-=> Chris Gilliland was shooting the bull with Zaynab Richmond about 
Principal praises home sc on 10 Sep 96  04:56:50 <=-
 ZR> Besides the one-on-one  attention, there's the ability for your son to
 ZR> learn at his own pace, and to  learn the things he is most interested
 ZR> in learning.
 CG> Those are the two reasons why I wanted to try it.  Well, even without
 CG> direct home-schooling, I can still encourage his intellectual growth!
 CG> He is SO willing to learn!  That's one reason why I found it hard to
 CG> believe he was 'SUCH a handful' last yr.!  :(
 CG> 
 CG> AND I'm not at all concerned about the 'lack of social life', 'cos we
 CG> live among what seems like hundreds of kids his age!
 CG> 
  
  I do believe that school officials would "praise" homeschooling, but I
  don't think you know what you are talking about.  Homeschooling was set
  up, not for able bodied and able minded children.  Homeschooling was set
  up to make it easier for parents of physically and mentally disabled
  children to be taught at home, making life a little easier on the school
  system, the student and the teacher.  The parents feelings were never a
  real consideration, only the welfare of the child(ren).
  Secondly, no school official would praise homeschooling for children
  who are able to attend regular schedualed classes.  They might praise
  homeschooling for what it was meant, but no teacher is going to praise
  something that makes his/her job, or the job of any other teacher down
  the line any harder than what it already is.......and when the child gets
  to old and to big for the parent to handle, the first place they dump the
  child is on the public school system....and if there is not an immediate
  turnaround in the behavior of the child, it is all of a sudden the 
eacher's
  fault.
  I can tell you this, my Master's thesis was on homeschooling and the 
uccess
  rate of homeschooled students in a post highschool educational setting out-
  side the Mililtary.  Do you realize that less than 1/10 of 1% of 
homeschooled
  children are able to pass the rudimentary enterance exams given for 
enterance
  into community colleges??  While those who attend either a private or 
ublic
  school stand a much better chance, that of just over 15%  150 times better
  chance than a homeschooled student.  
 
 And of those homeschooled students that do attend a college or university,
 even a smaller percentage ever complete the bachelors degree....just a 
 little better than 1 in 547 complete college.  On the otherhand, those who
 attend public or private school outside the home and continue on to college
 about 30% will graduate.  
 Now, with those statistics, it would be ludicrous for any sensible school
 administrator to praise homeschooling over institutionalized school OTHER
 than what home schooling was intentionally meant to be for.....the 
hysically
 and mentally handicapped children who were unable to attend regular school.
 I am sorry if I have offended you in anyway, but, having raised 7 children
 of my own and put them thru college, with one more to begin college in 4
 years (she is a freshman in Highschool), I am not only speaking to you as
 an educator, but as a parent......the last thing a parent should be proud of
 is the homeschooling of a child.....because in so doing, the parent is de-
 tracting from the childs chances of succeeding in our ever quickening paced
 society......and any parent or school official who would stress the virtues
 of "homeschooling" for any purpose than what it was originally intended, in
 my opinion is in the wrong profession....be it that of a school 
dministrator
 or that of a parent.....
 May the best of luck be yours
 James Prior
... "42? 7 and a half million years and all you can come up with is 42?!"
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