TexasCHLforum.com

mojo84 wrote:I am amazed at the broad generalizations many seem to be so comfortable throwing out there. It's akin to the anti-gun crowd yelling we should get rid of all "assault weapons" because they are for nothing but killing people, no one "needs" them and some have been used to inflict incredible tragedy. Talk about hypocrisy.

Some of you folks need to get over yourselves and come down off your holier than thou I love my kids more than you do high horses.

I agree, public schools need to improved, some more than others. Some may even need to be shut down and start over. But this attitude that they are all beyond repair and are just houses of socialism is ridiculous.

There is a reason I chose to live in Boerne rather than the other places I've lived such as Odessa, Houston and San Antonio. Much of it had to do with the school district.

Tell you what, why don't you tell us why you think the public school experiment should continue? Why don't you tell us why with declining results for the past 50 years the current system should be permitted to continue? Why should it continue with failing results when there are so many other things that we know would work?

Great you chose to live in Boerne. I live in a very nice county in VA too. It is lauded for it's public schools...guess what they are still insane....the have still disciplined children severely, at a young age, for relatively minor infractions. They still throw a hissy fit if someone so much as mentions an after school bible club and has the audacity to invite someone to it. It is still a grinder system.

I have not seen many here with "holier than thou I love my kids more than you high horses". Homeschoolers have been called all sorts of names through the years and come across every sort of insults. If you have felt uncomfortable having your schooling choices questioned, then just imagine what we homeschoolers go through. Nearly every day when we are out and about in public, in Costco, in Kroger, at Target, at Chick-fil-a, at football practice, at ballet class I have to defend my choice to homeschool. Everywhere we go someone brings up the age old question "What about socialization?" Usually it comes up as my children are playing happily with theirs. So if anyone has come across strong to you, remember that they have had to defend their education choices to everyone, to the state, to their coworkers, to their family, to the general public at large.

Homeschoolers believe that their way is best. They want others to experience the success that we have. Instead of getting mad at us. Why don't you tell us why you feel your way is the best.

Finally the argument this nation is going through is not analogous to the public education system. There is a constitutional amendment for our right to bear arms. I don't remember a constitutional right to a free education. Second the "stupid and criminal" rate of people misusing guns is very small in comparison to the number of children failed by the public education system. If every fourth house had a gun mishap that disabled a person I bet we would be having a different conversation right now. There is no hypocrisy in calling failing schools failures. There is no hypocrisy in saying that the system we have in place is failing, when it is.

CC Italian wrote:Closing all public schools would be a bad choice imo. Let me explain. Home schooling your child is a very valid option for many parents who have the time, money and education to teach their children. 80% of parents are missing at least one of these three things imo.

First off most parents don't have the time. I am not saying you don't, maybe you do? Most parents both work and many have more then one job nowadays. One top of this many students are in divorced families nowadays and only have one parent or maybe they are being raised by a grandparent or relative. Now if we could all make good money and live off one parent’s pay check then maybe this could work. How many of you fall into this category? I sure don't! Ok let’s say you have the time and the money to have a stay at home mom or dad. Once again remember most don't have this option.

This part is going to hit a nerve but I have met many parents who have junior high-level reading and math skills. My wife and I have both tutored many parents because they couldn't write papers (some couldn't read English) because they wanted to help their children with extra tutoring at home or in my wife's case she teaches math. You would be shocked how many parents can't help their children do junior high level math. Once again I am not saying you can't but some can't. This problem gets even more compounded when they get to the high school level content. Calculus, physics, writing serious papers, grammar, social studies etc. Do you have the education to teach your children all that? Maybe you do but once again you know what I am going to say, most don't.

Notice I didn't go into religion, morals, ethics etc. The core of this has always been and should stay with the family imo! No one can teach a child these better then a parent! Undisputed!

Don't get me wrong public education is broken for many school districts but getting rid of public education completely isn't going to work for most parents. We all know this but it is not just the education system that is having a problem. We have already discussed many factors that affect the public education system. Public education while not perfect by any means has been effective in some countries. Why is that? Could it have something to do with our society as a whole or in part?

Ok ready for my licks! I expect nothing less on a topic as debated as public education!

One can always find a reason not to do something hard. Homeschooling is hard. Some people will say "I have no time", some people will say "my education is lacking" Some will say "We need two incomes just to live!". There will always be an excuse if you want one. Whether or not you find them valid is up to you.

In our case we made certain choices. I stay at home, we are not rich, I stayed at home when my husband made 38K a year. Could I go out and get a job, sure, but the price on our children's lives would be too high. My education was not the best, I graduated from public school and did get a BA in History. My math is not up to college levels, about at a 10th or 11th grade level. That is ok. There are wonderful resources out there, online classes, other parents, single serve classes at local private schools......if you think you will know everything your kid will want to know, you won't. That is why we have books, online classes, many many opportunities for learning. If it is your hearts desire to home school, choose to be an overcomer.

On morality and religion. Education is never neutral. Right now the public schools are hostile to faith and morality. They will teach your children from a secular viewpoint from 8am to 3pm. The best hours of the day. When you get
home from your job at say 6 pm are you in your exhausted state going to be able to undo the 8 hours of indoctrination they just went through. It is an uphill battle.

I don't have a problem with publicly funded education for those that want it. As a person who has taught public, private, and home school I have a problem with our sausage making system. We throw all the kids in one pot, do not take into consideration any of their unique gifted-ness and grind them up and try to shove them through a system and if they don't fit the mold we label them "ADHD, or ADD, or trouble maker, or lazy, or etc etc etc." This is fundamentally false. Children are unique, children are each different and a different approach will work better with some than others. Why can we not have a charter school system where schools are chosen and paid on results and the pleasure of parents. Where if a school is failing the school fails, not the children and the children go to a better school that works.

This does require involved parents, but if we expect our societies parents to do nothing, a vast majority of them will. Expect more. For heavens sakes, how much effort does it take to say "Julie like science...this school specializes in science lets sign her up for that one." Capitalism works even in this imperfect situation. Socialistic education (which is what we have) creates irritation and frustration as all are brought down to the same level and no one is permitted to be exceptional.

n5wd wrote:
The problem is that your child is go to university, to a job, or into the military (unless you're going to put em to work on the family farm) in a world where there are drug dealers, child predators, rapists, armed robbers, murderers, kidnappers, random bullies and where there are folks in authority of all kinds that may be in disagreement with what you think is a constitutional principle. Are you going to put your child in a bubble and withdraw them from any chance of making their own way in this world?

Yes, I've had convicted and accused drug dealers in my classrooms - they weren't selling in class, and any kid that wanted to avoid them, could. Yes, I've had kids who's robbed someone, burglars, car thiefs, random bullies and valedictorians and salutatorians, sometimes in the same class. And as far as I know, I've never heard a child in one of my classrooms say that they were ruined in life by the choices someone else made... most kids make their own mistakes and some of them have to pay the piper and try to get their life back on track, and some kids never get caught. Again, the bubble question. Put your child in a bubble or guide them well at home, know that we're watching out for your kids as best possible and tell all the kids if there's something that disturbs them or threatens them to tell us asap. More than that, you'd need to be a higher power to affect.

I went to public school. It was a middle class school with all sorts of people there good and bad. I can say with finality that in the fourteen years since I left school I have never ever had to deal the dredges of society like I did then. The drug dealers did not go to college. The Unmotivated did not work in positions of responsibility. Lie down with the dogs and you get fleas. By requiring that our children associate with the degrees of society you put them at risk. I do not require that my my children walk in the way of sinners and seat in the seats with scoffers. I require them to be educated, kind, and polite. I can much more easily accomplish this by teaching them at home. That is not a bubble that is real life. In real life you know where the bad people are and you don't go there.