But there are other ways in which the community revolves around the public school system. Every year in September the major churches get together in the high school auditorium for an interfaith evening of prayer on behalf of the town’s students and teachers. I don’t have actual figures in front of me, but in the sixteen years I have lived here I only remember two school levies failing, both just last year, in the midst of a pretty harsh recession. Even when our test scores fall way behind those of neighboring school districts with similar demographics, citizen polls indicate high approval of its public schools. And yet, I have heard – again no hard data – that 40% of our county’s children are homeschooled, and enrollment in our town has been on the decline for years. There is a discrepency here that I can't quite wrap my head around.
In this article I want to encourage all those who, like me, ask themselves every year, “Is homeschooling really the best way to educate my kids?” Well, whether or not it is, the alternative of public school for entire regions of children would still constitute an educational downgrade, and in many cases private schools are not far behind in failing to educate their students.
I have been recently paying very much attention to our local public school system. I’ve attended some school board meetings, talked with board members and board director candidates one on one, followed online forum threads between teachers and parents, and engaged in long conversations with educational experts and administrators. Most of them don’t know that I am on the outside looking in, and often I wonder why I bother. Usually, when the conversations are over I thank my Lord that I was given the courage and resources to break away from the quagmire this system is. Aside from one ridiculously The only thing everyone agrees on is that there is a problem. And no one wants to find the reasons before coming up with a solution. Now I ask you – how do you fix something about which you are afraid to determine the cause of the failure? Loosing water pressure in a leaky pipe? “Well, goodness sakes, don’t blame the rusty joints – just fix it! Run more water through the pipe at a faster rate!” But wouldn’t it make more sense to replace or repair the joints? With plumbing, though, there are no jobs, union contracts or political careers on the line. We can afford to identify the problem with the plumbing. Not so with the schools. So, typically the conversations I witness wind up being aimless complaint sessions with competing interests and missed opportunities for change.
I recently watched two similar documentaries about the charter school lottery in New York City, The Lottery and Waiting for Superman. Despite an inane article by Diane Ravitch in this month’s Saturday Evening Post online and the emotional and irrational support she has garnered (mostly from public school teachers) in the site’s comments, stakeholders from all over the political spectrum agree with the documentaries’ one inarguable point: most public schools in America fail miserably. Administrators, teachers, and educational experts use words like “crappy”, “abysmal”, “Titanic” (as in “sinking fast”). They refer to the PISA, a global test comparing the educational efficacy of nations, offered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which in 2009 ranked the United States in the middle of the pack of about 50 nations for all three subject areas tested – science, math and reading. Just yesterday John Stossel aired an updated version of his "Stupid in America" that identifies much of the same issues presented in the two documentaries.
But what are we doing about it besides making movies and providing show content for the Bills - Maher and O’Reilly? What are those citizens who vote for levies, picket for teacher pay, and cheer the school mascot in the town parade doing about it? With every contract negotiation and levy that has passed in my city, the quality of education has just declined. I know what you and I have done about it - at least in regard to those we are most responsible for, our children. But what can we do for our nation and our communities?
As homeschoolers we need to have confidence in our choices, and encourage others not to be afraid of joining our educational revolution. We also have to encourage and support those other educational options for kids whose parents do not feel empowered to homeschool – charter schools and voucher legislation. Although I wish it weren’t so, I don’t believe the public schools will improve significantly anytime soon. And even those that are doing a good job teaching, are often not teaching the right thing. Their students may be able to get into a good college and land a high paying job, but do those individuals understand the most critical truths of life? While we focus on skillsets – literacy, writing, technical savvy, and presentation skills – we neglect to teach universal truths or the processes by which we seek and evaluate truth.
Home educators do not only determine the quality but the content of what our children learn. Many would accuse us of limiting our students’ exposure to certain facts, philosophies and perspectives. Speaking for myself I can say that the opposite is true. I am sure many of you can say the same thing. For example, when we studied climate change we analyzed two documentaries presenting opposing views of whether or not global warming was the result or the cause of increasing carbon dioxide production in the atmosphere. There is a correlation between temperature and CO2 levels, but causation is never discussed in the classroom because it is already presupposed. Whether CO2 causes warming, or warming causes CO2 is a legitimate matter for debate.
The bottom line is, it is far more likely that we parents and guardians will be able to make the changes we need to make - in our lives, our homes, our own skill sets and self education - to meet the academic needs of one or several children in our care than it will be for this overly complex, politically charged, mismanaged and overfunded mega-system called the public school system to finally, after four or more decades, reform itself. Home schooled children are this nation’s future.
For more information about the references made in this article click below:
Complete Data from the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
Saturday Evening Post’s American Schools in Crisis by Diane Ravitch
John Stossel’s Stupid in America Aired 9/18/2011
The Lottery
Waiting for Superman
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