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Stuart Shepard explains why a California court's decision to reverse its earlier decision may leave home-schoolers' heads spinning. Read more...
In a 3-0 decision last week, the California Court of Appeal for the 2nd Appellate District reversed its earlier ruling that would have required parents to be certified in order to home-school their children.
Michael Farris, co-founder and chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, was thrilled by the victory, which affects more than 166,000 home-schooled children in California.
"Let me be quick to say that when we answer the question of 'Why did we win?' the ultimate answer is found in the blessing and protection of God," he said. Read more...
While homeschooling is a "wonderful alternative," Moran says, there is a need for checks and balances. "We want parents to have the freedom to homeschool, but we don't want children to become captives in a homeschool that doesn't prepare them for work or civic engagement as a functioning adult," she says.
In an ideal world, Moran adds, the state should implement a few safeguards. "Hopefully, a way to monitor progress rather than an adversarial reality will be an outgrowth of this decision," she says. Read more...
There are no lockers at this school, no bell ringer to alert students that it's time to change classes and when it's lunchtime, 10-year-old Jake Shadburn eagerly tells his mom, Greta, that he's hungry.
Jake and his older brother Zach, 14, are homeschoolers and have been all of their lives.
Greta and Todd Shadburn made the decision to educate their children at home in 1999 when Zach was 5 and Jake was 2 years old.
Like public and private school students heading back to school this month, the Shadburn family is also back in the swing of things after taking the summer off. Read more...
Most of the California print media covered the state’s Court of Appeal’s decision to reverse itself regarding the legality of home schooling under the state’s laws. In general the coverage was fairly spotty.
A rather significant holding of the case (that parents have a “constitutional liberty interest in directing” their children’s education that is balanced against the state’s “compelling interest” in protecting children’s welfare) also received little coverage. (See here The San Francisco Chronicle’s coverage which mentioned it in a single paragraph.)
Not much discussion was given as to why religion was a factor in this case other than briefly mentioning that the family involved in the case home schooled for religious reasons. The most significant gap in the religious coverage of this decision had to do with the characterization of the home schooling family in question. See here how the Mercury News portrayed the family: Read more...
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reports that Victor Deeb, a retired chemist who lives in Marlboro, has finally been allowed to return to his Fremont Street home, after Massachusetts authorities spent three days ransacking his basement lab and making off with its contents.
Deeb is not accused of making methamphetamine or other illegal drugs. He's not accused of aiding terrorists, synthesizing explosives, nor even of making illegal fireworks. Deeb fell afoul of the Massachusetts authorities for ... doing experiments...
There's a lesson here for all of us who do science at home, whether we're home schoolers or DIY science enthusiasts. The government is not our friend. Massachusetts is the prototypical nanny state, of course, but the other 49 aren't far behind. Any of us could one day find the police at the door, demanding to search our home labs. If that day comes, I will demand a warrant and waste no time getting my attorney on the phone. Read more...
I thought I would start you off this school year with a carnival of memories. Take you down a trip on 'homeschool memory lane'... Smattered in between the linky goodness is a collage of photos from our early years in the business of raising kids and home-educating them. The memories are priceless... and I wouldn't have traded ALL my burnout, stress, or bad days for any one of these smiles in the pictures. With me expecting a new little bee in our family next March or April, I have the 'misty-water-colored-memory' mommy eyes as I look back on the milestones in my children's lives. I hope that our new little one will get to have as much fun homeschooling as big brother and sister have! If only God will provide the energy for me to keep on truckin'. I hope He'll provide all of us with the energy to have a successful 2008-9! Read more...
The Bartletts started out with 150 weed-covered acres, a pop-up camper and a thatched-roof outhouse where, to the sound of coyote howls her first night, Lynn Bartlett wept with fear and qualms about abandoning city life.
Lynn, her husband, Jim, and their four home-schooled sons moved from Fargo to a remote homestead in the Turtle Mountains four years ago. They didn't make the transition easy on themselves: They plucked weeds by hand. They squished pesky potato bugs with their fingers. They let some chickens roam free.
Jim Bartlett, who heads the North Dakota Home School Association, half-jokingly calls his breed of Christian home-schooler "the new hippies" a growing group of converts to organic farming and the simple life that defies political labels.
"The hippies live like this because they're trying to protect Mother Earth," said the Bartletts' friend, Sid Hughes. "We live like this because it gives us an opportunity to be in communion with God in nature." Read more...
Labels: homeschool
Singer, of MommaSaid.net, is annoyed by the assumption she feels some economists make that stay-at-home mothers want to work outside the home, but can’t. “I know tons and tons of mothers who choose to stay home whatever the economic difficulties,” she says, counting herself among them. “We are NOT staying home with our children by default.” Read more...
Labels: homeschool
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline)-Parents do not need teacher certification to teach their own children at home following a change of legal opinion issued by the California state Appellate Court on Friday.
The victory for home-schooling organizations reverses the court's previous opinion issued in February, which organizations viewed as a ban.
Supporters argued the ruling could seriously damage the growing business of home schooling, while impinging on a parent's right to choose the course of education for their own children. Read more...
Labels: California, homeschool
KinderBach is a bright and fun interactive music theory and keyboard/piano introduction program geared toward preschool children. The online program that I reviewed combines professional video instruction and printable PDF's (there is also a DVD format as well as a classroom music curriculum available). The instructor is a bubbly, smiling lady who has a couple of friendly sidekicks, Do-dee the donkey and Frisco, a young boy who help out in the lessons. Read more...
Earl Wilbur is an overweight, asthmatic, middle-school aged kid (fifth grade?) who lives with his mom (his dad, who is English, left the family to return to England). Many of the other kids tease him, but a bullying fellow class-mate, Eddie McFee, has been taunting him and even beating him up until one day Earl pays Eddie a dollar not to hurt him, and now Eddie demands a dollar each week to leave Earl alone. Read more...
In this inspirational romance/adventure novel, young Emma Lee is sent from her Miami home in 1904 to live with her Aunt Augusta on the Little Island of Merritt. The Island sounds like a tropical paradise, but Emma has no clue why she is being sent away in the first place. Her aunt is the village schoolteacher and a bit the prickly type. She expects Emma to be very studious and hardworking. Read more...
Secular Homeschooling is a non-religious quarterly magazine dedicated to writing about homeschooling and those who homeschool for diverse reasons, not specifically for religious convictions. This non-glossy, black and white paper publication has some great articles and editorials that any home educator will find informative, and encouraging. It was easy for me to get sucked into just lounging on the couch while I read the issues cover to cover, I thought the material well-written and absorbing. Read more...
California natives Hannah and her brother Alex move to Snipesville, Georgia, a place they find where life is slower and a bit too dull. A trip to the library should spice things up for them. I always find the library has the power to take away the boredom for us. But, Alex and their new friend Brandon weren't expecting to walk out of the library and transport smack into WWII England. Seems a professor they met in the library had something to do with their catapult to the past. Read more...