Utterly Meaningless

Thanks, Daryl. In my state, it is not discriminatory. Therefore, since the result is the same, I had questions about MA and whether it is actually discriminatory. What keeps it from being discriminatory in my state is that the law is the same for private, public and hs students transferring. I can imagine that you are right, I’d just like to see their policy for private and public school students transferring.

Then why don’t you go check on that. And let us know what you find out. Provide a link.

Otherwise, there’s no point to just repeating that things are different in your state.

Nance

Granted, dealing with a student who has been home-schooled for some time presents an “unknown quantity” to school administrators.

We certainly wouldn’t want the highly paid, highly educated school administrators to actually have to think on the job. It’s much better if they just consult the rule book and apply it unthinkingly across the board.

What a bunch of clowns.

All I can do is ask, which I have done. I’m not really interested in just my state or MA specifics per se, I’m interested in the general issue as it relates or not to homeschool activism.

Agree with Chris. My political bible explains this unthinking government mindset in great detail, and prophesizes the end of the world if we don’t overcome it.
(Not just the HE world — our whole world-world!)

in my state, the kids take a placement test if they choose to go back to school. No brainer. Esp’ly as that one girl had already passed the 10th grade MCAS test.

It doesn’t really matter to me if its discriminatory (which it is) – it would be just as stupid applied to a privately schooled or transfer student. Dare we think that all Worcester MA high school students, who have been government educated for their schooling career, all perform at grade level?

I have to wonder what, precisely, made anyone decide that uniformly calling any group of transfers “9th graders” would do. I mean, why not arbitrarily send them back to kindgergarten? Why not 7th grade? Why not 10th grade? If the grades have nothing to do with age (they can’t, after all, since older students are going to be put with the 9th graders) and they have nothing to do with what a child actually knows (they can’t, after all, since children who’ve tested several courses ahead are forced to repeat standardized 9th grade courses) then what, exactly, are grade levels for?

It really looks like this was a rule put in place to deal with something extremely specific (I bet it was a family or two that held kids at home just till they were 13 or 14 years old; the rule put in place to avoid having to burden a bunch of teachers just for a few kids, and having the kids be in 9th grade math, remdial science, and 12th grade literature at the same time.) Especially if this rule dates back more than about 20 years — relatively small school system, early days of homeschooling, placement testing still a relatively new concept… Considering what a nightmare it was trying to transfer from a gifted program in California to a small district in Michigan (I was tested, but by the time custody transferred to my mom she’d decided to switch to homeschooling) I wouldn’t be surprised to find relic regulations like this in many places.

The odd thing is that they’re sticking with it, though. Again, it’s obviously inefficient and more than a little bizarre, since it works against the district’s interests (assuming they want the enrollment boost.)

There was a case in California, many years ago, of a boy genius who’d completed college at an age when the average teenager is still in high school. Since he wasn’t yet of “drop out” age, the State of California made him enroll in school. Yes, even though he had a college degree. (Does California still do that? I don’t know.)

Idiot laws regarding schooling (rather than “education”) are, I think, more common than not.

New Jersey Homeschool Association had a case recently where a family transferred to Michigan, and were told that their son would have to enter school at a lower grade level **unless** his year of homeschooling could be “certified.”

Now, no one in this state “certifies” homeschoolers, nor are any other than public schools required to be certified. (With the exception of those accepting district-paid special needs students, but that’s irrelevant in this case.)

Fortunately, the problem was resolved, as the school principals make the determination, and this boy was accepted into the correct grade, with the stipulation that he’d take mid-term tests to determine if he’d remain in that track.

This situation would have been the same if he’d attended a non-certified school. However, this is not codified in that State’s law; it’s merely “customary”, and dependes on the attitude of the individual in charge of the school.

Here in NJ, it’s entirely up to each school to make a determination on a student entering high school. Since so few homeschoolers do enter a public school after starting high school at home, we’re not yet able to see any trends here.

Our central Texas high schools have the same rule, and it’s definitely not aimed at homeschoolers; when I transferred from a British secondary school in 1983, the school administration tried to make me start in 9th grade. My mom fought, and after weeks of delay I was put in the proper grade; but I was still required to also take some 9th-grade classes (to “catch me up”). Bordeom nearly killed me.

An age peer had a worse time, having transferred from a school in India, which the administration concluded must mean (a) he had attended some sort of dirt-floored third-world school in a shack (having apparently never heard ot the excellent Indian school system), and (b) he would need ESOL testing (though English was a native language for him). His parents fought like tigers to have him put at the correct level; a task made even harder by his having been advanced a year already.

The problem in both cases was not a hatred of foreign schools, but an unshakable assumption that no other country’s schools could be as good as an American high school. I think it must be the same reasoning going on concerning homeschoolers.

Here’s how I see it – discrimination that unjustifiably disadvantages former or current homeschoolers doesn’t have to be aimed against HEKs specifically, or against any group at all. De facto discrimination can be like s**t — it just happens.

It can be impermissable discrimination to FAVOR some equals over others — those who live in certain areas, fall into certain defined demographics, those already known personally and therefore preferred (a sort of good old boys club, legacy or nepotism placement) or as in this case, unjustifiable skew a supposedly neutral benefit in favor of those who “got there first” like some form of squatters’ rights.

I see no “reasoning” in the public schools not providing the appropriate level of education to each individual student who enrolls, and great potential to harm home education if we roll over for being treated as anything other than equals.

Racism is a form of discrimination that can disadvantage homeschoolers. Does that make racism a “homeschool issue”?

Annette’s point that across-the-board discrimination is not a homeschooling issue is worthy of discussion, but it got her trashed. In fact, many homeschool advocates favor a narrow focus that concentrates on issues that are homeschool-specific.

If you believe otherwise, fine.

But — tell me what you see as the solution(s) to this problem in those locations where incoming transfer students (not only homeschoolers) are not given automatic placement into the grade level they claim as correct?

(I’ll be offline a few days while my dh gets married.)

What has Annette found out about whether this applies only to homeschoolers?

Nance

Annette has just found out from one hser (from MHLA yahoogroup) who thinks this is the case with private school students::
(not word for word from poster since I didn’t obtain permission to forward)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The guidance counselor compares courses and assigns credits where appropriate towards high school graduation.
immigrant students from non-accredited schools are given tests
to transfer into the school system, assigned credits for prior
coursework. No transfer procedure for hsers. Just a procedural call on the by Superintendent’s and a footnote at the bottom of the
approval form.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It probably is discriminatory. I think the way that it is being handled in MA sounds appropriate. It looks like they are putting some pressure on to have the policy looked at and hopefully changed. I hope that happens.

Nancy understands where I’m coming from. That was my point: these types of situations shouldn’t be (imho) looked at across the board as being discriminatory. It certainly wouldn’t work in my state and very well could backfire on hsers. Homeschool transfers here were way different not that long ago. Now learning standards are tied into the diploma.

I found some reassurance for my perspective searching thru the HEM archives:
Don’t Let Credentials Get You Down
homeed...h.html

I said “here’s how I see it” and proceeded to say how I saw it.
Nothing to or about Annette, or her point or perspective.

But now that yet another thread is back to how Annette sees this picture, anyway — in stark black and white, big surprise– I find my interest diverted by whether I’d be willing to give up a weekend for my dh to marry! 🙂

I don’t see a problem with your posts about this.
I was interested in how others (including you) see it.
Considering that I wasn’t feeling very good about commenting here anymore, it had nothing to do with you. I figured I should have taken the subject I wanted to discuss as it related to the initial blog post over to HEM-Networking to see if I could drum up some general discussion about hs activism and public schooling.

IIn our case, “HS activism and PS” meant getting that joint task force (study group) of school administrators and homeschool parents, toconsidert all high school issues. Placement problems including princiapl prejudice, ignorance and overcaution, but also partttime participation issues, adminsitrative inconvenience as an excuse, etc.

(I was far from having a high-school aged child then, but I was pretty fresh from PS policy work so I was recruited as part of it.)

How to address the schoolfolks’ concern to maintain standards and be able to teach the class at a high enough level without being bogged down by students without the proper background in that subject was a recurrent theme. They kept saying that surely we didn’t want HS kids to be in a situation where they wouldn’t “succeed.”

Then a lot of study, talking, venting,going back to our own groups for more input, etc. We investigated what similar distiricts did. A fairly respectful relationship was established over several lunch work sessions, that did indeed lead to someting better for kids. Probably this can’t happen when some parties have an agenda other than that, but generally schoolfolk here do want to make things work for kids and families, rather than just be problem children themselves! :).

Should it go without saying, that the way we “addressed” their concerns about not getting bogged down by HE kids unprepared for success, was to point out the staggering failure rates for their own existing student body of kids matriculating through fulltime PS right there?
Adding it anyway, just in case….

And where do you think I came up with my discrimination speech?? 🙂

I’m going to be collecting info on how different states’ public schools tend to handle homeschool transfers so that I can post it at the board: homesc...ex.php

It won’t be an exhaustive list by any means, but it might offer a picture into what some of the national scene is like when it comes to this issue.

There’s state law, then there’s a different street reality in each district or even school to school — what we found anyway. A lot of this is unquantifiable, unprosecutable attitude, each adminsitrator’s receptivity or recalcitrance.

Well, I started the list. Now, I’ll have to round up some help from around the country. 🙂

When the Homeschooled Enter Public High School:
keepin...p?f=14

I’d like to know if there’s a difference in the handling of home ed student transfers into high school in states that have some sort of “credentialing” or other regulation of home ed students and non-public school students.

New Jersey has neither, and transfers are handled acording to the individual district policies, or (since many districts have no written policy) the dictates of individual administrators.

(And no, dh didn’t get married. Dd got married. My brain cells are starting to recover.)

And no, dh didn’t get married. Dd got married. My brain cells are starting to recover.

Mazeltov. I was wondering but learned years ago not to make assumptions nor ask questions about other folks’ family relationships. Way too complicated.