We see it, do you? A partial list of the many reasons why we homeschool.
The following piece appeared on Betrayed - Why Public Education is Failing.
Quote of the Day - "Together we have come to realize that for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school." - Ivan Illich, "Deschooling Society"
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Monday, January 3, 2011
"What I see" - Parent volunteer tells heartbreaking tale
By Breann Treffry, school volunteer and parent of three, Spokane, WA
We’ve heard much recently about the United States slipping in the education ranking of developed nations. Having been a product of the American public school system, I knew, like many other American parents, that the education it provides is, shall we say, lacking in certain areas. What I didn’t realize - until I enrolled my own children, immersed myself in their schools, classrooms, curricula, and classmates, attended school board meetings, and heard the stories of other concerned parents and teachers - is just how lacking that education truly is.
From home, it can be hard for parents to understand the damage that’s being done to our kids until it’s too late and our children suddenly require remediation, tutoring, or have their hopes for their future crushed when they discover they’re woefully unprepared for college. When I initially began volunteering at my kids’ school, I admit, it was to monitor the education my own kids were receiving. In these last years, however, the education all our kids are receiving has revealed itself as the train wreck from which I can’t look away. Moral duty compels me to share what I have seen that every parent should know.
While I have either personally witnessed or have reliable sources who have witnessed these atrocities within Spokane Public Schools, they are in no way isolated to this little town in eastern Washington. The trend is nationwide.
1. Cursive writing is no longer taught.
2. I see high schoolers who cannot read cursive because they were never taught to write in cursive.
3. I see math curricula that do not teach standard algorithms, but rather create dependency on calculators and technology.
4. I see curricula that drive a wedge between students and their parents by fostering a dependency on peers through excessive group work.
5. I see math curricula that prevent parental involvement by excluding the methods we were taught and teaching only “new math.”
6. I know parents who can’t help their elementary age children with math homework because it doesn’t make sense to parents or students.
7. I’ve seen the light come on for students who have struggled for years - after their tutors or parents show them standard algorithms.
8. I have heard teachers ask parents to “please, please” not teach their children standard algorithms.
9. I know teachers who have offered classes for parents on how to understand the “new math.”
10. I know kids who “get in trouble” in class when they use the algorithms they learned at home.
11. I’ve heard parents and teachers remark that math has “changed so much” since we learned it; but, of course, math doesn’t change. Two plus two still equals four.
12. I see 12-year-olds who cannot add or subtract, let alone multiply or divide, yet have been pushed through to the next grade regardless.
13. I’ve heard teachers telling students, “You have to draw pictures to show your work” in math.
14. I see third and fourth graders who draw literally hundreds of marks or pictures to figure a single math problem because they haven’t been taught efficient methods, and still get the answer wrong.
15. I’ve seen eleventh graders who cannot divide a 3-digit number by a 1-digit number without a calculator.
16. I see elementary school classrooms with a calculator in every desk.
17.I know teachers who have been told not to try to engage struggling and difficult students in lessons but to let them be content with picture books in class.
18. I know teachers who have been reprimanded for criticizing district curricula or policy.
19. I see teachers paranoid and intimidated over teaching traditional math like standard algorithms and facts drill in their classrooms.
20. I’ve heard district administrators openly discussing “problem teachers.”
21. I see students in classrooms where the teacher taught algorithms and drilled math facts excel the following year over students from classrooms where the teacher did not.
22. I know volunteer tutors who’ve been refused because they teach traditional math methods rather than “fuzzy” math.
23. I see students who are “good at math” in tears over their math homework.
24. I’ve heard a teacher tell students, “Abraham Lincoln fought and died in the Civil War.”
25. I see an appalling rate of high school graduates who require remedial math courses in college.
26. I’ve seen students who successfully test into college-level math ultimately struggle and learn that they need remediation after all to fill in the holes in their math education.
27. I see kids being taught daily to a level far beneath their capacity, and being told that they just have to sit there.
28. Alternately, I see teachers struggle to provide additional challenges for those kids using only “district-approved curricula.”
29. I see third graders singing preschool songs as a class.
30. I’ve seen district-provided material that tells teachers to spend more individual instructional time with lower-performing students than with higher-performing students.
31. I see students who mock and taunt adults in the school, with no significant consequences.
32. I see students with multiple truancies that result in no consequences.
33. I see unexcused absences that go undisciplined.
34. I see late work given full credit.
35. I see students receive extra credit points through no effort of their own, for example, when the teacher calls them by the wrong name in class.
36. I’ve seen implementation of a grading system where it’s often impossible to achieve either the highest or the lowest grade.
37. I’ve seen materials that tell teachers to train students not to question teachers or other students, not to raise their hand when they have the right answer, and not to take the lead in groups.
38. I see academic learning time used for social exercises designed to make sure everyone a) feels good and b) realizes that they’re a small part of a large group.
39. I’ve learned that - despite what the district has claimed - the WASL (now the MSP or HSPE at the high school level) is not required, not at any grade level and not for graduation in the state of Washington – rather, there are several ways to meet the graduation requirement.
40. I see students’ love of and excitement for learning turning to drudgery and perceived failure.
As much I want to spare my own children from these wrongs, it’s just as wrong for adults to sit quietly by as the next generation, with eyes wide and full of hope and excitement, receives what has become the empty promise of an American public education. The essence of public schools is education for all, yet our schools are falling far short of the claim that they will prepare students to compete as adults, let alone in a global market.
I ask parents and teachers, what have you seen that just doesn’t sit right with you? What have you been told to teach or not to teach? What have your kids brought home that didn’t make sense, but you feel you can only assume that the schools must know best? Any one of these seemingly little things as an isolated incident might not mean much but for our children’s sake, do not discount it. These incidents add up to one giant failure across the country, putting the United States at the bottom of the list. http://www.geographic.org/country_ranks/educational_score_performance_country_ranks_2009_oecd.html#maths
Parents and teachers, you are not alone. Get together, talk, stand up for our children. It’s their future and our nation’s future that are at stake.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
SAU Meeting and School Board Meeting this Week
Just a reminder there is a SAU meeting Tuesday night and a School Board Meeting, Wednesday night.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Are you Worthy?
"Any fool can and will live DOWN to the standards of socialism. Our challenge is to inspire people to live UP to the far loftier requirements of liberty. The question every human being needs to ask of himself is this: 'Am I worthy of living in freedom or am I just another loser with lousy character who can't keep his hands off other people's lives and pocketbooks?'" -- Lawrence W. Reed
If conservatives and libertarians truly want to be free, they need to free their children and themselves from Taxpayer Funded Socialist Indoctrination Centers aka public schools aka government schools. Now is the time to prepare your family financially so you can either homeschool or send your children to private schools starting Fall, 2011.
"Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. [...] The average American (should be) content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role."William Torrey Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889
If conservatives and libertarians truly want to be free, they need to free their children and themselves from Taxpayer Funded Socialist Indoctrination Centers aka public schools aka government schools. Now is the time to prepare your family financially so you can either homeschool or send your children to private schools starting Fall, 2011.
"Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. [...] The average American (should be) content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role."William Torrey Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889
Sunday, January 9, 2011
You Can't Have a Free Society with Compulsory School Attendance
In New Hampshire we are fighting for homeschooling freedom. We will not have homeschooling freedom until the State stops interfering with how we educate our children. The Homeschool Legal Defense needs to man up and put a freedom Bill on the table if they insist on interfering with our laws if not butt out.
The following piece is long but well worth the read. If parents took responsibility for the education of their own children, not only would literacy and educational outcomes improve but we would save taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars every year. The following piece appears on The New American.com.
Quote of the Day - "True individual freedom will never be regained in this country until educational freedom is restored. " ~ SAM BLUMENFELD
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Is Compulsory School Attendance Compatible With a Free Society?
WRITTEN BY SAM BLUMENFELD
THURSDAY, 06 JANUARY 2011 22:00
Is America still a free country? We like to think so, even with ObamaCare. Yes, we can get into a car and drive wherever we want. We can go to the mall and buy whatever we want. We can read whatever we want, and we can say whatever we want.
But when it comes to education, suddenly we are confronted with compulsory school attendance laws, compulsory property taxes to pay for the government schools, compulsory testing, compulsory inoculations, forced busing, restrictions against prayer, forced sex ed, death ed, and drug ed. And now, every day, four to six million children are forced to take Ritalin, or some other powerful mind- and mood-altering drug, if they want to attend public school.
Through the efforts of the Home School Legal Defense Association, the right of parents to homeschool their children without interference from the state has been established by the setting of court precedents and rulings. However, the National Education Association is still determined to put homeschooling out of business through onerous regulation.
Educational freedom means getting the government out of the education business and the idea of compulsion out of education. It means parents providing for their children's education in the same way that they purchase any other service in a free society.
The idea that parents can afford to pay rent, buy a car, feed the kids, and buy their clothes but can't pay for their education is preposterous. If parents had to pay for education, they would budget their finances to include that expenditure. And they would have the money to do so, because they would not have to pay the high taxes that now support the present wasteful government-owned-and-operated system.
That's the kind of educational freedom that existed in colonial times and the early days of our republic. Imagine how different our history would be if King George III had set up a sytem of government schools, with compulsory attendance laws, and a curriculum that would have brainwashed the children to become loyal and obedient subjects to the King. Would we have had a Declaration of Independence? Would we have had such independent-minded founding fathers as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison? Probably not.
We've been led to believe that without compulsory school attendance, we'd have illiterate, ignorant children sitting at home and watching TV all day or roaming the streets and committing crimes. But the glaring fact is that, despite compulsory school attendance laws, we now have more illiteracy, more ignorance, and more delinquency among young Americans than before such laws were enacted. In 1993, a survey of adult literacy in America sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, revealed that half the adult population of the United States can barely read or write. That's what 150 years of government schooling have given us!
Indeed, the reading problem is now so severe that the National Endowment of the Arts issued an alarming report, Reading at Risk, in November 2007, revealing the precipitous decline of literacy in America. According to the report, the number of 17-year-olds who never read for pleasure increased from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. About half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure.
Endowment Chairman Dana Gioia stated: “This is a massive social problem. We are losing the majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading.” The survey found that only a third of high school seniors read at a proficient level. “And proficiency is not a high standard,” said Gioia. “We’re not asking them to be able to read Proust in the original. We’re talking about reading the daily newspaper.”
Back in the days of educational freedom we had 99 percent literacy. In 1812, DuPont de Nemours, the Frenchman who founded the DuPont chemical company, published a book entitled National Education in the United States of America. He wrote:
The United States are more advanced in their educational facilities than most countries. They have a large number of primary schools; and as their paternal affection protects children from working in the fields, it is possible to send them to the school-master — a condition that does not prevail in Europe. Most young Americans, therefore, can read, write and cipher. Not more than four in a thousand are unable to write legibly — even neatly.... In America, a great number of people read the Bible, and all the people read a newspaper. The fathers read aloud to their children while breakfast is being prepared — a task which occupies the mothers for three quarters of an hour every morning. And as the newspapers of the United States are filled with all sorts of narratives ... they disseminate an enormous amount of information.
Obviously, back in the early days of the republic, education was a family affair closely connected to religious practice. A nation built on Biblical principles had to be a highly literate one. And all of this high level of literacy was achieved without any government involvement, without any centralized bureaucracy, without any professors of education, or accrediting agencies, or teacher certification. And, most significantly, without any compulsory attendance laws.
The fact that millions of young Americans now emerge from twelve years of compulsory schooling unable to read, write, spell, do basic arithmetic, or speak grammatically, means that the purpose of public education is no longer education but something else. What is that something else? It is politically-correct socialization. But even that doesn't work, since so many of these victims of the system become anti-social delinquents.
What our nation needs now, more than ever, is a return to educational freedom, so that the American people can apply their ingenuity and unbounded energies to the creation of alternatives to the present debilitating system. Technology has now made compulsory school attendance obsolete. One can now learn much more at home than in any public classroom, and at less cost to everyone.
The goal of homeschoolers, Christian educators, libertarians, and conservatives in general should be the repeal of all compulsory school attendance laws, which have become the most powerful weapons the education establishment can use to thwart the competition and force parents to do the educators' will.
These laws not only violate the parents' unalienable right to determine how their children are to be educated, but they violate the 13th Amendment, which prohibits involuntary servitude. No child should be forced to serve the state and the interests of the education establishment. No child should be forced to undergo brainwashing and indoctrination by a self-serving monopoly of facilitators and change agents.
True individual freedom will never be regained in this country until educational freedom is restored. The nature of a society is determined by the way its children are educated. The present atheistic, immoral education system has produced the Columbines, the violence and vandalism than now plague our public schools. The ultimate aim of the system is to lead us into a New World Order in which parents will be deprived of the right to control the education of their children.
If you're not sure what the New World Order will be like, just read the yearly resolutions of the National Education Association and get hold of the Student Data Handbook (NCES 94-303) which describes the scope of information that will be gathered on each child and put into the federal computer in Washington for the purpose of social control.
The compulsory attendance laws are the linchpin of the whole totalitarian plan. Such laws have been used by every modern dictator and tyrannical government to control their people and mold the minds of the children. Such laws are not only not needed in a free society, but ultimately lead to its demise.
Only when Americans get themselves solidly back on the road to freedom will they be able to transfer to the next generation the true legacy of liberty left to us by our founding fathers.
The following piece is long but well worth the read. If parents took responsibility for the education of their own children, not only would literacy and educational outcomes improve but we would save taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars every year. The following piece appears on The New American.com.
Quote of the Day - "True individual freedom will never be regained in this country until educational freedom is restored. " ~ SAM BLUMENFELD
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Is Compulsory School Attendance Compatible With a Free Society?
WRITTEN BY SAM BLUMENFELD
THURSDAY, 06 JANUARY 2011 22:00
Is America still a free country? We like to think so, even with ObamaCare. Yes, we can get into a car and drive wherever we want. We can go to the mall and buy whatever we want. We can read whatever we want, and we can say whatever we want.
But when it comes to education, suddenly we are confronted with compulsory school attendance laws, compulsory property taxes to pay for the government schools, compulsory testing, compulsory inoculations, forced busing, restrictions against prayer, forced sex ed, death ed, and drug ed. And now, every day, four to six million children are forced to take Ritalin, or some other powerful mind- and mood-altering drug, if they want to attend public school.
Through the efforts of the Home School Legal Defense Association, the right of parents to homeschool their children without interference from the state has been established by the setting of court precedents and rulings. However, the National Education Association is still determined to put homeschooling out of business through onerous regulation.
Educational freedom means getting the government out of the education business and the idea of compulsion out of education. It means parents providing for their children's education in the same way that they purchase any other service in a free society.
The idea that parents can afford to pay rent, buy a car, feed the kids, and buy their clothes but can't pay for their education is preposterous. If parents had to pay for education, they would budget their finances to include that expenditure. And they would have the money to do so, because they would not have to pay the high taxes that now support the present wasteful government-owned-and-operated system.
That's the kind of educational freedom that existed in colonial times and the early days of our republic. Imagine how different our history would be if King George III had set up a sytem of government schools, with compulsory attendance laws, and a curriculum that would have brainwashed the children to become loyal and obedient subjects to the King. Would we have had a Declaration of Independence? Would we have had such independent-minded founding fathers as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison? Probably not.
We've been led to believe that without compulsory school attendance, we'd have illiterate, ignorant children sitting at home and watching TV all day or roaming the streets and committing crimes. But the glaring fact is that, despite compulsory school attendance laws, we now have more illiteracy, more ignorance, and more delinquency among young Americans than before such laws were enacted. In 1993, a survey of adult literacy in America sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, revealed that half the adult population of the United States can barely read or write. That's what 150 years of government schooling have given us!
Indeed, the reading problem is now so severe that the National Endowment of the Arts issued an alarming report, Reading at Risk, in November 2007, revealing the precipitous decline of literacy in America. According to the report, the number of 17-year-olds who never read for pleasure increased from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. About half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure.
Endowment Chairman Dana Gioia stated: “This is a massive social problem. We are losing the majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading.” The survey found that only a third of high school seniors read at a proficient level. “And proficiency is not a high standard,” said Gioia. “We’re not asking them to be able to read Proust in the original. We’re talking about reading the daily newspaper.”
Back in the days of educational freedom we had 99 percent literacy. In 1812, DuPont de Nemours, the Frenchman who founded the DuPont chemical company, published a book entitled National Education in the United States of America. He wrote:
The United States are more advanced in their educational facilities than most countries. They have a large number of primary schools; and as their paternal affection protects children from working in the fields, it is possible to send them to the school-master — a condition that does not prevail in Europe. Most young Americans, therefore, can read, write and cipher. Not more than four in a thousand are unable to write legibly — even neatly.... In America, a great number of people read the Bible, and all the people read a newspaper. The fathers read aloud to their children while breakfast is being prepared — a task which occupies the mothers for three quarters of an hour every morning. And as the newspapers of the United States are filled with all sorts of narratives ... they disseminate an enormous amount of information.
Obviously, back in the early days of the republic, education was a family affair closely connected to religious practice. A nation built on Biblical principles had to be a highly literate one. And all of this high level of literacy was achieved without any government involvement, without any centralized bureaucracy, without any professors of education, or accrediting agencies, or teacher certification. And, most significantly, without any compulsory attendance laws.
The fact that millions of young Americans now emerge from twelve years of compulsory schooling unable to read, write, spell, do basic arithmetic, or speak grammatically, means that the purpose of public education is no longer education but something else. What is that something else? It is politically-correct socialization. But even that doesn't work, since so many of these victims of the system become anti-social delinquents.
What our nation needs now, more than ever, is a return to educational freedom, so that the American people can apply their ingenuity and unbounded energies to the creation of alternatives to the present debilitating system. Technology has now made compulsory school attendance obsolete. One can now learn much more at home than in any public classroom, and at less cost to everyone.
The goal of homeschoolers, Christian educators, libertarians, and conservatives in general should be the repeal of all compulsory school attendance laws, which have become the most powerful weapons the education establishment can use to thwart the competition and force parents to do the educators' will.
These laws not only violate the parents' unalienable right to determine how their children are to be educated, but they violate the 13th Amendment, which prohibits involuntary servitude. No child should be forced to serve the state and the interests of the education establishment. No child should be forced to undergo brainwashing and indoctrination by a self-serving monopoly of facilitators and change agents.
True individual freedom will never be regained in this country until educational freedom is restored. The nature of a society is determined by the way its children are educated. The present atheistic, immoral education system has produced the Columbines, the violence and vandalism than now plague our public schools. The ultimate aim of the system is to lead us into a New World Order in which parents will be deprived of the right to control the education of their children.
If you're not sure what the New World Order will be like, just read the yearly resolutions of the National Education Association and get hold of the Student Data Handbook (NCES 94-303) which describes the scope of information that will be gathered on each child and put into the federal computer in Washington for the purpose of social control.
The compulsory attendance laws are the linchpin of the whole totalitarian plan. Such laws have been used by every modern dictator and tyrannical government to control their people and mold the minds of the children. Such laws are not only not needed in a free society, but ultimately lead to its demise.
Only when Americans get themselves solidly back on the road to freedom will they be able to transfer to the next generation the true legacy of liberty left to us by our founding fathers.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Where will the money come from?
Pensions are unfunded. Where will the money come from? Should they just go bankrupt and restructure the pensions? The following piece appeared on American City & County
New Hampshire has the same problems, pensions were promised by legislators and bureaucrats not taxpayers. The pensions should have never been promised in the first place. When they can't be paid you can bet this will not sit pretty with those people and chaos will ensue just like it has in France, Greece, England and Spain. Lord help us, all let us hope these pensioners wise up and restructure their pensions now.
New Hampshire Legislators now is the time to solve the problem before it is too late.
“Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
States lack $1 trillion for pensions
May 1, 2010 12:00 PM, By Jennifer Grzeskowiak
Some states are drastically underfunding their obligations to retirees
ShareThis
States have only actually funded $2.35 trillion of the $3.35 trillion in employee retirement benefits they owe, according to a recently released report from Washington-based Pew Center for the States. The shortfall could lead to larger liabilities in the future and cuts in services, even at the local government level.
The report, "The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded state retirement systems and the roads to reform," ranks state pension and retiree health care/non-pension benefit systems based on three criteria: a funding ratio of at least 80 percent; an unfunded liability below covered payroll; and an average payment of at least 90 percent of the actuarially required contribution over the past five years. It designates 16 states as "solid performers" for meeting all three standards for their pensions. Another 15 states are "in need of improvement" and 19 are designated as "meriting serious concerns," meaning they did not meet any of the criteria.
Many of the strong performing states consistently fund their systems in both financially good and bad years, and many have a legal requirement to fund their pension systems. The poorly performing states often failed to contribute enough to their plans in good times and made other mistakes, says Katherine Barrett, a consultant for Pew Center on the States.
If states fail to address their pension gaps, less money could be distributed to local governments, such as in the form of highway funds, and reimbursements from the state for social services could be cut, says Chris Hoene, director of research and innovation for the Washington-based National League of Cities.
It is difficult to predict when the unfunded liabilities will reach that critical level because of vagaries in the investment markets and other factors. "But, you can see that states with larger unfunded liabilities already have to pay a lot more each year," Barrett says. "That becomes more of an expensive problem the longer you put it off."
Jennifer Grzeskowiak is a Laguna Beach, Calif.-based freelance writer.
New Hampshire has the same problems, pensions were promised by legislators and bureaucrats not taxpayers. The pensions should have never been promised in the first place. When they can't be paid you can bet this will not sit pretty with those people and chaos will ensue just like it has in France, Greece, England and Spain. Lord help us, all let us hope these pensioners wise up and restructure their pensions now.
New Hampshire Legislators now is the time to solve the problem before it is too late.
“Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
States lack $1 trillion for pensions
May 1, 2010 12:00 PM, By Jennifer Grzeskowiak
Some states are drastically underfunding their obligations to retirees
ShareThis
States have only actually funded $2.35 trillion of the $3.35 trillion in employee retirement benefits they owe, according to a recently released report from Washington-based Pew Center for the States. The shortfall could lead to larger liabilities in the future and cuts in services, even at the local government level.
The report, "The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded state retirement systems and the roads to reform," ranks state pension and retiree health care/non-pension benefit systems based on three criteria: a funding ratio of at least 80 percent; an unfunded liability below covered payroll; and an average payment of at least 90 percent of the actuarially required contribution over the past five years. It designates 16 states as "solid performers" for meeting all three standards for their pensions. Another 15 states are "in need of improvement" and 19 are designated as "meriting serious concerns," meaning they did not meet any of the criteria.
Many of the strong performing states consistently fund their systems in both financially good and bad years, and many have a legal requirement to fund their pension systems. The poorly performing states often failed to contribute enough to their plans in good times and made other mistakes, says Katherine Barrett, a consultant for Pew Center on the States.
If states fail to address their pension gaps, less money could be distributed to local governments, such as in the form of highway funds, and reimbursements from the state for social services could be cut, says Chris Hoene, director of research and innovation for the Washington-based National League of Cities.
It is difficult to predict when the unfunded liabilities will reach that critical level because of vagaries in the investment markets and other factors. "But, you can see that states with larger unfunded liabilities already have to pay a lot more each year," Barrett says. "That becomes more of an expensive problem the longer you put it off."
Jennifer Grzeskowiak is a Laguna Beach, Calif.-based freelance writer.
Friday, January 7, 2011
We Love Homeschoolers!
Some colleges actively seek out homeschoolers, they know they out perform their public school peers on standardized tests and that they are "independent thinkers. The following piece appeared on Life Site News.com.
Any place that anyone young can learn something useful from someone with experience is an educational institution." ~ Al Capp
"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." ~George Santayana
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Colleges Nationwide Recruit Homeschool Grads
BY LIFESITENEWS.COM
GRAY, Tenn., January 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the modern-day homeschool movement confidently marches forward into its fourth decade, colleges and universities are opening wide their doors to welcome its mature, prepared graduates to their ranks. Homeschoolers score an average of 37 percentile points above the national average on standardized achievement tests and typically score above average on the SAT and ACT, statistics that apparently have caught the eye of college admissions personnel. Since 1999, the number of homeschoolers in the United States has increased by 74%, and today thousands of young men and women are graduating from high school—at home.
Colleges are employing a wide variety of strategies aimed at recruiting homeschoolers, including strong representation at homeschool conventions, direct mailing campaigns, and promotions in catalogs, on their websites, and in publications such as The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the nation’s most popular print magazine for homeschoolers. Colleges sponsor “Homeschool College Days” for juniors and seniors, and at Wheaton College, where nearly 10% of the freshman class is represented by homeschool grads, applicants can even be put in touch with current Wheaton students who were homeschooled. Regent University’s website heralds the school as “the right choice for home-schooled students,” and the U.S. Air Force Academy’s website includes guidelines addressed specifically to homeschooled applicants.
A number of institutions have appointed “homeschool liaison and recruitment specialists” to serve incoming freshmen and their families. In her 2009 article titled “‘We Love Homeschoolers!’ Prominent Colleges Jump on the Recruiting Bandwagon,” author Claire Novak, herself a homeschool grad, quoted one such specialist, who said, “As the number of homeschooled students grow, colleges are finding it’s a market you can’t ignore.”
Nearly 30% of Bob Jones University’s current students were educated at home. BJU’s website reports: “As a group, our homeschooled students are among the best students in the entire university student body. They have added a fresh dimension to the body of conventionally schooled students. We consider them a real asset.” Stanford Magazine reported that “among the nation’s elite universities, Stanford has been one of the most eager to embrace them [homeschoolers]. . . .[H]omeschoolers bring a mix of unusual experiences, special motivation and intellectual independence that makes them a good bet to flourish on the Farm.” Savannah College of Art and Design “welcomes home-schooled students and recognizes the outstanding talent and achievements of this diverse group of well-rounded individuals.” And these are just a few examples of the favorable reputation that homeschooled students have earned.
Recent studies confirm the academic success of homeschoolers who attend college. Citing results of a 2010 survey, the Journal of College Admission reports that “homeschool students possess higher ACT scores, grade point averages (GPAs) and graduation rates when compared to traditionally-educated students.”
Seth Back, a homeschooler who took and passed the GED test at age 15 and is currently enrolled at Harvard, is confident that he was “better prepared for certain college situations than students who had been through the public/private school system.” During the past five years, Seth earned a juris doctor degree, passed the California Bar Exam, earned a master’s degree in church history, and studied at Oxford—all while managing his own consulting business. He credits homeschooling with fueling a love of learning and teaching him to take personal responsibility for his education, which included pursuing a wide variety of opportunities for his personal enrichment. He is but one example of the thousands of motivated, successful, visionary students who have benefited tremendously from their home education.
Colleges are looking for young people like Seth. They are excited about the exceptional potential presented by homeschool graduates and are vigorously pursuing their attention.
As college professors nationwide are given the opportunity to influence and further equip homeschool graduates, surely they will be refreshed and encouraged by this new breed of “independent thinkers” who are filling their classrooms. Wise college professors will carefully take advantage of the privilege they are being given in those classrooms—to build on the strong foundation laid by these students’ former teachers: their parents.
Any place that anyone young can learn something useful from someone with experience is an educational institution." ~ Al Capp
"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." ~George Santayana
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Colleges Nationwide Recruit Homeschool Grads
BY LIFESITENEWS.COM
GRAY, Tenn., January 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the modern-day homeschool movement confidently marches forward into its fourth decade, colleges and universities are opening wide their doors to welcome its mature, prepared graduates to their ranks. Homeschoolers score an average of 37 percentile points above the national average on standardized achievement tests and typically score above average on the SAT and ACT, statistics that apparently have caught the eye of college admissions personnel. Since 1999, the number of homeschoolers in the United States has increased by 74%, and today thousands of young men and women are graduating from high school—at home.
Colleges are employing a wide variety of strategies aimed at recruiting homeschoolers, including strong representation at homeschool conventions, direct mailing campaigns, and promotions in catalogs, on their websites, and in publications such as The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the nation’s most popular print magazine for homeschoolers. Colleges sponsor “Homeschool College Days” for juniors and seniors, and at Wheaton College, where nearly 10% of the freshman class is represented by homeschool grads, applicants can even be put in touch with current Wheaton students who were homeschooled. Regent University’s website heralds the school as “the right choice for home-schooled students,” and the U.S. Air Force Academy’s website includes guidelines addressed specifically to homeschooled applicants.
A number of institutions have appointed “homeschool liaison and recruitment specialists” to serve incoming freshmen and their families. In her 2009 article titled “‘We Love Homeschoolers!’ Prominent Colleges Jump on the Recruiting Bandwagon,” author Claire Novak, herself a homeschool grad, quoted one such specialist, who said, “As the number of homeschooled students grow, colleges are finding it’s a market you can’t ignore.”
Nearly 30% of Bob Jones University’s current students were educated at home. BJU’s website reports: “As a group, our homeschooled students are among the best students in the entire university student body. They have added a fresh dimension to the body of conventionally schooled students. We consider them a real asset.” Stanford Magazine reported that “among the nation’s elite universities, Stanford has been one of the most eager to embrace them [homeschoolers]. . . .[H]omeschoolers bring a mix of unusual experiences, special motivation and intellectual independence that makes them a good bet to flourish on the Farm.” Savannah College of Art and Design “welcomes home-schooled students and recognizes the outstanding talent and achievements of this diverse group of well-rounded individuals.” And these are just a few examples of the favorable reputation that homeschooled students have earned.
Recent studies confirm the academic success of homeschoolers who attend college. Citing results of a 2010 survey, the Journal of College Admission reports that “homeschool students possess higher ACT scores, grade point averages (GPAs) and graduation rates when compared to traditionally-educated students.”
Seth Back, a homeschooler who took and passed the GED test at age 15 and is currently enrolled at Harvard, is confident that he was “better prepared for certain college situations than students who had been through the public/private school system.” During the past five years, Seth earned a juris doctor degree, passed the California Bar Exam, earned a master’s degree in church history, and studied at Oxford—all while managing his own consulting business. He credits homeschooling with fueling a love of learning and teaching him to take personal responsibility for his education, which included pursuing a wide variety of opportunities for his personal enrichment. He is but one example of the thousands of motivated, successful, visionary students who have benefited tremendously from their home education.
Colleges are looking for young people like Seth. They are excited about the exceptional potential presented by homeschool graduates and are vigorously pursuing their attention.
As college professors nationwide are given the opportunity to influence and further equip homeschool graduates, surely they will be refreshed and encouraged by this new breed of “independent thinkers” who are filling their classrooms. Wise college professors will carefully take advantage of the privilege they are being given in those classrooms—to build on the strong foundation laid by these students’ former teachers: their parents.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
School Districts Influenced By National Groups
School policies are made by school boards. School boards even in small towns are influenced by the National School Board Association. Jim was asked several times to join the National School Board Association and to go to State School Board Association Training, he declined. Local control is a myth. See below the email from the National School Board Association to Jim.
You really should be visit the National School Board Association's website to see the agenda they are promoting, their agenda is not that far off from the NEA's and AFT's agenda.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Ten New Year’s Resolutions for
School Board Members
10. Get in shape by developing an obesity action plan for your district. Studies have shown that healthy children have less absenteeism, concentrate better, and perform better on tests. Make sure your policies and practices support healthy options and physical activity for all students.
9. Get organized by reviewing your district policies. The New Year is a great time to make sure your policies are current, especially those on hot topics like bullying, which will be a focus for the Department of Education in 2011. You can turn to your state school boards association for policy guidance and support should your district need assistance.
8. Learn something new, like how technology can improve student and community engagement. Professional development opportunities, conferences, and webinars offered by your state association, the National School Boards Association, and NSBA’s National Affiliate program can show you how.
7. Identify additional funding sources. With today’s tight budgets, every dollar counts. Take advantage of grant services like GrantsQuest, free to NSBA National Affiliates, to discover funding opportunities for your district and get grant writing tips.
6. Save money on district purchases. Buying cooperatives can save your district time and money by streamlining the procurement process and negotiating volume discounts for participants. Many are free to join and give rebates based on purchases. If your state association does not offer one, consider a national program like the BuyBoard Cooperative Program.
5. Improve your relationship with your school board team. Start the year off right by clarifying roles and responsibilities for every member of your team. The Key Work of School Boards guidebook and training programs, offered by your state association and NSBA, provide tips for developing a good working relationship.
4. Discover best practices in school governance. Your state school boards association’s publications and NSBA’s American School Board Journal , included in NSBA’s National Affiliate benefits package, highlight success stories from public schools which may be applicable to your district.
3. Connect with school board colleagues from across your state and the nation. Conferences and social networks offered by your state association and NSBA provide great opportunities to learn how your colleagues are coping with the challenges of public education today.
2. Become a champion for local school board governance. With the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act on the horizon, now is the time for you to speak up for local school board governance. Add your voice to your state school boards association’s and NSBA’s National Affiliate districts who are calling for the end of unfunded federal mandates and the return of local control.
1. Join NSBA’s National Affiliate Program. Working with and through your state school boards association, NSBA’s National Affiliate program advocates for increased federal funding and local school board governance, provides resources and information, and offers professional development opportunities to help your district succeed. A complete list of benefits is available at www.nsba.org/na. Enroll your district in the National Affiliate program today and make 2011 the best year ever.
You really should be visit the National School Board Association's website to see the agenda they are promoting, their agenda is not that far off from the NEA's and AFT's agenda.
Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.
Ten New Year’s Resolutions for
School Board Members
10. Get in shape by developing an obesity action plan for your district. Studies have shown that healthy children have less absenteeism, concentrate better, and perform better on tests. Make sure your policies and practices support healthy options and physical activity for all students.
9. Get organized by reviewing your district policies. The New Year is a great time to make sure your policies are current, especially those on hot topics like bullying, which will be a focus for the Department of Education in 2011. You can turn to your state school boards association for policy guidance and support should your district need assistance.
8. Learn something new, like how technology can improve student and community engagement. Professional development opportunities, conferences, and webinars offered by your state association, the National School Boards Association, and NSBA’s National Affiliate program can show you how.
7. Identify additional funding sources. With today’s tight budgets, every dollar counts. Take advantage of grant services like GrantsQuest, free to NSBA National Affiliates, to discover funding opportunities for your district and get grant writing tips.
6. Save money on district purchases. Buying cooperatives can save your district time and money by streamlining the procurement process and negotiating volume discounts for participants. Many are free to join and give rebates based on purchases. If your state association does not offer one, consider a national program like the BuyBoard Cooperative Program.
5. Improve your relationship with your school board team. Start the year off right by clarifying roles and responsibilities for every member of your team. The Key Work of School Boards guidebook and training programs, offered by your state association and NSBA, provide tips for developing a good working relationship.
4. Discover best practices in school governance. Your state school boards association’s publications and NSBA’s American School Board Journal , included in NSBA’s National Affiliate benefits package, highlight success stories from public schools which may be applicable to your district.
3. Connect with school board colleagues from across your state and the nation. Conferences and social networks offered by your state association and NSBA provide great opportunities to learn how your colleagues are coping with the challenges of public education today.
2. Become a champion for local school board governance. With the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act on the horizon, now is the time for you to speak up for local school board governance. Add your voice to your state school boards association’s and NSBA’s National Affiliate districts who are calling for the end of unfunded federal mandates and the return of local control.
1. Join NSBA’s National Affiliate Program. Working with and through your state school boards association, NSBA’s National Affiliate program advocates for increased federal funding and local school board governance, provides resources and information, and offers professional development opportunities to help your district succeed. A complete list of benefits is available at www.nsba.org/na. Enroll your district in the National Affiliate program today and make 2011 the best year ever.
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