WHAT WORKS IN EDUCATION The George Lucas Educational Foundation
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We share evidence-based K-12 learning strategies that empower you to improve education.
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as long as they meet the standards for graduation
NO! but they must meet the grade level standards and high school graduation requirements if they want some sort of diploma! There is a standard that students must meet to be defined as educating them. There is NO reason to require a credential!!!
Parents Prove You're better - Test Your Kids
I believe that if parents believe that they know better how to teach than professional people who have been trained to teach, then they should welcome the opportunity to compare their skills against those of the professionals. So their children should be included in the no child left behind requirements of being tested every year from grades 3 - 8. If their children are at or above the state standards, they have no worries. If not, then they should get out of their kids way and send them to school.
You cannot "ace" an ACT or an SAT test. You receive a numerical score. To "ace" either of these would mean that the students received a perfect score, which has a .1% chance of happening. I highly doubt that "everyone" you know received perfect scores, given that statistic.
Families need support and
Families need support and opportunities for themselves to prep for certain subjects and validate their expertise. They don't necessarily need a traditional teaching certificate.
Return to Classical education
Unfortunately, much of the middle school through high school years in public schools is focused on WHAT to think. The reason many homeschooler's and private school students do so well in college and on standardized tests is they have not abandoned an education model that has taken millennia to develop--Aristotle's Trivium aka Classical Education. Sure it doesn't focus on the sciences, but it gives them the skills to think through the scientific issues--which is one reason why those who are classically educated do well on the math/science portion of tests and in college.
I would be more than happy to stand behind the public school systems of this land if they would humble themselves and admit that the dismantling, over the last 50 years or so, of a proven model that took millennia to develop was wrong and seek to return to it. Until that is so, my children will be private schooled or home schooled. I want no one, including myself, teaching them WHAT to think. I want someone teaching them HOW to think! Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric are foundation of thinking and communication and should be used as the main phases of education! First, facts of the different fields united by placing those facts in their historical context (Grammar phase), then the synthesizing of those facts into ideas and arguments (Logic phase), and finally the the verbal and written propagation and defense of those theories and arguments (Rhetoric phase). If you simply teach a child how to think instead of what to think, the sciences and maths will come easy!
Mark Bahr, MA
Professor of New Testament and Greek
Southern Bible Institute
Before you set out to teach your children, educate yourself
"Dissagreed" is bad spelling for "disagreed". I am in full support of requiring a certification for parents who set out to home-school their children. Good intentions are not enough, in fact, they pave the proverbial "road to hell". It is significant that a very high percentage of home-schooling parents do not have a college degree, while public (and private) school teacher are required to have multiple certifications. Lack of competence and education on part of the parent will insure that any benefits associated with home-schooling will be annihilated by faulty teaching.
Spelling
To B. Taylor: "Rediculous" should be spelled "ridiculous". Enough said.
I couldn't agree more with
I couldn't agree more with your comments. We have just started homeschooling our 14 year old daughter due to many issues including poor grades, peer pressure, teachers teaching for tests instead of educating, etc, etc, etc.
Our daughter seems to like the one on one much better than sitting in a classrom with 30-40 other students. The atmosphere alone is enough to distract a child.
We will continue this route until we feel that she is able to excel in the school system again. Who knows, maybe she will complete school with homeschooling!
We use a public charter, but
We use a public charter, but we homeschool. If that makes sense?? We teach, plan, prepare, choose, etc., but we have a credentialed teacher visit one time per month as an overseer/mentor, who is responsible for keeping track of our boys' education. I am responsible for facilitating IT ALL. My husband helps when he can, he's at work all day so I can be home with the boys, so that's how it has to be.
We receive funds and are able to use them where and when we see fit, but we are required to show proof of their progress via star testing, samples, photos, etc. Our children are learning a variety of subjects that meet state standards and have the opportunity to experience horseback riding, pottery, karate, music and art lessons, to mention a few) almost on a daily basis. I would imagine if my children were to be enrolled in PS now (my oldest went to PS for 2 years) that they may be somewhat behind in certain areas but ahead in others. We do the absolute best that we can to love and educate our children and expose them to what the world has to offer and in my opinion that cannot be accomplished in a classroom. Life is not a simulated classroom. We are Christians, but do not homeschool for that reason. We do it because it is the most interesting way to learn and live. We have all been exposed to things that have made our lives so much more fun and exciting. That's my 2 cents.
I am a homeschooled student
I am a homeschooled student right now. I'm a high school senior, and homeschooling has been the best thing possible for me. The nearby private school that I attended for one year in my ninth grade year was so un-challenging that I made the 3rd highest grades in the entire high school in my ninth grade year. The public school is even worse.
I understand that some parents homeschool their children simply so that they don't feel like they have to do anything, but that is very uncommon.
My mother is not a certified teacher, but when compared with private schooled students in my area, I excelled greatly! Also, there are other areas of education besides book-learning (which a majority of homeschoolers excel in), such as social and logic skills. Lots of people think homeschoolers are unsocial, but studied have shown that children who spend all their time with other children build a dependence on peers rather than their parents. I am not unsocial in the least; I am very comfortable around people my age, younger than me, and older than me. I can strike up a conversation with a high schooler, or with that high schooler's parent or even grandparent without batting an eye.
Of course there should be certain state involvements. Testing, making sure the student gets in enough days of school, etc. But taking the right away, especially when homeschooling has been proven to be so effective, would look like (notice I said *look like*...this is my *opinion*) the government is simply trying to keep parents from being able to teach their children anything that might disagree with them.