I remember the “recycle, reduce, reuse” mantra being drilled into my head at elementary school> I remember being shown videos of dire predictions of the earths future if we didn’t act now. I was in 3rd grade and nobody ever said, well that’s just one opinion. The propaganda was delivered as fact and we were expected to buy into the message. Nobody ever explained that it was all irrational panic and there was plenty of landfill space for centuries to come. Nobody ever explained to us that recycling was actually a way for the environmental movement to effect the thinking of children and try to get them to place “nature” above people.

The best lesson I received in school was by accident. Our principal pushed for a big recycling drive. We were told to bring in our newspapers so we could recycle them and make some money for the school, while helping the planet. We brought stacks of newspapers and there were so many that a truck had to be borrowed to deliver the papers to the recycling center that was able to deal with a load that size, about 30 miles away. The money the school received was either less than the amount spent on gas or perhaps a bit more. Either way, I remember seeing the face of my principal and his frustration at the situation. If recycling was really a good thing, it wouldn’t cost far more than the regular trash.

The current micro-school doesn’t cram quite as effectively as a home school can – there is still some regimentation – but there’s enough time saved to let him have one day a week off, and a full hour for lunch.

Mew

Even in the areas where there’s enough money to hire the (more expensive) AP teachers, and enough parents involved to keep the bureaucrats under control, that still doesn’t guarantee good schools…

Mew

A few things you may be unfamiliar with:
-In most school districts teachers who teach gifted classes (a special ed pull out class for enrichment) are required to take classes in that field and maintain their ceu’s in that area. Teachers who work with the GT population better find the tools to work with that population or they will quickly find the GT kids will run them off. GT can be taught by someone with a teaching degree as you suggest, but usually is taught by a teacher with an advanced degree and seniority. The GT teachers I have encountered… really you have to want to do it.

-Testing for GT is not to have students “jump through hoops” but to discern those are not only high IQ, but those who would benefit from the class, and frankly some testing is done at the behest of parents who are sure their kid is the super-duper smartest ever. Further, you must realize how many “disruptive” boys have been misidentified as needing to be medicated when they are in fact bored GT students. Identification also gives the educator (home or public) insight into the child’s intellect and learning needs.

- You asked about skipping High School -Not sure about your school district but some school districts allow children to test out of classes and move on – “skip grades” or skip classes & take college classes at the same time as high school. Does your school district preclude early graduation? In Texas if you graduate early you qualify for an early graduation scholarship for college.

-AP classes – It is just a class. A more challenging class but just a class. It is taught by a High School teacher. If you want to take the test at the end your parents pay for the test. If you score a 4 or a 5 on the test you get college credit (at some universities)…. not for taking the test. Dual Credit classes – are taught by a College Professor – parents pay the college part of the credit hour fee and must pay for a college text book. The rest of the college credit fee is pick up by the high school – but they are not paying a high school teacher so it’s a wash. You get college credit for taking a dual credit class.

I am in favor of homeschooling but I am also in favor of taking back our public schools. Both require you to be active and involved. There is no such thing as sacrifice when you have kids, it’s just part of the deal.

the delusions of the self-esteem curriculum that has taught a few generation of youngsters that they are special, and worthy of large salaries, just by virture of existing

I think the status-obsession is due, in large measure, to the sexual revolution and the rise of divorce rates. Young people stay single longer, and want to hedge their bets against a failed marriage. Ergo, they feel a need to maintain the social prestige necessary to success in the singles market, even after marrying.

You see this in the way married couples with small children — who, by all logic, ought to be scrimping and saving — who nonetheless seem to believe that they must drive a late-model, high-end vehicle. To be seen in a 5- or 10-year-old car would be socially unacceptable.

Whatever happened to young people getting married, renting a crappy little apartment, and struggling together to make a go of it? Whence this obsession with “keeping up appearances” via material purchases? It bespeaks a disturbing level of status insecurity.

The Other McCain on September 3, 2009 at 2:24 PM

Whatever happened? Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the belief that renting is a waste of money, and that the value of a house will increase forever. Add that to the delusions of the self-esteem curriculum that has taught a few generation of youngsters that they are special, and worthy of large salaries, just by virture of existing…

By the time the kids start school, there’s little leeway left in the budget for private school tuition, while taxes, mortgage and upkeep of the “nice” house, and lifestyle, necessitates Mom returning to work, either full or part-time.

Whatever happened to young people getting married, renting a crappy little apartment, and struggling together to make a go of it? Whence this obsession with “keeping up appearances” via material purchases? It bespeaks a disturbing level of status insecurity.

As far as the “nice neighborhood” trap: People pay a premium to buy into a “good public school” district and then complain they “can’t afford” to home-school. But once you decide to home-school, you can live anywhere, and your child’s educational experience is unchanged.

The Other McCain on September 3, 2009 at 1:17 PM

The problem I’ve seen with my own kids, as well as nieces and nephews, is in putting the cart before the horse.

First, soon after marriage, they buy a house that they can barely afford, based on two salaries, in a “nice neighborhood,” and then, some years later, they have kids. By the time the kids start school, there’s little leeway left in the budget for private school tuition, while taxes, mortgage and upkeep of the “nice” house, and lifestyle, necessitates Mom returning to work, either full or part-time.

So off go the kids to public school, while creepy school assignments, which should raise loud warning bells, are laughed off as inconsequential…until it’s too late.

We bought the myths, and sent our son to public school. He did not thrive.

Today, my 10-year-old and 8-year-old built a fort in the backyard from some wood my 16-year-old brought home from one of his odd jobs cutting down trees. How many kids nowadays get the valuable enrichment of building backyard forts? How many kids nowadays get the valuable enrichment of odd jobs cutting down trees?

One of the things every beginning home-schooling family goes through is the “let’s-replicate-public-school” model: We’ll start school at 8:30 a.m., do English for an hour, then math for an hour . . .” And then you figure out that, with three hours or less of direct instruction daily, your child can easily exceed the performance of public-school kids. And suddenly, not only is your child free, but you’re free, too:

“Today, let’s make cookies!”

“Today, let’s go to a baseball game!”

“Today, let’s go to the mall!”

Smart children are naturally curious and, once you’ve got them reading, they’ll find stuff they like to read, and do it for their own reasons. Our 10-year-old, like many boys, was slow to start reading. Then, about the time he was 8 — click! It was like a light went on, and now he’s up ’til all hours of the night, in bed with a flashlight, reading everything.

As far as the “nice neighborhood” trap: People pay a premium to buy into a “good public school” district and then complain they “can’t afford” to home-school. But once you decide to home-school, you can live anywhere, and your child’s educational experience is unchanged.

We put off the home purchase and rented for many years so that I could stay home. The kids didn’t know or care to whom we wrote the monthly housing check but they benefited from having me home with them. We homeschooled through some significant periods of unemployment, too.

Pundette on September 3, 2009 at 10:22 AM

The homeschooling movement was still nascent in the late 70′s, when my kids started school, but we, too, held off buying a house, among other things, in order to afford private school tuition, since the alternative was forced busing to a school 30 minutes away, in a neighborhood so crime-ridden that evening PTA meetings or parent-teacher conferences would be a clear and present danger.

Even so, I spent many an hour doing remedial grammar and math with my “gifted” kids, while paying tuition.

So, Mr. McCain, I hear you — to reject those “good” public schools entails sacrifice, and there were times I wondered if it was worth it, until one parent or another in little league would regale us with the latest public school horror story. So we kept on, and our kids turned out college-educated, conservative, employed and productive.

As tough as it may be, it helps to consider it an investment in the future that will live on when you’re gone.

We went through the “work within the system” and “we’re paying for a good school” and “we can’t afford private school” and “school test scores confrim this is a good school” and … ya know, in the end, it’s all crap.

We could have chosen to live in a less-nice area. We could have chosen to go, hat in hand, to friends, family, etc. We could have lived on ramen. We bought the myths, and sent our son to public school. He did not thrive.

He’s now in a private micro-school with a student-teacher ratio some homeschools would envy and a pricetag that means we will be living on ramen for a while, assuming I can stay employed… but .. he’s getting interested in learning again.

Mew

I was near Omaha for the last tour. Many Catholic folks there homeschooled…in the same room…sharing books and taking turns as to who taught what. Sure sounded like a school to me, but since such things were not allowed there, it must have been something else! Funnily enough, the Mormons and Muslims did similar. I could understand why when my neighbor’s kids got forced to watch “Super Size Me”–and “An Inconvenient Truth” in three different classes over a two month period.

I’m not sure being on the football team is worth being in a school like that.

So good, in fact, that the absence of your tip-jar rattling was hardly noticed!

I had to make the sacrifice, Joan. There was just something about the phrase “I’m with C.J.” . . .

Someone does need to be there with the kids, though. I wonder if a single parent might barter with a homeschooling parent who might want to help with teaching? This wouldn’t work so well if either family was large but if you’ve just got a couple of kids it’s an idea, maybe?

This does bring home the reality that schools provide government daycare and that service is built in to many families’ budgets.

We put off the home purchase and rented for many years so that I could stay home. The kids didn’t know or care to whom we wrote the monthly housing check but they benefited from having me home with them. We homeschooled through some significant periods of unemployment, too.

The Other McCain on September 3, 2009 at 9:43 AM

That’s great that you found a way to make it work. A lot of families can’t afford to sacrifice work hours from either parent to teach their kids.

“If you can afford to homeschool your kids, more power to you.”

Yeah, the lucrative blog-o-bucks path to riches!

After I quit The Washington Times in January 2008, I liquidated my savings and retirement to subsidize the launching of my blogging/freelance journalism career. I’m 49 years old, I’ve got six kids, I’m flat broke most of the time, I’ve got no health insurance and my creditors hound me daily.

Middle-class people who say you’ve got to be able to “afford” to do something before doing it, are mentally enslaved to socially-imposed norms and standards of living. If you would be free, first ask yourself, “What should I do?” Determine to do it, and then find a way to “afford” it.

As Hunter S. Thompson said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

You’ll excuse me, but I’ve got to put on my ski mask and head to the local 7-Eleven now . . .

You have no more lasting legacy than your kids. You can lose your home, car, job, everything– with little regret in comparison to failing to equip your children for their future.

Several generations of lesser people have allowed the government to support them while they stayed home and “rocked the cradle” to the tune of their hideous masters. We see what that hath wrought.

Half seriously: Walk away if you have to, and let the government afford you that same opportunity to organize a community of like-minded patriots, teach and rebuild YOUR values. You owe it to your fellow countrymen!

Nice rant, and I agree with most points. But — single dad, so I can’t home school. Can’t afford private school. A voucher program would be nice.

Daggett on September 3, 2009 at 8:35 AM

It’s not a “rant”… it’s fifty really good Tweets, all at once!

Nice work on the essay! I don’t have any children, but I would have done the same thing you did, in your situation. My skepticism of public education grows with every passing year. The problem Daggett pointed out, single parents who don’t have a realistic option to home-school, highlights the tyranny of forcing people to pay for a failed system they have both intellectual and moral reasons to oppose. We should be spending less time fantasizing about trillion-dollar health-care takeovers, and more time discussing a plan to dismantle the public education system and return it to the private sector, where it has always belonged.

Nice rant . . .

“Rant”? I compose a 3,800-word essay in less than seven hours, with bullet points and quotations from John Stuart Mill, and that’s a “rant”? Sigh . . .

single dad, so I can’t home school

I know some nice girls. And some not-so-nice girls, too. Which would you prefer as the next Mrs. Daggett?

I try to be proactive on this “family values” stuff . . .

I’m with Vodka Pundit, but as I said somewhere, one day’s absence isn’t going to do that much good. Home education is the conservative parent’s friend.