Filed on January 7, 2006 at 6:01 am under by dcobranchi
As predicted, MO homeschoolers are still here and the CPS bureaucrat who wanted to regulate them is not.
Home-schooling advocates were praising Gov. Matt Blunt on Friday for replacing the state’s child protection advocate, who had recently issued a report calling for additional home-schooling regulation.
But a spokeswoman for Blunt said his decision to dismiss Mary McEniry as director of the Office of Child Advocate for Children’s Protective Services is unrelated to home schooling.
Advantage: HE&OS
Filed on January 6, 2006 at 6:52 pm under by dcobranchi
File this under “Obvious headlines”:
School officials face possible contempt
Yeah, they meant contempt charges. They’re educrats; they should be used to the regular kind of contempt.
Filed on at 6:33 pm under by dcobranchi
OK, I don’t know if our kids are really eligible for this, as it may be a local contest. But it could be fun to come up with a new mascot for the team with the dumbest name in pro baseball– The Greenville (SC) Drive. Giant Bertha, perhaps?
Filed on at 5:45 am under by dcobranchi
We are a threat to the survival of the country:
The level-headed response of Cal Thomas (“Wake up,” Dec. 29) to the court decision barring the teaching of intelligent design as science in the public schools was so surprising I wondered if he could be serious. Then came the punch line: Religious parents should remove their children from public schools and place them in private or home schools, where they will be taught the truth according to their parents’ beliefs.
Back when the public-school system was a pillar of our democracy, most Christians saw their role as that of leaven in the collective loaf, being “in the world but not of the world.” Have we now gone from being leaven to wanting to be the whole loaf?
Bob Herbert’s column “Solution,” (Dec. 29) addressing the need for personal and community responsibility, was directly related.
Following desegregation, white flight from the public schools yanked the underpinnings of community involvement and responsibility from the system. If we are to survive as a democracy, we must all work together constructively – whites, blacks and Hispanics, left and right, Republicans, Democrats and Independents, secular and religious, capitalists and social advocates – instead of tearing the country apart.
W. EUGENE RUBLE
Winston-Salem
I should have known better. “Level-headed” and “Cal Thomas” should not ever appear together.
Filed on at 5:28 am under by dcobranchi
Iowa.
This is perhaps mere campaign rhetoric, but I don’t like seeing private schools and home education lumped in with the g-schools:
Vander Plaats spent seven years as a high school teacher and four years as a high school principal.
High on his agenda is education and using his experience to ensure that every private, public and home-schooled child receives a quality education in Iowa.
A former educrat running for governor. Like the title says.
Filed on at 5:19 am under by dcobranchi
Abnormal:
From the age of 4, when Christine Zukowski watched Nancy Kerrigan, Oksana Baiul and Tonya Harding compete in the 1994 Olympics, the answer has always been an unwavering yes. Unwavering, despite a non-stop schedule that starts with 4 hours of practice daily and requires home schooling rather than a normal high school life.
$35,000/year. Plus more for ice time. I promise I will never bitch about the cost of ballet lessons.
Filed on January 5, 2006 at 6:18 pm under by dcobranchi
I can’t spot the evil sub-text to this email, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere:
Dear Nebraska Secular Home Educators:
I am the attorney who serves the 503 Nebraska families who are members of the Home School Legal Defense Association. Several of our members who are single parents have had serious legal difficulties because they cannot comply with the current Nebraska homeschool law, which requires the “parents” to sign the paperwork required by law. The Department of Education has been most unhelpful, and has taken the position that they need to “protect the rights of the other parent” by rejecting the paperwork that single parents send in.
HSLDA would like to address this problem by taking the letter “s” out of the word “parents” in the existing law. We have asked the Nebraska Christian Home Educators Association (NCHEA) whether they would object to this change, and they have no problem with it. We would like to make sure you have an opportunity to provide input, too.
Please forward this message to your member families. If they would like to receive information about this issue from HSLDA directly, they can sign up for our free “elerts” at www.hslda.org.
Sincerely,
Scott W. Somerville, Esq.
Home School Legal Defense Association
540-338-5600
scott@hslda.org
Seriously, this is a welcome shift. Nice job, Scott.
Filed on at 10:04 am under by dcobranchi
Natalie begs to differ.
NOTE: A lot of this is inside baseball. If you don’t get it, don’t worry. [Daryl, flouncing out of the room.]
Filed on at 8:42 am under by dcobranchi
In an ID anti-climax, the new Dover school board has rescinded the policy mandating that teachers read the statement questioning evolution and recommending that students check out Of Pandas and People. Thus ends Scopes II.
Filed on at 5:39 am under by dcobranchi
Another day, another perv teacher. Ho-hum.
A physical education teacher at a San Carlos middle school suspected of videotaping female students as they changed clothes was released from jail this morning after posting $600,000 bail, San Mateo County Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said today.
…The Police Department reported that it believes Sato snuck a video camera into a room or office and taped girls dressing and undressing.
Sato also reportedly used his position as a teacher to direct the girls to change in whichever room the video camera was located.
Marsha Runnels, vice president of the Central Middle School Parent Teacher Association, said her daughter, a student at the school, had heard other students talking about there being a video camera in the locker room before Christmas break.
“I just basically think it’s pretty shocking,” Runnels said. “You never expect it at your own home school.”
You don’t? You haven’t been paying attention.
Filed on at 5:21 am under by dcobranchi
Even for parents it seems sometimes IAATM:
Brenner’s paper advocated for reopening the school based on two statistics. First, district enrollment is not down, but has actually risen from 4,412 students in 2004 to 4,422 in September 2005, he said. That number includes 31 more first-grade students than the previous year, Brenner added.
… The enrollment figures include special education and home-schooled students, but Brenner contends they need to be considered part of the whole, especially when they earn the district further state aid.
Kenny-boy would be proud.
Filed on at 5:13 am under by dcobranchi
I just love ‘grafs like this:
The Orange County Academy will be a charter school for home schooling families. Children will attend classes in school two full days a week and home school the remaining three days. Classes will be taught by credentialed teachers.
Even in CA (which has the most confusing homeschooling laws in the country) I don’t think this qualifies as homeschooling.
Filed on at 5:07 am under by dcobranchi
On home education:
My favourite lesson is ICT which I had to teach my parents at first and now it is fun learning together.”
Amy, Isle of Wight
Filed on January 4, 2006 at 12:13 pm under by dcobranchi
Chris is the President for Life. Sanity rules!
Filed on at 6:51 am under by dcobranchi
From EPOD.
Filed on at 6:40 am under by dcobranchi
Doonesbury riffed on creationists/IDists this past Sunday. Pretty funny if you’re not a creationist. And, before any creationists get all wound up, I know the difference between micro- and macro- evolution. Truth be told, there is none. The exact same mechanism guides both. (Tip credit: Chris)
Filed on at 6:18 am under by dcobranchi
The Charlotte Observer asked for feedback on what problems their readers thought most pressing. I’ll highlight two responses:
Haley Price, 19, Appalachian State University, Boone: As an education major, I obviously feel that the most pressing issue in America is the lack of substantial growth in the public school system. I think that the idea engraved in No Child Left Behind is noble, but the way in which the government has gown about it is doing nothing but pushing good teachers out and making young people less that eager to join the education field. As a principle, I think that most people would agree that a more educated society is a better one. How are we expected to solve the currernt world problems and make them better for future generations when the future generation that we are growing are not even literate? Where is the logic in sending young boys and girls to fight overseas when they don’t even know the geographical location of the country they are being sent to. Educaton and the problems therein should definatly be a top priority for the American people and it’s government.
That ‘graf is absolutely horrible. Not even fisk-worthy.
And then…
Dane Keil, 14, home-schooled, Charlotte: While it may not be the nation’s top priority, finding alternate sources of energy is a very important issue. If we had homes, cars, and businesses that ran on electricity generated from wind, solar, and hydroelectric power, we would have less dependency on foreign oil. One area to consider for development is electric power generated by the tides. A tidal generator works on the natural movement of the ocean, thereby providing a virtually inexhaustible energy source.
It’s a sad but unsurprising commentary on our schools that a 14-year-old HEK can write a more literate and cogent paragraph than a 19-year-old education major.
UPDATE: A Bonus Letter courtesy of the Wilmington News-Journal:
Students should know about intelligent designers
As a future teacher, I will be sure to inform my students of intelligence designs created by Thomas Edison regarding the use of electricity, and Alexander Graham Bell with the invention of the telephone.
I will also be sure to include the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s blueprint for a peaceful nation in his “I Have a Dream” speech, as well as Mahatma Ghandi’s peace movement in India. I will also discuss the two intelligently written documents that are the foundation to this country, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
And I will be sure to include some designs that were not so intelligently drawn up: the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind law and the handling of the conflict in Iraq.
Stuart Wilkie, Wilmington
Filed on at 6:06 am under by dcobranchi
Wear glasses while blogging. I read “possibilities” as “prostitutes.”
An Introduction to the Overton Window of Political Possibilities
Is my cynicism showing?
Filed on January 3, 2006 at 10:16 pm under by dcobranchi
This is from another site. Read below and play along if you feel like it.
**********************************
There is a game known as ‘6 Degrees of Separation’ (from Kevin Bacon – no relation to the best of my knowledge). The way the game works is to try to connect 2 famous people via 6 associations. We have been watching the blogsphere for the last year or so and believe that nearly all blogging homeschoolers will hear about important news items, etc. within 3 days of the first mention in a HS blog.
This experiment will work as follows:
1- If this is the first blog in which you have seen this post and you would like to contribute to the experiment, copy the entire post and post it in your blog.
2- Modify the post to add a link to your blog which displays the appropriate degree you are from the original in the following list:
{original, first degree, second degree, third degree, fourth degree, fifth degree, sixth degree}
That way, visitors can directly see the chain of communication that ended with this post in your blog.
3- Leave a comment in the blog where you first viewed this post indicating that your blog is among the next degree.
4- If you are a homeschooler or are interested in/considering homeschooling and either do not have a blog, would prefer not to blog this or the sixth degree is already taken, you can still contribute to this experiment by leaving a comment in the blog where you first read it.
5- After 3 days report back how many people read, commented and blogged based on your post to the blog where you first read this. (They only report this blog would receive is from the degree below and this blog will report the total from below and comments here to the degree above.) To illustrate how this would work let’s suppose that in this imaginary example every blog has approximately the same number of readers and that each blog entry for each degree ends up with exactly the same number of comments.
Let’s say that each blog would receive 2 comments where the experiment was posted and 2 comments from non-bloggers. This would produce the following:
original: 2 + 2 = 4
first: ( 2 * 2 ) + 2 = 6
second: ( 2 * 4 ) + 2 = 10
third: ( 2 * 8 ) + 2 = 18
fourth: ( 2 * 16 ) + 2 = 34
fifth: ( 2 * 32 ) + 2 = 66
sixth: ( 2 * 64 ) + 2 = 130
That totals 268. If you change the number of experiment posts to 3, the result is ( 5 + 11 + 29 + 83 + 245 + 731 + 2189 = ) 3293. Consider what the number would be when we average about 60 readers a day. (Welcome to math 101) Let’s allow a week for the reporting to roll back through the earlier degrees.
Filed on at 8:44 pm under by dcobranchi
(Just kidding, Scott)
I’ve had my fair share of disagreements with HSLDA. This time, they got it right. Kudos to Klicka et al. (although the teaching certificate bit left me cold.)
Filed on at 9:26 am under by dcobranchi
American Girl’s newest doll, Jess, is sort-of an HEK.
With her first step off the airplane and into bright tropical sunlight, Jess McConnell begins an adventure. She and her parents are spending five months at an archeological dig of ancient Maya ruins in the Central American country of Belize. It’s Jess’s first time out of the United States. It’s her first time being home-schooled. And it’s her first trip without her older brother and sister to keep her company. But Jess is excited to explore a new place all on her own. She’s ready for adventure and anxious to discover just who Jess is. Paperback. 136 pages.
I wonder if this is in response to the (non) controversy from a while back.
Filed on at 6:06 am under by dcobranchi
The inaugural Carnival of Homeschooling is up over at the Cates’ place. Lots of good links. Henry’s pretty funny, too. I’ll be hosting it later this month. Looks like the bar has been set way high.
Filed on January 2, 2006 at 12:58 am under by dcobranchi
I don’t care if he is only 17.
Rudy Takala, guest writer at the conservative/Christian TheRealityCheck.org needs to review his lessons in framing an argument. The former HEK is all up in arms about the Dover decision– it’s unconstitutional, anti-Christian, blah, blah, blah. All the typical right-wing/fundie talking points. And then he destroys his own argument:
The Constitution was conceived to protect all Americans against the agendas of any who would use the government in advancing their own personal interests or beliefs. Because humans tend to be alike in their penchant for exploiting power, the means to that end was a limitation on power. The solution was not suppressing particular groups in society.
Exactly. The Constitution was designed to protect from the tyranny of the majority. Like, say, a fundamentalist Christian school board dictating to biology teachers that they must read a statement in class that evolution was suspect and that the students, some of whom might not be fundamentalists/creationists, might want to consider the new and improved creationism, Intelligent Design. After all, 2000 years ago a man died on a cross. Can’t someone on the Dover school board take a stand for Him?
The issues in Kitzmiller are very simple. The Dover board was on public record wanting to teach creationism in the schools. They thought that ID was the way to do that. The Court said no. That’s the real reality check.
Filed on January 1, 2006 at 10:11 am under by Tim Haas
I sure hope this is another case of reporter incompetence:
Many students interested in Sudbury are homeschooled children who want the social opportunities of a school but not the traditional structure, Callen said. Organizers hope to have 33 students for the fall.
An interesting difference between homeschooling and starting a private school, Callen said, is the disparity in state supervision.
As a homeschooling parent, she had to present test results and evaluations to the state proving that her daughter was getting a worthwhile education. But private schools, unless they are accredited, have no such requirements to the state, she said.
Otherwise, Ms. Callen just managed to hand opponents of home education and private schooling alike a full clip of ammo.
Filed on at 7:12 am under by dcobranchi
The Earth Science Picture of the Day is off to a great start for 2006. Today’s hi res version of Yosemite makes a very nice desktop.
Filed on at 7:10 am under by dcobranchi
The best way to ring in the new year. (Quicktime movie)
Filed on at 6:48 am under by dcobranchi
The politically conservative blog GOP3.com has a rather longish post up on home education. It’s mostly on target, but this bit caused me to drop a comment:
So how is the government and the teachers unions battling this threat? By fighting school choice and vouchers tooth and nail. If you can restrict a parents access to funds you can force them to use the only system they can afford. I hope and pray that school choice will become more of an issue in the upcoming election and that the amazingly successful programs that exist in this state are extended and expanded. [emphasis in the original]
Non-sequitur, of course.
And, as a bonus, I’m going to provide a link to the post that directed me to GOP3. The post itself is a little nothing throwaway (like what I do here all the time). The comments, OTOH, are epic. Grab a pot of coffee and set a spell.
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