Paul courts Christian home schoolers in Kentucky

...there are things that you can say in the church

that we think are sinful,

and that should be something we can say...

--- Rand Paul

What things?

This from the Herald-Leader:

Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul told a group of Christian home schoolers in Kentucky on Friday that he favors a separation of church and state, saying allowing the government into religious institutions "scares" him.

The tea party favorite also voiced his opposition to government faith-based initiatives that have been used to funnel federal and state funds into religious organizations.

"The faith-based initiative was getting government involved in churches basically, and that scares me a little bit, because there are things that you can say in the church that we think are sinful, and that should be something we can say," the Bowling Green eye surgeon told about 300 people in the sanctuary of Valley View Church in suburban Louisville. "But the second this church starts taking government money, then they're going to say you can't say these things are sinful."

Paul, a Presbyterian layman, campaigned at a Christian Home Educators of Kentucky convention where he was peppered with questions about his religious beliefs, brushing aside one about the age of the earth that he later described as ridiculous.

"I'm not running for minister," Paul said later. "I'm more than willing to stand up and say I'm a Christian, but I don't think I have to go into every detail of what my religious beliefs are. If I were going to be the minister of their church, they'd have a right to ask me that."

Andrew Willis of Elizabethtown, who teaches his four children at home, said he hoped Paul's answer would jibe with his own belief that the earth is about 6,000 years old.

"I'm not at all surprised that he didn't want to answer that question," Willis said shortly after posing it. "I know that is hugely controversial."...

More higher-income families are home schooling their children

This from USA Today:

Parents who home-school children increasingly are white, wealthy and well-educated — and their numbers have nearly doubled in a decade, a new federal government report says.

What else has nearly doubled? The percentage of girls who are home-schooled. They now outnumber home-schooled boys by a wide margin.

As of spring 2007, an estimated 1.5 million, or 2.9% of all school-age children in the USA, were home-schooled, up from 1.7% in 1999.

The new figures come from the U.S. Department of Education, which found that 36% of parents said their most important reason for home schooling was to provide "religious or moral instruction"; 21% cited concerns about school environment. Only 17% cited "dissatisfaction with academic instruction."

Perhaps most significant: The ratio of home-schooled boys to girls has shifted significantly. In 1999, it was 49% boys, 51% girls. Now boys account for only 42%; 58% are girls...

1.5 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2007

Up 36% since 2003

WHY HOME-SCHOOL?
Top reasons cited by parents (could pick more than one):
• Concerns about the school environment (including safety, drugs, peer pressure): 88%
• A desire to provide religious or moral instruction: 83%
• A dissatisfaction with instruction at other schools: 73%
• An interest in a non-traditional approach: 65%

This from USA Today:

The ranks of America's home-schooled children have continued a steady climb over the past five years, and new research suggests broader reasons for the appeal.

The number of home-schooled kids hit 1.5 million in 2007, up 74% from when the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics started keeping track in 1999, and up 36% since 2003. The percentage of the school-age population that was home-schooled increased from 2.2% in 2003 to 2.9% in 2007. "There's no reason to believe it would not keep going up," says Gail Mulligan, a statistician at the center.

Traditionally, the biggest motivations for parents to teach their children at home have been moral or religious reasons, and that remains a top pick when parents are asked to explain their choice.

The 2003 survey gave parents six reasons to pick as their motivation. (They could choose more than one.) The 2007 survey added a seventh: an interest in a "non-traditional approach," a reference to parents dubbed "unschoolers," who regard standard curriculum methods and standardized testing as counterproductive to a quality education...

Do Over in California Home School Case

This from the San Francisco Chronicle:

California homeschooling case to be reheard

(03-26) 18:00 PDT LOS ANGELES -- A state appeals court has agreed to reconsider its decision last month that barred homeschooling by parents who lack teaching credentials, raising the possibility that the judges will change a decision that has infuriated homeschool advocates nationwide.

The Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles granted a rehearing Tuesday at the request of a couple who have taught their eight children at home without credentials.

It is not unusual for appeals courts to reconsider decisions, and the result is often a minor revision that leaves the original conclusion unchanged. But the three-judge panel in the homeschooling case hinted at a re-evaluation of its entire Feb. 28 ruling by inviting written arguments from state and local education officials and teachers' unions.

It said it will hold a new hearing in June.

"Another look at this case will help ensure that the fundamental rights of parents are fully protected," said attorney Gary Kreep of the U.S. Justice Foundation, the father of the homeschooled children.

Last month's ruling, if upheld, could put many parents at risk of prosecution for violating the state's compulsory-education law. Homeschooling advocates say 166,000 children in California are taught by at home, most of them by parents who lack teaching credentials.

The law has been largely unenforced for many years, however. State Schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell responded to the ruling by saying he favors parental choice in education. Since taking office in 2003, O'Connell has left enforcement up to local school districts and has suggested that parents could comply with the law by creating private schools in their homes.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denounced the ruling and promised to change the law...

Turning to Home Schools for Religious Reasons

Many American families have turned to home schooling as a means of controlling the curriculum and assuring that an appropriate amount of attention is drawn to Christian principles - said to be lacking in American schools.

Increasingly, Muslims are turning to home schooling for just the opposite reason - to protect their children from a school-going population that is too Christian for their children's comfort.

LODI, Calif. — Like dozens of other Pakistani-American girls here, Hajra Bibi stopped attending the local public school when she reached puberty, and began studying at home.

Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives, and had also worried that other American children would mock both her Muslim religion and her traditional clothes.

“Some men don’t like it when you wear American clothes — they don’t think it is a good thing for girls,” said Miss Bibi, 17, now studying at the 12th-grade level in this agricultural center some 70 miles east of San Francisco. “You have to be respectable.”

Across the United States, Muslims who find that a public school education clashes with their religious or cultural traditions have turned to home schooling. That choice is intended partly as a way to build a solid Muslim identity away from the prejudices that their children, boys and girls alike, can face in schoolyards.

But in some cases, as in Ms. Bibi’s, the intent is also to isolate their adolescent and teenage daughters from the corrupting influences that they see in much of American life...

This from the New York Times, Photo by David Kadlubowski.

No Ban on Home Schooling in California

Top schools official reassures parents

that court ruling won't change status quo.

Many still worry.

Countering a potentially precedent-setting appeals court decision that bars parents from educating their children at home if they lack teaching credentials, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell on Tuesday affirmed families' right to home school.

"There's no cause for alarm," he said Tuesday.

"I want to assure parents that chose to home school that California Department of Education policy will not change in any way as a result of this ruling," he said in a written statement. "Parents still have the right to home school in our state."

O'Connell's statements stem from a Feb. 28 ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal that said parents must have a teaching credential to home school their children. The decision has not yet gone into effect and it is unlikely to be enforced pending appeals to the state Supreme Court by attorneys representing Phillip and Mary Long, the Lynwood couple at the center of the case, and others...

This from the L A Times.

California Court Requires Credentials for Home Schooling

Huh?

This from Teacher Magazine:

California parents who don't have teaching credentials no longer can home school their children, according to a recent state appellate court ruling.

"Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey wrote in a Feb. 28 opinion for the 2nd District Court of Appeals.

Noncompliance could lead to a criminal complaint against the parents, Croskey said.

An estimated 166,000 students in California are home schooled.

California has allowed home schooling if parents either file paperwork to establish themselves as small, private schools; hire a credentialed tutor; or enroll their child in an independent study program run by an established school while teaching the child at home...

Giving Proper Credit To Home-Schooled

With Applications From Nontraditional

Students Rising, More Universities Are

Revamping Evaluation Methods
~

In the pursuit of a homemade high school education, Jay Voris played drums in Guinea, Colin Roof restored a 134-year-old sailboat in Ireland, and Rebecca Goldstein wrote a 600-page fantasy novel and took calculus at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

The independent-minded Maryland students and two dozen others gathered at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Annapolis one afternoon this month for an alternative graduation ceremony that is becoming more common across the country as home schooling expands. Now the movement is gaining ground in a crucial arena: college admissions.

Goldstein, 18, of Ellicott City will be a full-time student at UMBC in the fall. Alan Goldstein said his daughter's idiosyncratic education distinguished her from "cookie cutter" applicants from conventional schools and helped her gain entrance into honors programs and win a full scholarship. Others at the June 2 commencement are bound for St. John's College, Hampshire College, the University of Rochester and other liberal arts schools.

Admissions officers accustomed to evaluating class rankings, transcripts and recommendations from professional teachers have long faced challenges in evaluating home-schooled applicants. How much weight should be given to student performance in a class of one or two? Or credits assigned for horseback riding or hiking the Appalachian Trail? Or glowing recommendations from Mom?


This from the Washington Post, Photo by Linda Davidson.