment in their home. Contributes to the “deprofessionalization” of teachers, especially those in early childhood and elementary education. Think that just anybody can be a teacher? Try it sometime.” I think the best solution is for parents and educators to fight to make our public schools the best they can be.
I think maybe homeschooling is thought of differently than it really is. I am not a “teacher” to my homeschooled son. I’m really a “facilitator,” the person who plans his daily tasks and points him in the right direction. I would never want to be a teacher and have an entire classroom, but I do a good job with just him, because I know him and love him, and want what’s best for him more than any teacher ever could in a traditional classroom.
God bless all public school teachers who are dealing with today’s politically charged environment and its increased demands. I fought for more than four years to provide my child with a great environment at school. I was the PTA mom who was there so much, the principal wanted to know if I was on the payroll. In the end, it did no good. We opted out and are happy with our decision. I think the academics are better, the environment’s better, and we have family time now in the evenings and on the weekends that otherwise would be taken up with hours of homework.
By the way, the children of homeschoolers who only have a high school diploma rank in standardized testing barely a couple of percentage points below the homeschooled children whose parents have college degrees and teaching certificates, and homeschooled children as a group outperformed public schooled children by a great deal, something like 30 percentage points. The study quoted is from August 2009 and is posted on the HSLDA website, if anyone wants to look it up.
I am not a stay at home mom. I work and am in school, and I will still be homeschooling my son next school year. I was in school to be a teacher and everything I learned told me that the best place for my child to learn was at home with me. I disagree with the statements that parent can’t be teachers, um ALL parents ARE teachers from day one. Our children learn from us from the minute they are born.As a homeschooling parent I don’t have to learn classroom management for 2 some kids. I already know how to manage my own children. And unlocking imagination isn’t really that hard if you as a parent put in the work. I don’t have to figure out what might be going on with my student today cause I already know. And if there are subjects that I find difficult to teach or if they need extra help, I have the flexibility at home to do something about it whenever wherever I need to. In the average public school a teacher isn’t going to be able to have tot time ti assess EVERY student and what they might need. Its not fair to a teacher to even expect that. Teacher’s are very overworked and highly underpaid. I respect them, but I know that I can teach my child at home. To each his or her own of course. But please don’t think that just because a family needs money that they can’t home school. School can take place on any day at any time. If you really want that for your family you can make it work!
astarie Dennis:
The cold hard reality of the numbers is that a child receiving homeschooling will receive close to 60 minutes of individual attention for every 60 minutes of contact time. In a public school with a class size of 20, the average child will receive 3 minutes of individual attention for every hour of contact time – possibly more if they are a “problem” and less if they seem to be quiet and accommodating.
My wife and I were forced into a similar choice for one of our two children. He is thriving after two years of homeschooling. We still hope to Iond an appropriate school for him, but you’re right, there are no do-overs, and children have to have the right learning environment for them right now, not in ten years when the political class has finally responded to ever-growing public demands to reverse NCLB, RTTT and the misbegotten Common Core standards.
So sad. I wish everybody would unite and start protests or something really visible. I’m really sick of it all.
I’m ready for the same. I’m doing my part.
You do what you gotta do, I guess.
The skirmish at the top of the thread (“Bearing children doesn’t qualify you to be a teacher” versus “This isn’t controlling a large classroom, which requires formal training”) reminds me of the arguments about class sizes and teacher quality that were perhaps epitomized in Bloomberg’s remark that in an ideal world he’d fire half the teachers, double the pay of the rest, and have them teach classes of 50 students.
Is it better to have an untrained, arguably incompetent teacher with a class size of one or a trained, competent teacher with a class size of 30 (or 40, or more) doing test prep for 2 or more months per school year?
I wonder where a competent parent ends and a incompetent
teacher begins. I don’t know for sure FLERP, but I bet the person
that knows you the best, is FLERP…YOU. If a big part of “Teaching”
happens to be communicating, would a “Stranger” have the edge
over the “Block” talking to the “Chip” or would the “Apple” be too
far from the “Tree” to listen? Is genetic proximity an “Edge” eclisped
by a “Stranger”?
I went through teacher preparation and I currently prepare teachers. But I was a teacher long before I received the training. I do think there are people who are born teachers and it is easier to teach one child or jut a few than a whole class. I have many friends who homeschool and many ex-students who became teachers and now homeschool their children. But just like there are good and bad schools for some students, good and bad teachers for particular children, there are good and bad homeschooling experiences. I know some parents have no desire to homeschool, others do not believe their have the skills or resources. Some parents say they just do not have the patience. I respect that not everyone can homeschool nor should every child be forced to attend a public school. But that does not make me waver in my support of fully funded public schools since I want everyone to have public school as a worthwhile option. I am fine if parents want other options for their child but we should not ransack public schools to achieve alternatives. So for me it is not an either/or proposition any more than it is for this superintendent. I will always do what I think is best for each of my children for his or her individual circumstances. And if that includes homeschooling one day- so be it. But I will still continue to support my public schools.
There is something sad about this discussion of homeschooling within the context of the school reform movement. I respect those who have made this decision for their children, even though I feel there are educational opportunities missed by homeschooling. At the risk of sounding like the old man I probably am, I yearn for the days when support for community schools and local public institutions by all was part of the fabric of our society. I am sorry, but I see this move toward homeschooling as an outgrowth of our loss of local community and connections beyond those “like us”. A diverse, compromising and vibrant society is going away and being replaced by our own cocoons. If it is not just exactly the way I want it, I want my personalized version in my own personal world.
I expect a good number of those pushing the end of public schools smile when they hear the virtues of homeschooling expressed.
I “get” what you are saying; I believe in public education as a good and necessary thing in a democratic society and thought long and hard about leaving formal, public schooling behind; irony is, we were in schools that started out being democratic, with the first being wonderfully, wonderfully diverse in all respects, while the second – a school in a satellite town just north of Seattle city limits – was more ‘white’ and sort-of ‘middle class”…
the first school had amazing classes and activities and all day field trips every Friday the children could experience, mixed age classes, no testing, no grades, all of which were gradually being whittled away by ‘reform’…. the second was slightly less ‘out of the box’, less imaginative, less flexible….
Interestingly, BOTH schools had a whole year ‘rites of passage’ focus for 8th graders, culminating in a week-long wilderness passage… the first school also had strong links with indigenous people, with canoe carving and sailing being part of its tradition…
and then the schools became less and less democratic, more factory model – just as our society is… and how can we raise free children, if we are not free in our schools and our society? I see what is being done to children in school now as abuse… and when I was unsuccessful in halting that abuse, even at the individual school level, I had to decide not to subject my son to it any longer….
We are on the same track. My girl is out in two months and she won’t be back. You looking into that abyss and see it’s endless and you turn around if you can. We are walking away.
Community connection is a double edged sword. It can to easily be transformed into stifling enforced uniformity.
If the old days were made up of a diverse vibrant society t here would have been no need for Brown v. Board of Education, no need for Title 9, no federal legislation requiring communities to educate students out of the mainstream, no need to protect the LGBT student from the wrath of their fellow students. The old, diverse, compromising, vibrant community tied Mathew Shepard to a fence post and beat him to death.
Please do not misinterpret that I wax nostalgic for a return to pre-Brown or pre-LGBT rights. That is crazy.
I’m more thinking of the days when local schools were the center of the community’s life. Parents trusted the school because their teachers were friends or even relatives with whom you shared your life outside of the classroom at ballgames, church, or community gatherings. The school expected parent input and support at a high level. There was time for learning activities that were so exciting they were lifelong memories for kids. No heavy handed state department needed here. No federal stranglehold, no corporate money. The school district is actually the buildng block of innovation and school improvement.
I fear that the homeschooling phenomenon and corporate reform, have similar roots. They both grow out of or are made possible by the breakdown of local communities and the trust that once was fostered there. In a world where folks don’t even know their neighbors, how do we reinvent the local community and create a trusting, collaborative society. Until we do that, public schools will continue down the current path. Without that strong local community and trust, the essence of democracy is lost.
I think you are nostalgic for days that never existed.
The old Days were when saying the Lord’s Prayer over the load speaker (as happened in my spouse’s public junior high every morning) was just an expression of the community’s support because everyone was a Christian. Days when no students were gay. Days when women new their place in society. Days when a nerd was a nerd, and everyone understood the social hierarchy. (If you have any doubt, I ran across this video today
Heavy handed state intervention was required to change schools from those days.
Sorry,
Posted without including the link. Notice that the largest applause happens at the end, where he talks about how common this experience is.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yMrIrYzdybw
I agree with you about the loss of community and trust; seems to be inevitable byproduct of world we inhabit now…. funnily enough, the homeschooling community – loose knit as it is and not tied to a geographical area – functions much like the school community you are harking back to…. people connected socially as well as for the purpose of kids’ learning, sharing, supporting each other…. people reclaiming/creating for themselves what society (we, as the collective) has allowed the nature of the ‘system’ to destroy…
Thank you for your posts. A pleasure to read.
Reblogged this on LoriCamper.Com and commented:
A 2004 study showed that up to 38% of public school teachers sent their own children to private school. http://www.humanevents.com/2013/10/17/where-do-public-school-teachers-send-their-own-kids/ .
I don’t think I would trust that story. It was created by rightwingers who hate public education. Consider the source.
Reblogged this on Homeschool Planet and commented:
I feel very much like a fence-straddler. There are pluses and minuses about public school and homeschool. I have one boy in each. It would be so much easier if we are all in one place, but doing both meets the needs of both boys. I have blogged recently about how much my younger son loves his school. He loves his teachers. He loves the structure. He loves his friends. He loves being away from home. He loves learning in groups. Here is a letter from a public school teacher that is about the not-so-great part of public school: over-the-top testing. As always, I appreciate different viewpoints and I think it’s worth a few minutes to read the opinion from someone in the trenches.
Good thoughts and thanks, Sahila.
We had no choice but to do the same: homeschool. Hope someday we can return to public school, but the odds are against us in California.
Teachingeconomist, so heavy handed state intervention is the answer today? I don’t buy it in today’s world with who controls the “state” now. They sure don’t care about social justice. Corporate ed reform as the civil rights agenda of our time – another big lie.
RTSupt: TE can speak for himself. I am more in favor of a “let the thousand flowers bloom” approach, which basically means that public funding should follow the child – assuming certain minimum requirements are met. If folks could vote with their feet, heavy handed state intervention would be extremely limited. For example, all parents who wish to opt out of standardized testing environment could do so, while those parents who see merit in a more structured uniform testing enabled approach could choose that option.
Bernie1815: none of the high-performing nations of the world have charters or vouchers. Not one.
Diane: That is true. But many countries support religious schools with public money, as is the case in Ontario, Ireland, UK, Germany, and Denmark.
Separately, in 2011-12 3.4% of US children or 1.77 million children were homeschooled. Do you object to homeschoolers receiving some form of vouchers for use for books and educational materials?
Click to access 2013028.pdf
The view of state or federal policies often seems to depend on what policies are being forced on local governments.
I assume from your name that you are or have been from Tennessee. Tennessee has often been the subject of posts on this blog in connection to the CCSS and seems to have done a rather poor job of implementing the standards. I am curios to know if you have any insight into implementation of the CCSS in the neighboring state of Kentucky. This exchange, https://dianeravitch.net/2013/11/25/carol-burris-follow-the-money-for-common-core-implementation/comment-page-1/#comment-374788 suggests that Kentucky is doing a good job of implementing the CCSS, but we do not often hear from teachers in that state. This is surprising in that Kentucky was the first state it adopt and implement the CCSS and presumably has the most experience with it.
Home schooling, the dream of Republican men.
Their women, back at home, financially dependent on them.
Linda: Are you saying that Tim Farley is a Republican and is trying to keep his wife back home and dependent on him? He seems to have a pretty cogent argument why he is homeschooling his youngest child that seems to me to apply across the political spectrum.
Bernie,
“He” is not at home, “schooling”.
I object to your characterisation/stereotyping….
I don’t have a man in my life – well, I do, but he’s an abusive ex husband who – if the fates were kind – would disappear from our lives….
If I had to give myself a socio-political label, the closest I could get to a definition would be a social anarchist – or anarchic socialist??? Which doesn’t really fit – I’m so far to the left of the spectrum that I’ve fallen off… I resonate with work/thought of Emma Goldman… here’s something she wrote about schooling: http://ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Anarchism/ferrer.html
It’s simply arrogance for people to dismiss outright the actions others take because the public education system does NOT give them what they want for their children, does not deliver a truly holistic and wholistic education, does not interact with children in ways that are appropriate/concurrent with the neuroscience of learning.
As much as I support public education as being a necessity for the common good, common ‘wealth’, I won’t ever lie and say that public ed, ESPECIALLY as it’s practised here in the US, is not seriously deficient and meets the needs of the system, the needs of adults rather than the needs of children…. If it was really about the kids and giving kids the opportunity to grow into their fullest potential, it would be funded properly/fully/generously for a start…
People forget that it’s based on the Prussian system, and what the founding fathers intended public education to be – a training ground for workers, with a few of the brightest children to be creamed off to be the system’s technocrats… And it hasn’t really changed….
Public schooling, the dream of Democrats. A voter pool, unemployable, and financially dependent of them.
An Ohio firefighter held up a sign, at a rally against anti-labor legislation. It said, “House on fire? Call the Tea Party”.
The Koch’s haven’t yet turned the U.S. into a banana republic because most of us acknowledge that “taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society.”
When a public school principal chooses to home school one of his children, just as when he sends his children to private school, it raises questions about his commitment to public education as well as to the school itself. If John Paul’s needs won’t be met in the school of which he is principal, surely John Paul is not the only child whose needs aren’t being met. As principal, he is responsible for ensuring that all the students in his school have their needs met. (Most families cannot afford private school, or to have a parent stay home for home schooling.) Failing to send John Paul to the school which his own father leads represents a vote of no-confidence in the school and in the principal’s leadership. I’d be heartbroken if my children were enrolled. The message is “the school which I am well-paid to lead is good enough for your children, but not for mine.”
Four school choices for the 99%.
(1) Experiential Microsoft/Pearson centers that use excessive testing and control (Common Core).
(2) Fly-by-night charters, run by hucksters (the Ohio experience)
(3) Islamic, Christian, and Catholic indoctrination centers teaching creationism and a patriarchal society.
(4) Home schooling, effectively ending the paid profession of teaching. Republicans’ answer to the question of second career choice for women- none.
I think the choice school network is much richer than that. From qualified admission urban magnet schools like Stuyvesant High School to rural charter schools like the Walton Rural Life Center, allowing students to choose schools has allowed schools the freedom to become more diverse in their curriculum.
I wish people would stop this to-ing and fro-ing with political labels…. such a waste of time and energy and so divisive (as if we dont already have enough issues dividing us)
People are fooling themselves if they think there is anything substantively different between the two PARTIES – democrat and republican…. Individuals might still be different in their political philosophies, but the parties themselves as they play on the political stage, in the legislatures, are CONTROLLED by the plutocrats, people behind the scenes pulling the strings of both ‘parties’ to get the outcomes they want….
The entire political scene, is, in my opinion, nothing but a play, an illusion, a sham… perpetuated to give us the (false) sense that we have a part to play, that we have a choice, that we have some power… In the current paradigm, we don’t…
Ralph Nader, a candidate for President, told the American people that there was no difference between political parties. And, he refused to drop out of the presidential race. The votes cast for him were 5% of the total. If he had dropped out, his base would have voted Democratic and Al Gore would have been elected, instead of George Bush. The party that wins is extremely significant in terms of women’s and minorities’ rights, the environment, and consumer rights, to name a few. Importantly, GDP has historically grown faster when the Presidency and Congress were Democratic.
The views of Republicans, Issa, Paul Ryan, and Rand Paul are fundamentally different than those of Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown.
Explain then why Obama is out-Bushing both Bushes, please….
and isnt Bernie Sanders an independent?
Teachers need to take back their profession before it is utterly destroyed by philistine, technocratic amateurs like Gates and Coleman. The standardization and regimentation of the Commoners’ Core is a recipe for making the public schools into mediocrities that no one would want to have their kids enrolled in.
We need invariant standards for milling screws and bolts. A complex, diverse, pluralistic society doesn’t need to have its students identically milled.
Some words of wisdom:
“The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.”
–Wilhelm von Humboldt, Sphere and Duties of Government (1792)
In. Its. Richest. Diversity.
Someone said “being a parent doesn’t qualify you to be a teacher” I beg to differ, there is no greater teacher in a child’s life than their parents. They live what they learn. Also, if being a parent doesn’t qualify, neither does not being a teacher disqualify. I know a whole heck of a lot of home schooled children, to a child, they perform better on all of their standardized tests and when they opt to go back to schools many of them are so far advanced they are placed in higher grades than their same aged peers. My own nephew was 2 years ahead of his class when he opted (it was always the childrens choice) to return to public school. And, there are some phenomenally crappy teachers in public schools. I don’t know what possesses some people to become teachers because they clearly have not the patience, the talent or the enthusiasm for it. The mere fact that they have a degree in it does NOT make them teachers.
I think it is a mistake to not pull all of your children from public school. I don’t know your reasons or situation but I would encourage you to try and pull them all. I homeschooling our 3. Our two youngest are medical needs children. Our youngest (4) has a congenital heart defect and has had 4 major surgeries and had to be reopened a 5th time to be put on ecmo due to flat lining. I do not agree with Common Core and will do what I can to keep from having to teach it to my children. I wish you much lu k and success in your journey. Oh, if you are concerned about pulling the older ones because of their grade levels, DON’T BE!!!!!! My daughter was in 3rd grade when we pulled her. She was a little hesitant and reluctant at first but is now so glad that we did it! Our youngest’s cardiologist is also happy with our decision because he is not being exposed to all the illnesses from school. This is pur 3rd year and we have only gotten sick once!
Has Mr. Farley ever stepped foot in his son’s classroom and observed a lesson? That information has been missing. I would like to know what his teacher’s observations of his son “hating” school is.
As a newcomer to learning at home & outside the US, the comments have been insightful & it appears more a debate than reflecting on the benefits of various sides of the where it is in the best interest of a child to learn.
There was even a comment about disregarding Piaget! Oh my that education should only be underpinned by one theorist? The white-way isn’t always the right way.
To only look at one theoretical area or even the standard theories still taught across universities for teachers today as they were many years ago, negates the advances made in neurology, in psychology and in other disciplines which impact on a child’s capacity & ability to learn.
Learning commences from the time the child cries & is responded to, behavioural learning occurs. Yet let’s not forget that there is more than one way for a child to learn & what is often lost in the education curriculum is the individual ability of each child. Too many children are unfairly labelled with behavioural or learning challenges when in fact as kinesthetic learners or hands-on, abstract thinkers.
The challenge is for teachers; there is not the time nor the funding or the resources in many schools to provide for the needs of each & every child as an individual & having choices as parents to chose an option best suited to your child’s needs should be what it is all about.
Being self righteous or one sided about any choice will only increase negativity & this is not what home schoolers need. There are positives to both environments.
As a teacher & a home schooler I know these all too well. Good luck in all your adventures, wherever they may be.