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Archived June 23, 2009
The Associated Press The Herald News
Excerpts: When hard times reached the Schneider household in central Oregon, the longtime stay-at-home mom took action - getting a job at Subway to offset a drop in her husband's earnings. What she didn't do was also notable: She didn't stop homeschooling her three teenage children.
"I would fight tooth and nail to homeschool," said Schneider, 47, a devout Roman Catholic who wants to convey her values to her children. "I'm making it work because it's my absolute priority."
"Homeschoolers are pretty self-reliant," said Judy Aron of West Hartford, Conn., who has homeschooled three children. "They'd rather cut back on other things. ...They very vehemently don't want to see themselves as victims."
"During difficult times, people tend to go back to basics," Marcucci said. "I know a family with five children - the father's been out of work 18 months and they're still homeschooling."
So here's something to think about. What if we could demonstrate that saying goodbye to statist education would save the public profound amounts of money—and produce a more educated public at the same time? What if we could make that demonstration in a manner that was palatable to the huge public-education bureaucracy?
Trend to go home for school is on the rise across Indiana, nation Stay-at-home scholars By Tara Hettinger NewsandTribune.com Posted January 10, 2009
Two families share their homeschooling experiences, professor takes issue with homeschool studies, but...
Professor Robert Kunzman of Indiana University makes the interesting comment that current comparisons of homeschoolers and institutionally schooled children are not valid because an inadequate cross-section of homeschoolers is studied. "What we find with home schooling is that there is no typical home schooler. It's as varied as a public school student profile would be,” says Professor Kunzman.
This is where the professor makes a mistake in his assessment of the situation. As a rule, the overwhelming majority of homeschooling parents have made conscious decisions about how their children will be educated, whereas a large percentage of public school parents have taken the default route expected by society -- without ever having been presented with an alternative possibility.
We are working to reach parents with the alternatives and the reasons and confidence to choose them.
by Tammy Drennan, Alliance Senior Writer
But what if he had not been able to play for a public high school? What conviction would have won out in his parents' minds -- the one that said homeschooling was best for their son or the one that said this talented kid should get a shot at the pros, even if it meant compromising his education for life?
Here's what Tim's dad said about his decision regarding his children's education: "None of them would have played [football],” Tebow’s father once told the Florida Times-Union. "We weren’t going to back off our commitment to homeschooling just to go play football somewhere.”
Unfortunately, the talented and admirable Tim Tebow has lent his name to an effort to force public schools to allow homeschoolers to play on their teams.
Rather than demand that they be permitted to become part of the government system, maybe these homeschool parents could join the movement toward more freedom that was featured in The Wall Street Journal's article on "Do-it-Yourself Athletic Scholarships," something that would be much more in the spirit of homeschooling and would set an excellent example for their children.
The safety of our freedom lies in moving away from state schooling, not toward it. The opportunities for doing just that in every area grow by the year. By exercising our independence and creativity, we secure our liberty and our children’s future.
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