Under Pennsylvania law, I have to get my family's cars inspected every year. I can't say I enjoy it - especially when my mechanic finds my aging minivan needs an expensive repair - but I accept it. We all share the same roads, so we need to make sure our cars don't endanger other drivers.
So why are some Americans allowed to educate their children without any government inspection at all?
That's the question brewing in New Jersey, where the death of a homeschooled child prompted a recent proposal to mandate annual medical examinations of kids who are educated at home. The measure would also require homeschooling families to submit portfolios of their children's work to demonstrate that they are actually learning.
That's all as it should be. Like our cars, our children don't exist in a vacuum. They're going to drive the same roads and live in the same society as we do. So we all share an interest in what they study, absorb, and know.
That's why most states - including Pennsylvania - require annual portfolios from homeschooled kids. Many also mandate periodic standardized testing or other academic assessments of these children.
http://articles.philly.com/2011-08-04/news/29850849_1_homeschooled-children-horace-mann-common-schoolsObviously this person is pro NCLB for one.
Secondly, my daughter is home schooled and takes the same tests and submits a portfolio herself, and at 10 she is already well ahead of the kids here in the local public schools (NOT blaming the schools themselves here, and I work with teachers each and everyday and I am not blaming them. I went to these same schools when I was a kid and got a good education - but back then the curriculum was up to the teachers and local schools, and whether or not you passed was not based on some federal test).
How is it that I went to school in the 70's/80's and learned a lot and we all did so well without all of this new 'standardized' testing? Different kids learn at different levels and they are not all just some machines that need to be fed code.
We had art, wood class, science, math, literature, and it was all handled by the teachers - there was no 'teaching to a test' - and while my daughter does have to take some tests her education is not geared to passing it or common core state standards.
The right HATED the idea of OBE (outcome based education) in the 90's, and then when bush got into office they were all for it (and then democrats were against it).
Is it any wonder why some want to just home school their kids and get them out of the cross fire and actually focus on education? Oh I know, there are some parents who do it because they are fudies, kids don't get 'social' interaction (like my neighbor's daughter 3 doors down who is now pregnant at 14 from a boy the same age from her school - she got plenty of social interaction), etc.
If you like your school and your kid is happy - fine. If you like Apple over Windows, fine with me. If you live in a big city and can take a train to work versus driving, I am cool with that too.
America USED to be called a melting pot, and we (hippies/liberals) fought against trying to make us all exactly the same.
Some though just want us to all be another brick in the wall.
Me, and those I know, we are happy to be different and part of what the real America we grew up with was all about (or, better, what we HOPED it would be all about) - Diversity, choice, freedom, and a true melting pot of cultures and ideals.
That, to me, is what really being progressive and liberal is/was all about.
The chance and choice to be different.
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