There's no doubt about it, parents are forming elementary home schools for their children at an ever-increasing rate. A survey of students across America in 2007 by the U.S. Department of Education revealed that over 1,500,000 kids were being homeschooled that year. That was up over 400,000 students from just four years previous. It's also estimated that homeschooling continues to grow at a rate of 10-15% per year.
Here are the survey's top 3 reasons to homeschool:
1. Concern about the school environment itself
2. Wanting their child to learn more about their faith and morals
3. Dissatisfaction with the current academic instruction
School violence would sum up reason one. Parents fear something could happen to their children while at school. And it's not necessarily of the Columbine scale either. Daily confrontations among classmates, hazing and fear of going to and coming back from school are more the areas the average parent and student feel concerned about more often. School's say they're doing all they can with the "zero tolerance" policies, but they can't be everywhere all day long.
Even the popular genre of rap music is adding to the cue of violent behavior. Songs that glorify intolerance of other races and genders all over the airwaves. They invite the listener to take action from their words, increasing racial tensions along the way. Teasing and practical jokes were about the worst someone could fear at a public school. Those days are long gone. The ante's been upped big time. Elementary home schools are looking pretty good to some parents these days.
And speaking of bad rap, teachers have been getting a lot of it unfairly starting quite some time ago. It seems some parents now believe that schools should actually take over the disciplining of their children. That the schools should teach them right from wrong and how to act in public, not them. Where did this come from? Trying to teach someone about discipline who's never learned it before coming to school is akin to taking your first horse ride on a wild bronc.
Besides the threat of violence, teachers have another area to be concerned about; the parents. We've heard horrible stories of how a parent would demand certain treatment for their child from a teacher and when told by the teacher she could not do whatever it was because of the law or school policy, the parent went ballistic on them, yelling terrible things and threatening to get them fired. This is taking a toll on too many good teachers who are actually opting to resign rather than take this sort of abuse. If the parents act this way in public is there really any reason to wonder why their kids might act the way they do at school? If we still had kids of school age, elementary home schools might look pretty good about now.
Survey reason number two needs little explanation. Parents want their kids to have faith teaching combined with their general education. This is not possible in public schools according to the law. But elementary home schools work perfectly for this requirement.
Understandably survey reason number three should be every parent's option. If they don't feel a school system in giving their child the education they expect, then they should have every right to correct the situation. Some schools are lowering their education standards on purpose. So called "dumbing down" a curriculum is seen by some school districts as the answer to graduating a greater percentage of their student body and thereby getting more funds from the state. This has a terrible effect on the brighter students. Some get so bored with a lesser quality program that they learn to hate school or even contemplate dropping out altogether. Getting that child into a progressive elementary home school would change his attitude quickly for the better as he could learn as much and as fast as he wanted with the right curriculum.
Elementary homeschools are a great choice for any family. They can be tailored to fit family needs, time and budget. They take away all the failings of today's public school systems and give back a quality education.
Here are the survey's top 3 reasons to homeschool:
1. Concern about the school environment itself
2. Wanting their child to learn more about their faith and morals
3. Dissatisfaction with the current academic instruction
School violence would sum up reason one. Parents fear something could happen to their children while at school. And it's not necessarily of the Columbine scale either. Daily confrontations among classmates, hazing and fear of going to and coming back from school are more the areas the average parent and student feel concerned about more often. School's say they're doing all they can with the "zero tolerance" policies, but they can't be everywhere all day long.
Even the popular genre of rap music is adding to the cue of violent behavior. Songs that glorify intolerance of other races and genders all over the airwaves. They invite the listener to take action from their words, increasing racial tensions along the way. Teasing and practical jokes were about the worst someone could fear at a public school. Those days are long gone. The ante's been upped big time. Elementary home schools are looking pretty good to some parents these days.
And speaking of bad rap, teachers have been getting a lot of it unfairly starting quite some time ago. It seems some parents now believe that schools should actually take over the disciplining of their children. That the schools should teach them right from wrong and how to act in public, not them. Where did this come from? Trying to teach someone about discipline who's never learned it before coming to school is akin to taking your first horse ride on a wild bronc.
Besides the threat of violence, teachers have another area to be concerned about; the parents. We've heard horrible stories of how a parent would demand certain treatment for their child from a teacher and when told by the teacher she could not do whatever it was because of the law or school policy, the parent went ballistic on them, yelling terrible things and threatening to get them fired. This is taking a toll on too many good teachers who are actually opting to resign rather than take this sort of abuse. If the parents act this way in public is there really any reason to wonder why their kids might act the way they do at school? If we still had kids of school age, elementary home schools might look pretty good about now.
Survey reason number two needs little explanation. Parents want their kids to have faith teaching combined with their general education. This is not possible in public schools according to the law. But elementary home schools work perfectly for this requirement.
Understandably survey reason number three should be every parent's option. If they don't feel a school system in giving their child the education they expect, then they should have every right to correct the situation. Some schools are lowering their education standards on purpose. So called "dumbing down" a curriculum is seen by some school districts as the answer to graduating a greater percentage of their student body and thereby getting more funds from the state. This has a terrible effect on the brighter students. Some get so bored with a lesser quality program that they learn to hate school or even contemplate dropping out altogether. Getting that child into a progressive elementary home school would change his attitude quickly for the better as he could learn as much and as fast as he wanted with the right curriculum.
Elementary homeschools are a great choice for any family. They can be tailored to fit family needs, time and budget. They take away all the failings of today's public school systems and give back a quality education.
About the Author:
A J Adams comes from a large friends and family containing several public and homeschool teachers. He decided to write a series articles about elementary homeschools as a result of many sometimes heated discussions with friends and family on the subject. Mr. Adams also owns and maintains an informational website with his wife at http://www.elementary-home-schools.com where you can get a free 10-part tutorial on elementary homeschools.
0 comments:
Post a Comment