Redstate

is truly breathtaking. As to your last sentence, however, about the Left's more effective use of the multipliers of technology and frustration:

The silver lining here is that they don't use the most important multiplier available: PARENTHOOD. A recent study -- it appeared in abbreviated form as an op-ed in USA Today, "The Liberal Baby Bust" -- found that liberals are have adopted a sort of neo-Shaker philosophy. The oped-ed begins: "In Seattle, there are nearly 45% more dogs than children. In Salt Lake City, there are nearly 19% more kids than dogs."

What will conservatives do when we don't have liberals to kick around anymore? We should plan now, because the day is coming.

into the mephitic fever swamps to which you have linked, I feel unclean, not merely in the prosaic sense of wanting to shower, but ritually, as though I must undergo some sort of purification rite to purge myself of the evil to which I have exposed myself.  One of those reality-challenged fellows even seemed to be assuming that people like Ben will teach their children that gassing Jews is swell.  Truly, though wary of the perils of rhetoric, I feels as though I have encountered, at worst, a distinct species of hominids; at best, a tribe of primitives unacquainted with the discipline of ethics.  

Well, chalk up one more point in favor of homeschooling.  Earlier, after seeing his blog, I thought: He's intelligent, handsome, talented, energetic, accomplished, creative, diligent, and he's still young!!

If this is the product of homeschooling, there should be a penalty charged for every parent that doesn't do it.

While it's true that liberals make fewer babies than conservatives (married people with children voted overwhelmingly for Bush), they do control the education establishment, where they can turn other people's babies into liberals, even if they don't have their own.

A few months ago my 15-year-old son came home from high school and said that Bush was "the most despised President", to which I hastened to add "behind Carter". Seems like there's a lefty leading his history class, who assigned a project on "people taking a stand against injustice" conveniently on Martin Luther King Day. After discussing it with him, he's doing his project on Ronald Reagan, and educating himself about the Soviet Union.

Which is why the "midgets" hate home-schoolers!

The liberals broke down and cried after their drubbing in 2004.  They decided that what they really needed to do was to convince religious people that it was ok to vote for democrats.

And they tried hard to stifle voices like Barry Lynn of the Americans United Against Religion.

But that ugly Christ-hating liberal always pokes his head up to say "hello" once in a while.

And there it goes again.

to totally screw up the kid parents spend years trying to build.

The demidgets believe that the child belongs to society, and that parents do not have a right to teach their children things that society doesn't believe.  Odd that those who value diversity so much are so set against allowing it.

Conservatives, and everyone else in the world outside Pyongyang, Tehran, and Havana, believe that  parents have an innate right to direct their children's upbringing.  

It's what makes doing it tolerable.  

Umm... things that are crazy. Things that can't spell. Things that aren't mentioned in private conversation. Things you're embarrassed of at family reunions. Things that waste your time. Things that cause insanity. Things that are incoherent. Things you'd expect Bobcat Goldthwait to say. Things you'd expect a chihuahua to say about a Doberman if it could talk. Things someone suffering from delusions of grandeur would say. Things someone suffering from delusions of persecution would say. Things someone suffering from rabies would say.

Pass.

</$25,00 pyramid&gt

I live in Denver. Site of the recent fracas in geography class and close enough to Ward Churchill to hit him with a rock.

Having said that, the best ideological inculcators are parents, not teachers.

Clearly parents should have the right to homeschool.  That said, anyone who wants their child to be successful and socially mature would be very wary of it.  I'm sure there are wonderful examples of homeschooled kids; but in my own family and circle of friends, I personally know two cases of homeschooling, which have not been so happy.

One was a '60s couple who raised their "hippie child" in an isolated rural home, with no television and very few friends. He's a completely ignorant loser, despite the fact that his parents were kind people and highly idealistic, educated at Harvard and Vasser.  The boy was quite happy as a child, but once he began to interact with the outside world, he realized he was a total outsider.  By age 16, the boy was dealing drugs and had gotten a girl pregnant.

The other example is an evangelical couple we know.  The mother is a control freak, who has not allowed her numerous children to play with neighbors, attend school or join any sort of clubs (not even boyscouts or girlscouts), for fear they will be exposed to ideas other than her own.  Their children are disturbingly strange, totally unable to relate to or play with their cousins, during family get togethers.  Their grandparents openly wept the last time they saw the results of this extreme homeschooling and social isolation.

I don't know why liberals "hate" homeschooling, probably because they feel it is being used to further conservative religious values.  They picture children brainwashed by religous cultism, like young islamic suicide bombers.  That's nonsense.  But I do worry that it could often produce ill-equipped children who will be a burdon on our society's economy.

After discussing it with him, he's doing his project on Ronald Reagan, and educating himself about the Soviet Union.

Great.  Funny, reminds me of Michael J. Fox, the Reagan supporter with hippie parents.  Perhaps they (TV parents) should've schooled the kid, raised him on a commune.  But seriously, that's nice - study Soviet - all the better to understand the "Red" direction of his country?  Why didn't he just tape record the guy, turn him over to the FBI, get him fired or better yet sent to Gitmo?  That's the way it worked with "RedStaters" comrades, right so?  We don't want any dissenting views do we.  Better to home school 'em.  

It seems that all the publicity from Ben's new gig has attracted an entire slew of people who are incapable of forming coherent thoughts.

Therefore, let this serve as notice, if you find yourself blammed without explanation, just refer back to this comment.

No time to provide explanations these days. 4 weeks until finals start.

examples of homeschooling.

I have several friends that homeschool all or maybe just one of their children for a year, sometimes longer.  They basically look at the schools in the area and determine if they meet the needs of their kids.

All of them are either involved in coops or at least belong to some sort of homeschool group.  The kids are involved in scouts and many are into competitive sports.

I think the most extreme thing I have seen in my homeschooling friends is that two families refuse to have cable.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing in my book.

Hey, I refuse to have cable.  But that's another story.  Those are the only two people I know who are homeschooling, so it hasn't given me a very good impression.

I just want to see kids get the right opportunity.  Parents should ask themselves, can they teach their kids to master trigonometry, if they don't know much math?

Now private-school vouchers strike me as a better idea, for people who find the local public schools are bad.

Never had it when I was a kid. Didn't watch much TV at all, for that matter, and no Nintendo, either. I'm an introvert now, but I can't say I feel a tremendous sense of loss over this particular bit of social "common ground".

I don't think homeschooling as a social phenomenon is going to have any widespread impact, regardless of individual cases, simply because investing that amount of effort into child-raising is more than most people can muster, regardless of ideology.

at least 25 families that have done some homeschooling of one child or more throughout the education experience.  I know of 0 that have homeschooled all the way K-12.  At some point, their kids have gone to public school or private.  It has always been about meeting the kids' needs at the given time and situation.

It really can be a very positive thing.

I would agree that the vouchers would send most of my friends' children to private school if given that option.  

As for me, I'm an early childhood teacher that would probably go bonkers homeschooling my own kids.  We'd play and watch TV and then be screwed at the end of the day because none of us got any work done.  :)  That being said, mine are in private right now and I work at the school 1/2 time to offset the costs.  There is a very strong possibility that I may have to home school my oldest at our next move if I can't afford private, so I'll have to get a sense of self-discipline again.

...when I have the Internet?  Particularly now that television shows end up on DVD.

As for homeschooling: the subject's come up, but the math/science whiz is also the primary wage-earner (translation: not me), so we're probably looking at private schooling.  That being said, I don't think that it's an issue as long as there are opportunities for the kids to interact with other kids... and that the parents check for learning disabilities ahead of time.  Even mild dyslexia or bad hearing can be a problem if you don't know about it.

The hippie parents and Christian Cultist parents are regularly tossed out as typical examples of homeschool situations.  We currently homeschool one of our sons, the other goes to a private school.  We have sent our kids to public schools, private schools, and homeschooled.  Our decision is driven by what we decide is the best educational choice at the time, not our moral system.

We are involved with a large number of homeschooling families, and there is not a significant difference between those parents, and the involved parents we have met in the public schools or private schools.  All are interested in the success of their children, and there is a similar range of belief systems in both groups.

I'd suggest sample size is your problem here.  If I only knew two examples of anything, I would be just as likely to draw the wrong conclusion as you.

The only two examples I am personally aware of are much less extreme.

One of my best friends in high school was a neighbor who was homeschooled. His family was very religious and conservative, but realized they couldn't meet his educational needs when he became a senior. He ended up going to my public school, but had to place a year behind to catch up. He ended up rebelling against his parents, but no more than any other high school kid.

The other kid I know is currently a physically disabled child that was adopted by a Mormon family that we are good friends with. His homeschooling recently led to him winning a D.A.R.E. essay contest that will have him delivering a speech nationally for D.A.R.E.

His essay made me cry... it was about how his mother took drugs, and her poor decisions have given him lifelong pain. He is definatly a gem of a kid, and is one of the toughest fighters I've ever met.

I can go to your kid's public school and find at least two kids in every single class that have bigger problems that what you've named here.

This kind of broadbrush criticism, which is anecdotally driven, is just not very honest. The idea that the public school experience, of necessity, produces a well-adjusted citizen is given the lie everytime you go outside your home.

Homeschooling removes citizens from the earliest stages of the nanny-state pipeline that goes from public school to public university to unionized job.  If you are not being raised by public sectarian institutions, you are a threat to the grand design, just like those blasted entrepeneurs and church-goers.

I say that if the libs want to have this debate, let's have it.  Let them try to legitemately sell the notion that public schools are provably more effective than school choice and homeschooling.  I look forward to it.

Kids can get messed up for a variety of reasons, and parental involvement or lack of involvement is a big factor.  The issue with education is, can parents give their children a quality education in a wide variety of subjects.

Incidently, I don't konw if you are questioning my honestly, but the two examples I gave are very real and very tragic.  Your commentary is perhaps the rudest I've seen on restate.com, and I suggest you look at the guidelines and clean up your act...

I have known several homeschooled people, and most of them do just fine socially.

In many cases the parents seem to homeschool through Jr. High then send them to high school. And what happens is that the homeschooled kids usually have much more self-confidence which makes them participate in class more and are more forward in general. They are also usually slightly naive (don't get all the dirty jokes) and not as sarcastic. All those things are good in my book.

Public schools serve to not only brainwash kids in liberal ideas, but they are also unsafe environments full of physical and emotional abuse. I am speaking from experience here, as it took  several years, and lots of positive experiences in college, to recover from all the mental abuse I endured in jr. high/high school.

I just re-read Streiff's comment a few times, and can't find anything rude about it, personally.

I'd think it's closer to being outside the guidelines to use vague anecdotes about 'weird' children and 'control freak' parents in the service of a Known Fact, than anything.

is complete control over the upbringing of all children so they can instill their values in them and bring about a liberal Utopia.

I've seen several quotes in various places (some by Hillary I believe, but I can't find it now) that lay bare their real plan: to have all children raised by the state and eliminate the nuclear family completely.

Of course, not even most dems would agree with that, but that is what some of the leaders on the left would like to see.

Actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea to pass a constitutional amendment declaring the right of parents to raise their own children. And we should pass one now before we really need it. I mean, in the 80's who would've thought we would've needed an amendment to protect marriage?

I can't recall ever hearing anyone even on the leftmost fringes (let alone any actual Democratic leaders) saying something as ridiculous as wanting to eliminate the nuclear family, but it would be good to know where you found it.

That meant three weeks and six days to go before cramming.

I know several families who have homeschooled their kids all the way through high school.  Most of those kids are now in college and doing fine.

Some of those families did ALL of the schooling at home.  More common, however, is a cooperative program at the high school level, where several families get their kids together for higher-level or more specialized courses (like math, science and foreign language).  These ad hoc classes are either taught by one of the parents who has expertise in the subject matter, or the parents go in together to hire a teacher, who will meet with the kids 1-2 days per week (with the students doing practice / homework in between).

While I agree that home schooling will never become the majority, an increasing number of famlies are doing it, for at least part of their child's career.

but it's the net effect of their assorted behaviors.

on turning everything upside down to claim legitimacy: Keeping God from the public square. Disrupting parent-child bonds. Crushing self-reliance. Imposing state control over individual liberty. And the proof of their weakness is in the vehemence of their reactons when confronted with someone as clearly mild and unobjectionable as Domenech.

Another most excellent post, trevino.

It appears that Ben has...um...borrowed, shall we say, in some of his previous writings, without attribution.

I don't know- should that be a "coherent" concern for the Washington Post?

I have to hand it to you, Josh, for willingly wading into the fever swamps so that I don't have to. I'm far more libertarian than many of the posters hereabouts, but the "reality-based community" looks determined to keep me at least nominally allied with conservatives for the foreseeable future. Said Nietzche, "At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."

You'll have to do better than quote some Kossack making an unsubstantiated allegation over here.

As Thomas said earlier today, "Your mother and me: An item."

Now our commenters can go back to Kos and link to this in a diary as proof that I am, in fact, having an adulterous affair with your mother. It'll carry just as much weight as your silly comment here does.

care what was taught in a classroom?

It is pretty much insulting to the kid who had the guts to tape his idiot, fact-challenged teacher and let others hear just how stupid he really is.

Cribbed from a posting by "Oregon Guy", and a followup posting by "silence" at DailyKos:

From a Ben Domenech review of Bringing Out the Dead in "FlatHat", which appears to be a student publication at Ben's alma mater of William and Mary:

Instead of allowing for the incredible nuances that Cage always brings to his performances, the character of Frank sews it all up for him.

But there are those moments that allow Cage to do what he does best. When he's trying to revive Mary's father, the man's family fanned out around him in the living room in frozen semi-circle, he blurts out, "Do you have any music?"

From a review posted on salon.com, published about a week earlier:

Instead of allowing for the incredible nuance that Cage always brings to his performances, the character of Frank sews it all up for him. ...

But there are those moments that allow Cage to do what he does best. When he's trying to revive Mary's father, the man's family fanned out around him in the living room in frozen semi-circle, he blurts out, "Do you have any music?"

or this one:

From PJ O'Rourke in his book "Modern Manners" (p 176):

Small Parties

Small parties are very easy to plan. An old Supremes tape, a gram of cocaine, a fifth of Stolichnaya, and some copies of Penthouse from the 70s when it was really dirty make for a perfect small party without the bother and complication of guests.

Large Parties

Large parties require much more than a gram of cocaine and, usually, other people besides yourself.

From Ben's editorial contributions at William and Mary:

Small parties are very easy to plan. An old Supremes tape, a case of beer, a fifth of Stolichnaya and a pack of cigarettes make for a perfect small party without the bother and complication of guests.

Large parties require much more than a gram of cocaine and, usually, other people besides yourself.

Great minds think alike, I suppose. I notice he deleted the dated "Penthouse" reference. Does that make it his work?

Honestly folks, this tendency of the right to favoring ideology over competence doesn't help your cause any.

I'm guessing Ben's probably gone before the weekend is out.

I'm guessing Ben's probably gone before the weekend is out.

You beat him by three days.

I notice from the date of that posting that Ben would have been either 16 or 17 when he wrote those pieces. Maybe you were fluent in APA guidelines for blockquoting and attribution at that age, but I wasn't.

Nonetheless!

I think you may be on to something here.

What we'll do is we'll go back to everything everyone ever wrote from when they were 16 years of age or older. If we find anything that is not properly attributed according to APA/Blue Book/some other professional standard of writing, we disqualify them from holding a job, forever.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Homeschool Failure is caused by the Lazy Parent.  The one who thinks the Science channel is good enough for, well, science and the History channel for History.  The one who never gets around to teaching anything.

This is what most homeschool failures are caused by.  But most of those would do poorly in Public school as well, for the same reason...

 and if there are subjects that the kids are ready for and you can't teach them, there are approaches to the problem short of enrolling the kids in public school.  We chose to use public school - and I even taught in public school, you guessed it, trig, -- but we de-programmed our child every night.  We ended up pretty good, but I met a home schooling family who traveled the country in an RV.  They had satellite internet and visited the places the kids learned about.  They subscribed to a program for home schooling so the kids had books and homework.  The parents did their jobs over the internet.  The socialization of the kids also has to be planned.  

Our son played in sports at his school; we believe this was very important.  He was also a Scout and attended his religious classes.  There are a lot of reasons for both types of education, but there are a lot of reasons why the public should not accept what goes on in a large number of public schools as the best we can do.  Vouchers strike me as a great idea if we cannot just allow teachers to directly negotiate with their schools for classes and pay.  Eiher way the unions who are dragging down the system are toast.

Domenech wrote most of those pieces for the William and Mary student newspaper.  Newspapers, even college newspapers, have pretty explicit guidelines for proper journalistic practice, and any regular writer for one would know that you don't copy whole paragraphs verbatim from other sources without any attribution.  Heck, I think I understood that by about sixth grade.

Moreover, W&M, which I also attended, has an honor code (the nation's oldest) which forbids plagiarism and very clearly defines what it is.  When I was there, new students had to spend several hours in a seminar with honor council members who explained the code in great detail.

Domenech has no excuse.  None.

-K.Ai.-

by my father from infancy to college.  Liberally, thank goodness.

Homeschool is vastly superior to the public education system, but ONLY if done in order to expose children to other influences.

In my case, I had the privilege of learning to love opera and Classical languages, without the ridicule of my peers.

Unfortunately, most homeschoolers today do so in order to prevent their children from learning any material that contradicts a fundamentalist, literalist reading of the Bible.

And that is a shame that has sullied to good name of homeschooling--which I might remind you was a LIBERAL movement pioneered by children's rights activist John Holt in the '60s.

I've read your stuff on Kos, and I'm actually glad to see you here. So, FYI:

most homeschoolers today do so in order to prevent their children from learning any material that contradicts a fundamentalist, literalist reading of the Bible

This is the kind of insulting generalization that is generally frowned on here.

Compare:

The 1970s pioneer of this resurgence, John Holt, cannot be described as anything but a left-wing believer.

...with your addition, in reply:

And that is a shame that has sullied to good name of homeschooling--which I might remind you was a LIBERAL movement pioneered by children's rights activist John Holt in the '60s.

Your obtuseness no longer amuses. Farewell.

The guy has very deep concerns regarding homeschooling Because of those anecdotes.  Yes, they are extreme examples, but you have no way of knowing they didn't happen and that he has not been affected by it.

He wasn't out here saying "We should eliminate the entire homeschool system because..."

He just said "I have concerns because I know these people who..."

Accept what his point is and don't ridicule him.  He wasn't way out there the way some people are...

And, as is so often the case, I wonder if the redstate editors uphold their own stated policy regarding banning. thoughtful did as asked, the bulk of his post providing the evidence that plagiarism took place (with apparent links to the original items, so that Redstate people don't even have to deal with the DailyKos diaries & comments).

One non-substantive comment at the end, which was in an ideological sense identifiably only "non right",  which acknowledged that this was a conservative community, which avoided profanity, personal attacks, or harassment -- and apparently was banned by an editor.

The editors here sure seem trigger-happy -- it's not surprising that echo chambers build, if people who provide evidence to support their claims are immediately banned.

1. The proprietors of this site are the sole and final judges and enforcers of this policy.
   
   
2. Your problem is now fixed. Hope you feel better.

The homeschooling movement to me is interesting from a historical perspective, but it really doesn't have much relevance to people who are choosing it today.  It's a little like asking who invented gunpowder or miniskirts first.

I think a reasonable assumption (if you want to debate it, that's fine) is that more Conservatives want to homeschool their children now because there has been a reversal of Establishment in this country, especially in education.  My basic hypothesis is that the liberals constitute the establishment in public education now, and more conservatives are opting to home school their kids because of it.  And if that's true, that's wonderful -- because it at least proves that American families can respond to the political climate they perceive by choosing a different option for their children.

BTW I was educated in public schools, which at the time were what I think represents a good admixture of "Conservative" and "Liberal" options.  I was both a member of a gifted choral group and the captain of my high school rifle team.  I rode motorcycles too, but not on school grounds.  ;)

I've made the point here in the past (albeit briefly) that if you try to analyze homeschooling and claim it as a purely "conservative" phenomenon you'd be mistaken.  Certainly there are people I've known who have homeschooled their children from a decidedly liberal point of view.  What I would like to see, regardless of ideological viewpoint, is a recognition that this works and can be successful and really enriching to children.  And how to avoid the pitfalls.

Over time, people using homeschooling to indoctrinate their children in a particular ideology to an extreme will be a failure.  I'm a conservative, my uncle is certainly a conservative, and he has two daughters who were both educated in public schools and graduated from Harvard and Brown, respectively.  Neither of those can be called Conservative schools, but much of what they learned at home continues to be of use to them today.  You're not trying to achieve ideological uniformity, just competence.  And there are a lot of people who are qualified to educate their children at home, if they plan it that way.

socialization argument.

Every homeschooled kid I know participates in activities outside of the homeschool.  They play sports, they go to scouts, they take dance, band and other things.  Many homeschooling parents have co-ops where parents share teaching duties and plan field trips, one coop had a band (one of the parents had a music degree in band).

Then you get to the public schools-much of that socialization is terrible, and there are plenty of kids in public schools who struggle with social skills.

This is a bogus argument.

Several of the schools in NC where we lived offered chemistry and some other more hard maths/science, especially the science that is best taught with a lab.  I think parents paid a minimal fee (less than $100) and it met in the evenings once or twice a week.

Also, some states are very good about letting homeschooled kids in their district sign up for similar classes that a parent may not be able to teach.

more than 2 in every classroom.

I can give you about ten between two classrooms, with probably 5 or 6 more borderline.

Two is a pretty generous bet-you wouldn't even have to try all that hard.

actually if we homeschooled (we don't, but I am a strong supporter of those who do) we would have no problem with this.

My husband would cover the math and science, I would do the social studies, lit, and language arts without much effort for either of us.

There are also ways to get a kid a class outside of strengths-most states allow homeschooled kids to access classes (sometimes they do gym, or sciences that need a lab, or higher maths).  Also, many community colleges offer classes.

If a parent is determined to educate their child-they will do it.

I do think concerns about parents getting in over their heads are legitimate, but most states also require some type of accountability (usually they require kids take a periodic/yearly test on expected skills outcomes for each grade level).

lazy homeschool parents.  IN general I find when a parent decides they are going to homeschool their kid, they do so with the intention of working hard.

I agree that a lazy homeschool parent is just as likely to be a lazy public/private school parent though.

I also am willing to bet that there are far more students failing in the public schools than are failing in a homeschool setting.

You know ... with the rock? (-;

have some support for home schooling.  Granted it is a way to keep tabs on the runaways, but they provide public school teachers and home visitation.  This teacher may be looking for evidence of substandard work by the home teacher (although most home schooled programs I've heard of go quickly beyond the levels of regular school) or in some cases they fill in where the home school program is weak.  If one puts the kids first, home school and public school should be a partnership. If the unions would back off and allow these alternatives, I believe our education level overall would climb.

For 15 years now. With 7 more intended. For 3 children.

Of course the bulk of the work has been done by my amazing wife, without whose full support this venture would have long ago collapsed, and all of the work has been possible only by the gracious provision of our heavenly Father who alone gives good gifts to His children; but then, anyone who is willing to put both the eternal and temporal welfare of her children ahead of the saccharine drippings proferred by Mammon will find the strength, skill, wisdom and support needed to persevere.

For those queasy about the concept of homeschooling, a few observations from over the years.

• The socialization argument balances in favor of the homeschooled children.

  They are far more likely to interact with a broader slice of society than classroom-based children. Not only by being with their parents in the gamut of real-world, adult life, but also, in mutli-child families, benefitting from the lost art--normative in the 1-room schoolhouse and millenia of families before that--of having the older children apply their learning by entering into the teaching of the younger. The same-age classroom model so highly prized in the schools has no real counterpart in adult life, and is not structured to develop leadership.

• While homeschooling is not for the fainthearted, neither is it merely for the brilliant.

  The concept of universal parental inability to teach progeny is one of the worst lies inculcated by the secular culture, and is just that, a lie. Parents are generally fully capable of teaching their children the most fundamental information they will ever need to know, even if it means staying up the night before re-learning how to write a script "Q" and "Z". If you are willing to be patient with your children, and can stay a page ahead of them in the text, and far more importantly, if you see every element of life as a teaching opportunity, you will not only be teaching, your children will learn to love learning.

• The growing availability of curricula, support groups and cooperatives increases the options available to parents.

  Obviously there can be bumps in the road: high-school science classes that are a distant blur in parents' memories, children with special needs, over-zealous school boards. As support groups grow, it is far easier to find encouragement, training, classes taught by specialist parents, and legal assistance, than ever before. As an example, we are now in a group of [FISCON ALERT: SHIELD YOUR EYES] Christian homeschoolers in North Jersey which has grown to well over 200 families in maybe 12 years, and so is able to provide competitive sports, music and drama programs, as well as specialized classes. The presence of such groups also encourages mutual parental accountability.

Our eldest daughter is finishing her 3rd year at Montclair State (NJ) where--blessings upon their admissions department--she was welcomed with open arms. A shy person by nature, she has an uncanny ability to be the person her classmates turn to to find out "what's really going on".

She was the immediate choice of the director of the (musically-excellent) Chamber Singers to expound the Song of Solomon passage when a clueless woman-child asked if the "seal upon my heart" meant the aquatic mammal.

When 70 pages of discrepant allegations against the biblical historicity of Jesus Christ--highly germane to a course seemingly about the misrepresentation in literature of the 18th-century Atlantic pirate--was assigned as additional reading over Easter break, she alone in her seminar was able to confront her avowed Marxist professor with his own dictum: "always value the source material above any self-interested commentary upon it".

When she turned 12, and our pastor adopted an 11-year-old minority Chinese girl, our daughter thought it would be nice to "learn Chinese" as her friend learned English. Against all odds, she taught herself to speak, read and write both Pinyin and Mandarin over the years, and then continued Chinese studies at Montclair. When our family adopted an 8-year-old girl from China 3 years ago, her transition to near-fluent English, while retaining Chinese, which needed extra care due to both her age and having been blind from birth, was made painlessly and rapidly with the the help of our eldest.

(I told myself, "Self, don't get anecdotal. Nobody wants to know." I didn't listen. But now I'll stop.)

Bottom line: if you have children, someone is going to end up saturating their little minds.

If you simply cannot homeschool, then your job is to spend every waking moment finding out what they were dipped into today, and if necessary, scraping it off, and spraying on as much (of Francis Schaeffer's) "true truth" as you can; and more power to you, your children will know you care, and by the grace of God it may stick.

If you have the opportunity to homeschool, but the absolute necessity of the second income for the newer ( ... ) or the bigger ( ... ) or the  trip to ( ... ) just makes it impossible to consider, it may be that you have already received your reward. Your children will see that you have provided all they need for this life, but do they wonder why you are so silent about what lies beyond? Those who have been assiduously dipping your children's brains into the acid-bath of humanism have good reason to smile and applaud the finished product when graduation rolls around.

If you have decided to homeschool, make sure you know why and for Whom you are doing it, count the cost, find others of like mind, share the necessary talents, don't be afraid to let your children see you learning as you go, teach them, be patient with them, correct them, listen to them, read to them, sing with them ... and enjoy the ride!

P.S. Of course this is a political site. Children who really know, and appreciate, how their parents view the world ... might just end up voting like their parents.

if there is plagerism? They seem to have a serious problem ferreting out the truth about Iraq.

What is relevant is that this individual decided that he didn't have to play by the rules.  

I don't think that has anything to do with homeschooling.  He wanted to do well, he wanted to make a good showing.  Apparently, he did it well once and nobody checked him on it.  So, success being recognized, he continued with it.  

Of course, parents are ultimately responsible for what a young person does, and there is nobody on the right or the left who thinks that parents should be off the hook for their childrens' behavior.  

Homeschooling is not a right or left issue.  

I'm sorry that some have chosen to make this about homeschooling.  It might be about someone getting pushed to be better than everyone else.  Pushed so hard that he decided to cut corners.  Maybe we should have some empathy for the young man.  I'm sure he'll rebound well from this setback.

It should be noted that part of the problem is that HSLDA has essentially stolen the home education issue and made what is really a non-partisan issue a political issue, turning the left against it in the process. The modern home education movement was started by hippies. They didn't get any support from the ACLU when they were fighting to make it legal, and the right wing stepped in and did the important grunt work of getting homeschooling legalized in all 50 states. Of course, the NEA's opposition to the competition probably had a lot to do with the left not picking up the issue in the first place.

In the process, something that should be  non-partisan got positioned as a Christian right wing thing, thus causing the knee jerk reaction you see on the left everytime the subject comes up.

The reality is that conservative Christians are not the majority of homeschoolers. They loudest and most effective politically without a doubt, but not a majority. The positioning of home education as a conservative issue may have helped Republicans in the short term, but it could screw homeschool freedoms in the long term.

Basketballs.

Dennis Rodman.

Life, after loss.

Personal attacks.

Bye.

if he was ever in town. He's on administrative leave or something this semester, so he's spreading the love all over Amerikkka!

is why my wife and I homeschool our children. We are Catholic, by the way, so the idea that homeschooling is somehow tied in with 'fundamentalism' is profoundly silly. Catholic, Orthodox, and atheist families also homeschool, not just protestants.

However, I have to point out that I find more lipservice support from Republicans than true support. In our state, Florida, we had a near miss with a bill last year that was sponsored by a Republican that would have effectively forced homeschoolers to use the same curriculum as the public schools.

This bill went down, but I have a suspicion that Jeb Bush would have signed it if real conservatives hadn't managed to kill it.

I, like almost all homeschool parents, want to junk the Dept of Education and get the Feds out of schooling. I also want to revamp our tax code to make it more economical for more mothers to choose to stay home and tend to their little ones. In addition, I'd like to put all control over education matters firmly at the local level. I don't even trust the state governments to be sufficiently accountable.

Oh, and breaking the power of the Stalinist teachers unions would be nice as well.

I just don't see the kind of support for parental rights and local control of education from President George "Ted Kennedy's education bill is for me!" Bush. I think that the distinctions between the Dems and the national Republicans have been largely a matter of degree, rather than substance of late.

Yes - I would prefer to have Republicans running the educational establishment than liberals. But the fundamental premise of our increasingly federalized education scheme is simply unsound, so no matter who is minding the farm, the results are going to be more money wasted and even dumber kids than before. Even the Republicans can't make socialism work, no matter how hard they tinker with it.

So I've opted out of the educational system for my progeny, and I know dozens more families who have as well. All of us have advanced degrees. All of us are in creative, white collar jobs. All of us have kids who test off the charts, and who spend copious amounts of time engaged in all kinds of activities.

Parental rights are given by God. They are pre-political and should be infringed on only with the utmost care. Most parents want what is best for their children, so the laws should be geared towards helping the 99% of homeschooling parents doing the right thing, rather than penalizing us on the chance that 1% might be nuts.

I'd like the Republican Party to be a real voice on this for us.

pursuing homeschooling next fall when our then 5th grader would be moving to a middle school that I don't believe is the kind of learning environment that will be beneficial to him, I resent the whole "homeschooling is faith-based" argument.  It is far more simple than that.  

While my son has been blessed with good hard-working teachers, the curriculum is simply terrible.  The overall plan for the year is pretty deficient what with the "feel good" emphasis that detracts from core learning day after day.  His class is wide ranging in abilities and several teachers have commented that he "learns completely differently from the rest of the class."  Could it be because we read a vast array of books and he's not allowed to watch TV during the week?  I don't know.  I do know he's bored with the pace and we have no Gifted and Talented programming in our district.

I have no illusions about the difficulties of homeschooling having done a lot of research and enlisted the advice of homeschooling families we know.  Most parents I know who are homeschooling are college graduates with strong opinions about the "cookie cutter" approach to learning in public schools.  Most are the parents of boys, ironically.  All talk about the challenges with grace, humor and lots of solutions.  

In defence of the poster who is nervous about homeschoolers' socialization, I do know one family that has raised fairly anti-social kids and rarely involve themselves in community activites.  Given how many success stories I've witnessed, they are the exception not the rule.

be improved if the family had sent their kids to school?

There are plenty of kids in the public schools who have cruddy social skills-some due to personality, others may be due to disability (I have a child with an autism spectrum disorder-for him social skills will always be something he struggles with).

But I sometimes think families and children with poor social skills probably would have had poor social skills no matter where they were schooled.

Of all the things that set me off about the liberal blogs, their contempt for homeschooling is the worst. I can understand that they believe in the sanctity of public education, but what is unforgivable is that this bleeds into contempt for those who didn't receive it (oh, but private schools are OK -- just as long as your parents weren't involved!).

The only thing I can figure is that they think 'homeschooler' is synonymous with 'devout Christian' and that thus it is something deserving of contempt. This is doubly sad, really -- for one thing, I'm not a Christian, and for another thing, so what if I was? So much for open-mindedness.

That being said, I do take offense at all the other nasty names you called me in this post. I guess you're no better than them after all.

that by age 16 or 17 I had written many essays for school. I certainly understood the concept of plagiarism and that to practise it was a big no-no.

Maybe Ben's homeschooling was lacking in instruction on that particular point?

All sarcasm aside - there's certainly an issue here that should be addressed by the man himself.

Thank you for an excellent and encouraging post.  Thank you for anecdotes and thank you for good observations, of which this was one:

The same-age classroom model so highly prized in the schools has no real counterpart in adult life, and is not structured to develop leadership.

I may yet end up homeschooling and I pray that I am as dedicated and effective as you and your wife.

I'm glad you post here.  Keep up the good work.

It may have escaped your attention but nerves are pretty raw over this.

I've spent the better part of the last 24 hours stamping out sanctimonious twits of all political stripe.

You might be a little more circumspect in the future before you decide that you have enough credibility to use sarcasm.

I am tormented to this day by memories of a boy I went to school with.  His father shot himself in the head while the child watched.  He was absolutely traumatized beyond belief.

Naturally, as young men tend to kill the weak, (and Sam was small and quiet) he was mercilessly teased and tormented by the other boys in the class.  I don't know whatever happened to him, but I know that it's a miracle he didn't shoot someone at the school.

I'm sure he would have benefited greatly from a protective and encouraging environment.  People can learn socialization when they are grown.

there certainly appears to be a plethora of examples of plagiarism. As I said before - the man needs to answer.

If nerves are a little raw it must be because this cuts a little close to the bone. I resorted to sarcasm because I can't honestly think that the members here would do any less were the shoe to be on a left foot.

Have it your way.

One more gone means nothing to me.

In the immortal words of Jacques Chirac you missed a very good opportunity to shut up.

I have concerns about parenting, cause I know this one guy that beat his kids......

2 extreme examples of behavior within a given subject, shouldn't cause undue concern.

If citing 2 examples concerns someone about home schooling, how about the (tens of?)THOUSANDS of examples of problems within the public school system?

I would think that would be cause for alarm or maybe even pannic, then?

is not data.

Conclusions of this nature made from a set of N = 2 hardly merit being taken seriously when the data being considered apparently ignores the set of N = at-least-2 in any public school classroom.

... and don't let anyone scare you into thinking that you have been given any less wisdom about providing the most appropriate education for your child(ren) than about providing for all their other needs!

A particular threat to the left is the counter-intuitive Patrick Henry College, which counts hundreds of former homeschoolers in its student body.  It is based in Virginia.

Patrick Henry is deadly on the intercollegiate Mock Trial and Debate circuit, regularly besting all the usual Ivy League suspects.

A bunch of Christian homeschoolers trained in law and argumentation, sharpened to defend their beliefs in court?  The very thought turns a liberal's socks to yellow.

my sister in law homeschooled her two boys when they were in a lousy school district.  Now they are in a great school district and each is at the top of his public school class.  Homeschooling didn't hurt their education.  Whether it hurt their social development, who can say?  Sure, it was harder to get the socialization development good schools provide, but they were in a lousy school district, so that would have been no guarantee.  

Another good friend was homeschooled all the way until she went to Harvard, where we met.  For what it's worth, she's a staunch liberal.

and neither did the guy ya'll attacked.  He was talking about his personal experiences and opinions.  Try explaining to him how those experiences are from an extreme minority and that his opinion, while valid (it's an OPINION, after all), is wrong.

Don't attack the poor guy.

See, this is what I Thought set RS so far apart from DKos...

A far greater Ratio.  Absolute numbers would be rather foolish to compare...

And I won't deny it, either.  I look at the ASVAB, a test Designed so that a person with a typical 6th-grade education should be able to pass (because what did most recruits have back when the ASVAB was created?) and High-School Graduates are failing in record numbers...

There is no question, Something has gone wrong in the Public School system.

Patrick Henry is deadly on the intercollegiate Mock Trial and Debate circuit, regularly besting all the usual Ivy League suspects.

A bunch of Christian homeschoolers trained in law and argumentation, sharpened to defend their beliefs in court?  The very thought turns a liberal's socks to yellow.

Um... okay. I guess I'll represent my side, then, as an atheist magnet school kid trained in calculus and physics, sharpened to genetically engineer bacteria and, hopefully, perform neurosurgery some day. The very thought makes a creationist's head even emptier!

...what was the point of this again? Oh, yeah, somewhere a home-schooled kid is doing well on a debate team. My goodness, stop the presses. I've got to throw away my liberal card right now.