A recent AP report on the rise of homeschooling notes that parents believe, in increasing numbers, that public schools are not safe or appropriate places for their kids:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Almost 1.1 million students were home-schooled last year, their numbers pushed higher by parents frustrated over school conditions and wanting to include morality and religion with the English and math.
The estimated figure of students taught at home has grown 29 percent since 1999, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the Education Department.
In surveys, parents offered two main reasons for choosing home schooling: 31 percent cited concerns about the environment of regular schools, and 30 percent wanted the flexibility to teach religious or moral lessons. Third, at 16 percent, was dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools.
All of these are things parents should be concerned about when it comes to their children. But heaven knows we can't have a "balanced" report on homeschooling without a hysterical critic who insists that all homeschooled kids are kept locked in closets until their 18th birthday:
That sense of anxiety - fueled by terrorism warnings, high-profile school shootings and a desire to keep children out of harm's way - probably has helped home schooling grow, said Ted Feinberg, assistant executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists...Feinberg said, parents must consider whether their children will emerge from home schooling with limited exposure to other children and various cultures...
"At some point, children are going to have to interact with the rest of the world," he said. "If they haven't had the opportunity to build their emotional muscles so they have that capacity to interact, how effective are they going to be outside their cloistered environment?"
Can we please, once and for all, stop with the myth that homeschooled kids never leave the house, never interact socially with other kids their age, and never learn anything about "other cultures"? We all know that's being tossed in here as a sop to the cult of diversity; given that most families are not diverse in ethnicity or SES, no wonder the growing popularity of homeschooling gives the PC educrat types fits.
As Michelle Malkin points out, it's frighteningly easy to compile a list of "invaluable, emotional muscle-building experiences" to use as an argument for why kids shouldn't be allowed near public schools. It's ludicrous, in the age of the Internet, to argue that kids who are educated at home are somehow "cloistered" away from society.
Posted by kswygert at August 4, 2004 11:57 AM