One of the most appealing aspects of home schooling is that home schoolers receive all of the teacher’s attention, instead of sharing it with hundreds of students. Home schooling is especially effective when the parent is able to devote the majority of their attention to a home schooler with special needs, like dyslexia. The ability to solely focus on one student or a few students is next to impossible for teachers in traditional schools.
The Houston Independent School District has been in the news recently because of its inability to provide that attention to students who have been identified with dyslexia. Houston is just one example of a much larger problem within the public school system. Texas law requires “districts to identify and tutor students with dyslexia, a learning disability that affects 5 percent to 20 percent of all children” (Jennifer Radcliffe, “Schools fail to meet law on dyslexia”). This school year the Houston Independent School District only gave 256 of its 200,000 dyslexic students extra help. But who pays in end? Taxpayers like you and me. The National Right to Read Foundation estimates the nation spends nearly $225 billion a year on social services and lost income stemming from the problem of dyslexic students who aren’t receiving the proper help.
Crowded classrooms and bureaucratic policies make it hard for dyslexic public school students to receive the sort of attention they need. Home schooling students with special needs can work at their own pace and be given full attention by their home schooling teachers. Home schoolers with dyslexia and other disabilities greatly benefit from home schooling’s environment, flexible schedule, and the fact that their teachers are usually available for them 24/7.
To read more about the crisis in Houston and all around the nation click here.
In a recent series of articles, Jonah Goldberg of TheNational Review Online and David Gelernter of The Weekly Standard both propose that America might be better off without public schools and discuss how we might decide whether to have them or not. Both writers cite public school’s well documented shortcomings.
“Americans want universal education, just as they want universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run 90 percent of the restaurants, farms, and supermarkets. Why should it run 90 percent of the schools — particularly when it gets terrible results?” says Goldberg.
Why not liberate all the vast resources we spend on public schools to be re-channeled to private schools chosen by the nation’s parents? Any public school offering an education that parents will actually pay for (of their own free will) would presumably be replaced by a private school offering essentially the same thing. But a vast array of new private schools would germinate also. And a vast number of failed public schools would disappear.
“In the system I am picturing, education would continue to be free and accessible to every child, and all taxpayers would continue to pay for it. Parents would be guaranteed access to ‘reasonable’ schools that cost them nothing beyond what they pay in taxes. It would all be just like today–except that public schools would have vanished” says David Gelertner.
“Many sources agree that, on the whole, American public schools are rotten. In 2000, a whopping 12 percent of graduating seniors were rated ‘proficient’ in science, and international surveys rank our graduating seniors 19th overall out of 21 nations. In 2002, the Washington Post summarized a different survey: ‘Nearly six in 10 of the nation’s high school seniors lack even a basic knowledge of U.S. history,’” says Gelerneter.
The article raises the question if private entities would be capable of providing enough new schools to replace existing public ones? Can America’s private organizations build enough hospitals to care for it’s sick, enough nursery schools to teach its very young and enough grocery stores to feed it’s population. Of course! Will these privately run schools be good enough? They would have to be or no one would attend them and they would go out of business. Competition among the newly formed schools would force them to give the public the best product at the lowest price, just like every other business in this country.
Home schooling has received some positive press lately and it may be due to the fact that the media has begun to expose the inadequacies of the public school system. It is frightening to think that entire generations of Americans aren’t being properly educated.
Home schooling offers world-class educations to millions of American students, but unfortunately homeschoolers are still in the minority right now.
What are your homeschoolers doing this summer? Going back in time? Sailing on the high seas? Hanging out with the three little pigs? Summer is the perfect time for homeschoolers to improve their readings skills and have a blast while doing it. We’ve compiled a comprehensive summer reading list for each Grace Academy grade so that your homeschoolers can improve their reading skills over the summer and have fun reading a variety of amazing stories. Encourage your homeschooler to read everyday and see their reading skills improve dramatically over the summer!
Homeschool parents should also check out our homeschool summer school program. Our summer school program helps homeschoolers grow their minds, gain credit toward a high school diploma, and surge ahead academically instead of developing lazy habits. Have a great summer!!!
On April 10th two different speakers encouraged students at Boulder Valley High School in Colorado to have sex and use drugs at a required attendance lecture entitled “STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs.” State lawmakers are furious over what was said at the lecture and are trying to fire Superintendent George Garcia.
What was actually said is quite shocking and disturbing. Read two of the quotes from the speakers below:
“I’m going to encourage you to have sex and I’m going to encourage you to use drugs appropriately. Why I’m going to take that position is because you’re going to do it anyway, so my approach to this is to be realistic, and I think as a psychologist and a health educator, it’s more important to educate you in a direction you might actually stick to.” - Joel Becker, associate clinical professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles
“Find some balance with having the fun and experimenting, and enjoying what you’re doing — whether it’s learning or sexually or with drugs and alcohol and hanging out with your friends — but keep focused, because it is your life.” - Andee Gerhart, Ernst & Young International Accounting Firm
While some parents, teachers, and politicians are angry at this lecture it still shows that certain individuals in public schools will go to certain lengths just to get their agenda across, especially to vulnerable high school students. Telling high school students to have sex and try drugs is an absolute disgrace, but it certainly isn’t the first time public schools have embarrassed themselves.
Public school teachers and administrators are constantly trying to push their agenda onto the young people of America. Homeschool students don’t have to deal with any of that nonsense or the rest of the chaos that comes with a public school education. Homeschool students have already proven to be better students and learn more than their public school counterparts.
The question in 2007 shouldn’t be “Why homeschool?” It should be “Why not homeschool?” Public schools are failing the young people of America and confusing them with lectures like “STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs.” Does anyone else find it amazing that students can be encouraged to have sex and do drugs at public schools, but cannot be taught The Bible?
