Homeschooling

Archive for July, 2008

Question: I homeschool an 8th grader and am not impressed w/ the Abeka curriculum. What do you use and why?

My child is weak in grammar, getting better in composition and is a slow reader. I find Abeka to be repetitive, boring and a difficult curriculum to follow. Help please!!!!!
I am specifically looking for a different english curriculum. The rest of the Abeka is not the problem. Just the english.

Answer: I use K12 because of the depth and breadth of the curriculum. Their middle school courses are outstanding. However, if a child is weak in grammar and comes into using K12, they're going to be in for a shock. K12 starts grammar (and usage and mechanics - "GUM") in 1st grade and builds upon it.

Anyway, check into it. We've been using K12 for five years.

http://www.k12.com

Question: How do state laws affect you as a homeschooler?

Unfortunately CA has made us all aware that while Homeschooling has come a long way we still have too many against us.

If your state suddenly ruled that Homeschooling was illegal - and it was not going to be overturned - what would you do? Would you put your child in school or move?

I am grateful we have the privelage to homeschool!
I am pretty sure that it will be overturned to - I am just talking hypotheticals on how far parents are willing to go to protect their right to homeschool.

Answer: LOL!

As a home-educating family, our state's laws have very little, if any, effect on us. This is because:

i) we live in Australia where pretty much everyone from Parliament downwards considers rules and laws as little more than things which are made to be broken and are meant to be broken; there is much to be said for having your culture and country built on a criminal past!

ii) home-education is, in practice, managed differently depending on a family's access to the conventional school system. In common with many other home-educating families, our closest school is at least a 16hr drive from our house.

Insisting on compulsory schooling (rather than education) would very soon bankrupt the country as the govt would be forced to provide and replicate all of the necessary school facilities, staff etc for each and every family individually. Therefore, despite the public face of regulated home-education in Australia, the government's attitude to remote families is very much one of: *don't bother us and we won't bother you*.

Pretty much the same as their attitude towards us, full stop. Apparently they were barely aware that there even were white families and white kids growing up out here until the mid-1950s!!!

PS If I was part of a Californian home-educating family right now, I'd be heaps more excited by the alleged implications of this ruling than anxious though. My attitude would very much be one of: 'Bring it on!. Let's argue this out in open court'. The 'education' argument is unsubstantiable once one starts looking at the research and comparisons twixt ps and home-ed...so let the 'powers-that-be' stand up in open court and reveal what we all know are the true reasons** why they want to ban home-education and instead herd all kids into 'their' schools.

**conformity and control.

The Alex Jones Show 1/8: Homeschoolers Arrested in NY "We're Being Baptized into Slavery!!"