NCAAbbs

being considered in California. In the story, they had a poll between "YES"- There SHOULD be state regulations setting certification standards for parents doing home schooling OR "NO"- There SHOULD NOT be any state regulations for this purpose. By Monday June 23rd, there had been many thousands of votes and they came out 5% FOR and 95% AGAINST any state certification.
As I see the results there are only two possible major reasons persons might vote "NO". One, of course is that many people feel there should never be any state "interference" within the home when physical safety is not involved.
A second reason may suggest that 95% of Americans believe that teacher training has no value anyway so no parent would benefit from such a requirement.
There was no attempt by the magazine to do anything but publish the results. As I noted elsewhere, there were over 35 "pages" of email responses and replies to those responses. Maybe they plan on some future article delineating the responses.
I don't believe there are any laws in Alabama on any kind of preparation for home schooling. The parent only has to tell the state the child will be taught in the home and it is "hands off"- no required student testing, no state standards except curriculum. This lack of objective evaluation is a reason public schools resist letting home schooling pupils participate in local school extra-curricular activities like football since his/her grades are on the parents "say so" while the other kids must show more objective results.
What do you think?

They test them as well as they test student who go to school, with standardized tests that are a joke. I don't see a big difference.

You just can't tell the state that you are homeschooling and hands off. That is incorrect.

My kids have been homeschooled all of their life and they were placed in one of the best elementary schools in Alabama last fall. They were both in the top of their classes. My daughter's AR (reading program) after score 1 semester was higher than any other student who was there for the entire school year.

Some parents just choose to homeschool. They should have the right to do so.

The "right" to home school has never been in question. The question is whether or not the state can set some sort of minimal certification standards for the parent who wishes to do it. Since the average adult in Alabama has a 9th grade education (in the 1990s, the census figures showed that 1/3 of Alabama adults had less than an 8th grade education), there is legitimate concern about "the blind leading the blind". That is what the debate is about and 95% of the respondents to the "PARADE" survey said "NO".
Obviously, the primary grades are the easiest, in subject matter, to teach if the teacher-parent went to school at all. How far above that level the child can be adequately home schooled K-12 by a less educated parent is the concern. The state has gone to court over how far parents can go to decide on the extent of medical care their children may receive. Is the state less capable (or culpable) when it comes to education?
Remember, the State of Alabama has required a college degree to teach in public schools only since the 1970s.

People make all sorts of decisions concerning their children that I disagree with. I don't get to make decisions for stupid parents. Usually the state doesn't either.

The “right” to home school is at question by many educators. Some would require people to have a teaching certificate (ie, a 4 year undergraduate degree in teaching plus all of the other requirements) to teach their children at home.

There is some absolutely excellent curriculum for homeschooling parents. There are options for teaching advanced courses that allow students to learn even advanced biology, chemistry, etc... at home.

I will agree that there are some absolutely loony homeschooling parents. I would also point out that there are some loony parents who do not home school and that not all public school teachers are all that great. I can point you to my high school (Hueytown) where I had some absolutely horrible teachers (and some great ones). I remember a particular English teacher who said sCrawberry instead of strawberry. Unfortunately she stayed on as a teacher while another excellent English teacher was let go because he did not have tenure.

I can point out that I had a substitute Spanish and English teacher for an entire semester because the regular teacher had a family emergency. She did return in the second semester. This sub was an idiot who knew nothing about Spanish and wasn't the best for English. That was my 10th grade year :) While I realize that this might not be the norm... I would argue that it is also not the norm that homeschooled parents are uneducated blind leading the blind. Every homeschool parent I know (don't claim to know them all) has a college degree and many have their masters. Most people who did not graduate high school themselves are not thinking homeschool. They are wondering what Saban is doing this week.

I don't want the state dictating to me how and what I need teach my children. If you want to encourage them to take the standardized tests, fine. As homeschoolers, we do them every year (more often than public schools do) and our children are in the upper 90th percentiles each time.

Alabama already requires homeschoolers to be part of a cover school and those parents must do lesson plans and must attend faculty meetings.

Homeschoolers should NOT expect that their kids would be allowed participate in extracurricular activities like football, band, baseball, etc... I am fine with that being reserved for those in the public school. I would like to see a team fielded with other homeschool students.

I think that educators need to look to the future of what education will look like. For advanced classes and for higher grades, we need to take advantage of technology. There is no reason education needs to continue to look like it did 30 years ago. There are alternatives.

I'm willing to bet that a majority of the parents who choose to homeschool have more than a 9th grade education as cited by BamaNBlazer. The ones who don't have any high school education are probably the ones who don't participate in their kid's schooling at all.

Maybe we should require people to get a license before becoming parents?

I don't have anything against homeschooling, but there is a reason that going to school is required, whether you agree with it or not. If we're going to have mandatory education under the guise of making sure that all the citizens of the country have a certain standard education (and I mean in terms of math, critical thinking, etc. not necessarily controversial things) then those standards should be applied to home schoolers in the same way that they are applied to public and private school students.

Not a bad idea....if you live in China!!

I don't have statistics to back it up but I would guess that a lot more graduates of public school enter society without knowing how to read or do basic math than the percentage of homeschoolers. That requirement for a certain standard education of which you speak is a myth.

During my 1/3 century of public school teaching, I NEVER encountered college education professors who did not want to upgrade the teacher training curriculum and make becoming a teacher more demanding. They know the challenge of preparing children to be successful as adults in the "New Economy" is great, and they want to send the "best and brightest" college students into the schools to do that. One problem they face is that the most challenging teaching environments (rural and inner city) are also where the "B & B" will not ever apply for a job. They all want to teach in the Hoovers, Mtn. Brooks, Vestavias and the like in other parts of the state. The pay is not that much better, often less, in these systems, but the environment is so much better that their chances to be successful are much greater. Every rumor of a vacancy is met by an "avalanche" of applications from which to choose a replacement.
For the most part, these less desirable of the state's 133 districts get their teachers from the "leftovers" or from those who want to move back "home". A few years ago, I "subbed" at Ramsay High for the first 6 weeks because they had to wait until they got an application for the job and could make a hire.
Home schooling is simply "tutoring" which was the way most Alabama (white) children were taught until after the Civil War. Tutoring and very small local private schools dominated the state educational scene until late 19th century. By WWI (1914), there was finally at least one white high school in each county of the state. By WWII (1940), most rural districts operated 3 months for Blacks and 6 months for whites.
In the 50s, a 175 day, 9 month school year was common statewide, at least for "white" schools. Several counties had "colored high schools" (usually called "training schools" to avoid equipping them equally to white schools). Parker was the ONLY "colored high school" for ALL of Jeffco for years.
Since the 1970s the state has required a college degree to teach public school and required a teacher work in the subject in which they majored. Since the 1980s, the state systems have begun to actually attempt to teach ALL students in the state on a somewhat equal basis. This is why such is still hard to get used to for most older state residents.

Homeschooling is basically tutoring? If that is the case then I will also make a blanket statement (that probably has more truth to it) - Public schools teach the minimum possible in order to pass a state test and they teach at the level and speed of the slowest person in the class.

I would argue that homeschooling (as I have seen it) is much more than tutoring. I would also put my kids up academically against 95% of the kids in public school so if they got it from tutoring, they did pretty well. I am not opposed to public schools but I am a defender of the parent's right to choose homeschooling if that is what they want. If we lived in the US, we might very well send our kids to public school. I do like the fact that we have a choice.

Yes! Home schooling is basically tutorial in its method. Since it enables the teacher, usually the parent, to match the work load to the capability of the individual student, success ought to be assured. When, however, you have 35 students to teach, such individuality is a real challenge. If you are also "mainstreaming" "LD", "EMR" and "TMR" students in the same class, the challenge is multiplied exponentially.
Like with home-birthing, the closer you can stay to "normal" in the process, the better home schooling (and home birthing) works. It's when you get involved with "exceptional students" that home schooling becomes more of a challenge. These kids are the ones least likely to be home schooled since most parents don't have the foggiest idea of what to do to help them learn. I am NOT opposed to home schooling. I just find that many want to compare their results with normally intelligent kids to the public school results where it is patently unfair. Now your kids are probably going to only match the kids coming out of the wealthier school districts in the suburbs who have resources beyond the state's "average" districts.

When did they stop allowing for “tracking” of students? I remember when I was in Jr High we had track 1, track 2, and track 3 classes. Track 1 students being those who moved at a faster pace and track 3 being the slower students. I know that now they can't do that. All kids are put in the same classes. I know that while my daughter was in public school last fall, she had one student in her class who did not speak English so my daughter translated for her. It seems silly to stick advanced kids and kids who are learning English in the same class. The teacher gets stuck teaching at the speed of the slower students and the more advanced students either read a book or get in trouble because they are bored and act up.

Comparing costs - we just purchased our home school curriculum for next year and it came out to just under $1000 per child (for 4th and 6th grade). It would have been less but we had an expensive German program that added to the costs. Where we are lacking is A LIBRARY!!! My kids miss the public library. We can buy books locally but they are high. I saw the latest Harry Potter book last week for $45 in Spanish. Forget finding any of them in English :) We can't keep enough books for the kids here. Each time I find myself in the US, I come back loaded with books!

MOST elementary and middle schools in Alabama have NO LIBRARY "in house". The state of Alabama only provides library funding (Teacher Unit and book funding) for high schools. The same applies for music and art Teacher Units and supplies. All library, art and music below high school must be managed on local funds.
I didn't mention ESL (English as a Second Language) students because not every school has these students. The majority are Hispanic, but many are Asian.
When I retired in 1997, we had Special Ed students taught by Special Ed teachers in their own rooms. Since then all but the most severe cases are "mainstreamed" even into Chemistry and Physics classes. The Special Ed teacher now comes around each week to go over your plans and grades to see that you are adequately meeting "their" students' needs. Imagine the "fun" of having an "EMR" or ADHD student in your Chemistry Lab.

The origins of compulsory education laws were only partially about educating children. They were primarily pushed by child welfare advocates who were trying to end the widespread practice of using child labor in the mills, mines, factories and fields of the day, often from the age of 6 and 7. They figured that if the children were required to be in school, they would not be available to those "abuses". The earliest lawsuits about those laws were filed by parents "protecting their family rights" to contract their children to these jobs. Child labor remained a major factor in the fight until the middle 1/3 of the 20th century, particularly in the rural south. Until the 1950s, it was not unusual in the south for "Negro schools" to operate only 3-6 months per year.
These are virtually the same "family rights" arguments that today are used to "protect" the home-schooling parents against all but the mildest state regulations.
In Alabama, we have been seriously trying to educate "all" children for only the last 30 years so it's no surprise that we are still trying to get the "hang of it". Before that time public education was primarily designed for the children of the urban and suburban white "elite" with the other children just getting lucky if they happened to have good schools due to local responsibility.
The Special Education Trust Fund was begun in the 1930s as a defense mechanism because the State Legislature (dominated by rural powers) denied regular funding to public schools. Thus were born the SETF and the Minimum Program Fund which is still the dominant funding mechanism for our public schools. The state sales tax has risen from 1% to 4% and the income tax from 1% to 5% over these 7.5 decades. That's why every time the economy "stubs its toe" the schools are thrown into proration or reduced "preproration" funding.

it is so hard to read your posts

As suggested by some, I try to use more paragraphs to break up the body of work.
If the points I make are "hard to read", there is not much I can do to make history more appealing when it deals with the realities of child labor being practiced in Alabama until the middle of the 20th century, or the way "separate, but equal" was used by the state power structure to keep the poor whites and blacks "in their place".
EX: Before the "gush" of patriotism during WWII that caused the state to "forgive" past debts of the "poll taxes" which had accrued year to year ( even while citizens were fighting overseas). Before WWII began in 1941, for most voters it had meant about half a month's income would be required to pay them so that many less than 40,000 citizens would be allowed to vote in the state elections. Most Alabama citizens simply could not afford the right to vote.