More stuff from my Brian’s EDUCATION Blog beat that deserves the Samizdata treatment.
Daryl Cobranchi picks up on a “state repression of home-schoolers” story. Here are the first two paragraphs of it:
A public school superintendent has sent police in squad cars to the houses of homeschooling families to deliver his demand that they appear for a “pre-trial hearing” to prove they are in compliance with the law.
Bruce Dennison, regional superintendent of schools in Bureau, Stark, and Henry counties in Northeastern Illinois, has contacted more than 22 families, insisting that they need his approval to conduct education at home.
Dennison is, legally speaking, quite wrong, or so something called the Home School Legal Defense Association argues (see their Nov 13 2002 story). Sadly, these days, something can be wrong, legally speaking, but still be true, factually speaking.
Nevertheless, for what it’s worth (and I hope it helps the home-schoolers of Illinois), Regional Superintendent of Schools Bruce Dennison, you are now also being denounced on the other side of the Atlantic.
Let’s hope those families weren’t caught home-schooling on video tape!
Why is the assumption always that as the children are not in school they are therefore somehow missing out on something and the parents should be chased through the courts.
If you were to ask me who would be more responsible for a child’s education, the parents or the state I would have said the answer was obvious!
This is a fight that is going to be getting more commonplace as more and more people take their children out of the failing state education system.
How government can then say “We failed your children but we are not going to let you save them.” is ridiculous.
When are people going to start taking the government to court for failing in their duty to educate thereby falling foul of their own ridiculous legal position.
Harrumph!!
Nothing like sending a squad car to someone’s house to show who’s boss!
Simply put, this is outrageous. Where does Bruce Dennison get off with the idea that he personally needs to sign off on every child who home schools?? He sounds like someone who simply has a passion for power. And I just LOVE how we communicates! It’s a combination of the airs of a “reasonable” bureaucrat and straight forward bullying. Amazing.
Poor Bruce Dennison. The Home School Legal Defense [HSLDA}will shred him {legally, of course}.
This is America, where there are always two ways to play the game. For aprox $100/year, Home Schoolers get their own sharks as defense. Like fine insurance, but against the odds of government attack.
HSLDA are A-team specialists, with a great track record. Libertarians will enjoy reading HSLDA’s monthly magazine, recording their victories over the Mommy State.
It has been my position, as an observer (married to a”special-ed” teacher) to note the performance of home schooled children… invariably superior to public eduation. Apparently parents who teach their children at home are better able to understand societies realities than those who let someone else teach their children. I have nothing against public school teachers, they are vastly underpaid and get no respect at all in this country (USA), however the strident persecution of intelligent parents trying to help their children is inexcusable.
That’s fairly close to where I live. If I remember it right, Illinois law requires children to attend public or private schools, and the state supreme court ruled that home schools are private schools. So they haven’t got a legal leg to stand on.
BTW, there’s more coverage at the Illinois Leader.
I’d seen the stories on the front page, but I just now saw from the introduction to that part of the archives I was right about the state law.
Thanks for the link to this article. Interestingly enough, I have a sister who lives in Geneseo, IL who also home schools her children. I have not heard from her any of these sort of tactics yet, but I will try and stay on top of it from her end and keep you all informed about anything I hear.
I do know tho in Geneseo they have a very good network of home schoolers that they work with, with weekly gatherings of the kids and parents, and they all support one another a great deal.
I’m also giving her the information I’ve found here from HSLDA, as well as the news reports, in case she has yet to see or hear of them.
Oh, and also a link to samizdata.net =)
Nice to see something so close to home is being spotted over the pond.
Not to repeat myself, but the big story here is not another government intrusion. It’s HSLDA, a powerful self-defense league.
This could be like the rise of medival cities, breaking free of local warlords and feudal constraints.
A suggestion: Libertarians should cherish signs of effective resistance, not just chronicle government oppression and stupidity.
Larry, I couldn’t agree more.
My wife and I have home-schooled our son for over three years now, and the difference in his attitude and achievement has been impressive.
Generally, the Publik Skool Establishmunt has either ignored home-schoolers, viewing them as an irrelevant fringe, or has correctly perceived the threat that they pose to their hedgemony and have lashed out, often quite viciously. Usually, they get their knuckles rapped by the courts, which will probably be the result in Illinois.
The rapid growth of the internet and the world wide web has facilitated the corresponding expansion of home schooling. Fortunately, there is nothing the educrats can do to stop either.
Kevin
Yes, but when the children are home-schooled, their teachers haven’t been through the proper 4 years of boredom training! How else can these children be properly bored out of their minds?
I was a student of public primary schools in Illinois, and the term “teacher” is largely a misnomer. “Glorified baby-sitter”* might be better, but if fails to convey how they can suck the life out of even the most interesting subject. I remember getting in trouble for reading a calculus book in my 8th grade pre-algebra class. I wasn’t paying attention to the lesson, and this bothered the teacher for some reason. She was far too dim to realize the reason that I wasn’t paying attention, or perhaps she didn’t care. Order must be adhered to, you know.
* Yes, I know there are some good teachers out there. But I had three of them in 13 years of public school, so I think my statement is pretty fair and balanced.
Only true Libertarians must read Samizdata! Most discussions at this point would have raised the question how home schooled kids get “socialized.”
The answer is, of course, fortunately they don’t.
Only true Libertarians must read Samizdata! Most discussions at this point would have raised the question how home schooled kids get “socialized.”
The answer is, of course, fortunately they don’t.
Ouch! And way funny. Unfortunately, Larry is all too correct in his assessment of the “S”-word issue. Many times it seems as if all educrats and other HS critics attended the same anti-HSing seminar. Invariably, they raise “socialization” as a drawback to HSing, when compared to public schooling. Of course, it is a false comparison for multiple reasons but my top three would be:
1) The public schools’ primary mission should be to impart knowledge. Until they get that right, socialization, diversity, self-esteem, etc., should take a back burner.
2) Exactly what kind of socialization are they kids in public schools getting today? I see rapes (by students and teachers), shootings(by students and teachers), drug use (by students and teachers). Is this really how we would choose to socialize our kids, given a choice?
3) My kids get more than enough interaction with other children, thank you very much. In a typical week my daughter has karate (twice), gym at the “Y”, ballet (twice), co-op science and history classes, church choir, and gymnastics. I don’t think we could squeeze in any more socialization.
Besides, I went through loads of public school, and I’m still hopeless when it comes to social situations. Gaining social skills is quite important, but public school is as impotent at imparting them as it is at imparting knowledge. When it happens, it happens because children are generally social animals, and when they’re put with other children, social interactions take place. That sure is a good argument in favor of putting your child into a rotten environment where (s)he will be bored out of her / his mind!
I shouldn’t say “as impotent.” Public schools generally give time and effort to encouraging interactions among children. On the other hand, in my experience, they were openly hostile to the gaining of knowledge. I was frequently harassed and asked to stop reading in class (the above example is only the most ridiculous).
Update from my sister in Geneseo, IL.
“Thanks-this lady is in our homeschool support group, and I told her not to
let the social worker in her house the first time, that she didn’t have to,
but she went ahead and did it anyway. Now she has quite the situation on
her hands — nothing that she is doing is illegal, but she has Dennison’s
people harassing her. Makes me nervous now that they will come knocking on
other doors in Geneseo…”
So far they haven’t bothered her, but her children are under 7 at this time.
I spent a year as a substitute teacher in northern Illinois in 1998. It was appalling. I was left lesson plans for “baby-sitting” of course (since no one could be sure of the actual qualifications of a sub — I have a PhD and undergrad degrees in math and poli sci). I usually had access to regular lesson plans. They weren’t that much better. Some highschool science classes, some advanced placement courses were pretty good. The rest uniformly were time-fillers. You wouldn’t believe the number of useless movies and videos that are shown in school unless you go and check it out.
Very few students appeared to be being prepared for their adult life in any way, let alone being prepared for college. Regretably, the best students were ignored as much as the worst. I even “taught” various learning disabled courses, and, they weren’t that much different from the normal courses, except the _no one_ was actually expected to produce any work output! Just put in their time and not cause trouble.
It is greatly troubling
Please post more comments, I will visit this site again.