“Interview: Understanding the benefits and challenges of homeschooling” plus 3 more |
- Interview: Understanding the benefits and challenges of homeschooling
- Families gather for 25th anniversary of legalizing homeschooling
- Allegheny first-years dive into Fedora
- Our view: Time for a plan for improvement at Castle Rock
| Interview: Understanding the benefits and challenges of homeschooling Posted: 12 Apr 2010 09:30 AM PDT SACRAMENTO, CA - "Quickest Way to Insanity - Homeschool Your Kids," is a new book by Julie Anderson that is helping families understand the benefits and challenges of homeschooling. Recent cuts in budgets are limiting the funding for public schools and some parents are wondering what other options might be available, including homeschooling. Julie Anderson is a vivacious mom of three boys and talked to News10 Good Morning about how to prepare and make the decision on whether homeschooling is right for your family. Anderson said there were times when homeschooling didn't seem to be working for her family. She said the real key was taking some classes and attending seminars to learn the different behavior characteristics and how to apply teaching methods to cater to those differences. She also talked about how to choose the right curriculum for your child. The book's web site offers testimonials on the book and more details about the author's experience with homeschooling. News10/KXTVFive Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | ||
| Families gather for 25th anniversary of legalizing homeschooling Posted: 12 Apr 2010 09:00 PM PDT
Please wait while the video player loads. If you do not see it in a few seconds, please download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player, or enable JavaScript for your browser to view the video player. Margaret Smith had heard about the yearly homeschool Rally Day in Nashville but had not gone until four years ago when daughter Gretchen and son Jacob were invited to demonstrate a public forum debate at the event. Since then, the Maryville family of nine has made the yearly trek to the state capital. "We truly enjoy hearing all that other homeschoolers are doing and seeing their success as well," says Margaret. "It's also a good time to meet with our various legislators and to have them get to know us." Started as a means to connect homeschool families with the legislators who serve them, Rally Day was established 25 years ago in the midst of a political debate that would ultimately determine the legality of homeschooling in Tennessee. "Five families were being prosecuted for homeschooling," remembers Claiborne Thornton, president of the Tennessee Home Education Association (THEA). "Some were charged with truancy, while others with child abuse and neglect," he adds. Two of the judges in those cases determined that the existing compulsory attendance law was "unconstitutionally vague," so in 1984 a joint House/Senate study committee chaired by State Senator Leonard Dunnavant was formed to make recommendations regarding this law as it related to homeschools and private schools. With their parental rights threatened, a newly formed THEA held its first rally in March of 1985 in the cafeteria of the Legislative Plaza. Two hundred people came bringing their curricula, science fair projects and artwork to show their legislators what they were all about. Two months later, their efforts were rewarded when then Gov. Lamar Alexander signed the law officially giving parents the right to homeschool their children in Tennessee. Since that time, Rally Day has become an annual event and has grown significantly over the past 25 years. This year, in late March, several large concert and symphonic bands performed for the crowd of about 1,200 along with an award-winning choir, and harp and violin ensembles. Also, a highlight of the afternoon, finalists in the Student Congress debate competition sponsored by Tennessee's homeschool debate league, Christian Communicators of Tennessee, held their final competition in the Capitol's Senate Chamber before a crowded gallery. But it wasn't just about celebrating the achievements. Families also came to meet and thank the legislators and their staff, serving them a barbecue lunch with all the fixings, as well as delivering gift baskets of cookies to each legislative office in the capitol building. "We get a lot of groups in the capitol every day," says State Representative Bill Dunn, District 16, of Knoxville, "But what is unique with the homeschoolers is that whole families come down to meet with us. They have an agenda, but it's different from other special interest groups; it's simply, 'Let us be a family; let us be involved in our children's lives.' " Dunn says that the Capitol staff are very impressed with the homeschoolers. "It's certainly a great way to dispel the myth that homeschoolers aren't socialized. You see the families interacting with one another and working together, and think, 'I wish more families were involved in their children's lives.' " Heather Duncan is a freelance contributor to the News Sentinel.
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | ||
| Allegheny first-years dive into Fedora Posted: 13 Apr 2010 02:35 AM PDT |
Republicans Turn to Open Source Asterisk
Turn Tonido into a LAMP Server in a Jiffy
How does GPL licensing affect projects that don't involve linking/compiling?
Digging a Little Deeper into TurboHercules/IBM - OpenMainframe.org and Microsoft
Typo3 allows remote command execution via PHP
How Canonical Can Do Ubuntu Right: It Isn't a Technical Problem
Allegheny first-years dive into Fedora
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| Our view: Time for a plan for improvement at Castle Rock Posted: 13 Apr 2010 06:45 AM PDT
| School Board members have a real challenge on their hands when it comes to Castle Rock Charter School. The Del Norte County Office of Education opened Castle Rock to bring more homeschooled children into public education. Thus it was structured around the concept of less class time and more independent study. That approach has attracted other students in search of an alternative to mainstream public school, and Castle Rock's current enrollment is almost 500. Castle Rock has staunch supporters, as evidenced by the turnout of about 150 people at Wednesday's special School Board meeting. Parents and teenagers gave testimonials about how the charter school is keeping students on track to earn high school diplomas when they might otherwise have dropped out. There are myriad reasons why some youths do not succeed in traditional public schools, and every community must supply alternatives. Unlike private charters, Castle Rock is still a public school. It's run by the school district, which receives state money for serving Castle Rock students — funds the district does not receive for students attending private charters or being completely homeschooled. Now, however, the state has placed Castle Rock on a list of under-performing schools that it wants closed or radically restructured. School districts that move quickly are eligible for federal funds to make the changes. Or districts can refuse the funds and take their own approach to fixing problem schools. The latter approach was supported by the vast majority of people who spoke at Wednesday's meeting. Give Castle Rock time to effect its own changes, speakers urged the School Board. Principal Dennis Burns talked about some of the plans already being considered, such as increasing the required classroom time for struggling students while allowing others to continue on a more independent course of study. Accepting federal grant money to institute draconian changes or even close the school doesn't make financial sense, Burns said, because many students would move to private charters, convert to complete homeschooling or simply drop out, costing the district more than it would get from the grants. Castle Rock supporters were assured by Board President Bill Maffett on Wednesday that the school will not be closed. Deciding what will be done is a much more difficult task. It may be tempting for district officials to obsess on the seeming unfairness of a facility like Castle Rock being included on the state's list of under-performing schools. After all, this is an alternative school, and many of the students are already struggling when they arrive. Of course schools like this are likely to have lower results on standardized tests. That doesn't mean, however, that there isn't room for improvement. Castle Rock was already up for renewal of its charter this year, and now the state is waving a red flag. Board members must decide if the school's own proposed plans for reform are sufficient. If they aren't, the board must further decide whether to take federal money and effect radical changes or go it alone and keep the process at the local level. Ultimately they should be guided not by the financial pros or cons of various options, but by the need to do better by our children. There are plenty of excuses available, but Castle Rock needs to show improvement in the measure of accountability that public education has adopted nationwide, and that is standardized testing.
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
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