“No Schoolers”: How Illinois’ Hands-Off Approach to Homeschooling Leaves Children at Risk
“No Schoolers”: How Illinois’ Hands-Off Approach to Homeschooling Leaves Children at Risk
At 9 years old, L.J. started missing school. His parents said they would homeschool him. It took two years — during which he was beaten and denied food — for anyone to notice he wasn’t learning.
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We seriously need to crack down on alternative schooling in America. Private schools, religious schools, and home schooling should not be allowed. Every kid should get a good education in a public school.
Alternative schooling arrangements need to exist, and the pandemic really demonstrated why. They just need to be subject to oversight by the state public schools.
Thank you, I agree, and there are middle options. My daughter is going to an online middle school called Connections Academy. Unfortunately, it is run by Pierson, which is evil, but it is an online public school (at least here in Indiana) which accredited teachers who are well-paid, so they actually give a shit about their students and there is no tuition.
She was severely bullied in her former public in-person middle school for being different from other kids. She likes wearing things like spiked collars, so they bullied relentlessly for being a furry. She decided to go as an anime catgirl for Halloween (my wife made an amazing costume) and she was bullied by the entire school that day. It was the last day she went to public school. She was already starting to think of self-harm and she couldn't face another day.
On top of everything else, she's queer, but she hasn't talked to kids at school about it, so that would have made things ten times worse.
So we have that option for her now. Not only is her self-esteem so much higher, I'm able, as her "learning coach," to cater her lessons to her style of learning and she's gotten the best grades of her life by any stretch because of it. She even goes to a social group with other homeschoolers/online schoolers at the library every week and has made more friends than she's ever made before. We've had to go down to one income, but it's been worth it for her.
Kids don't have to turn their camera on at her school or really get to know each other, so I don't know all of their situations, but I know from other parents in a discussion group that many of them have socialization issues and at least one kid in one of her classes, from the sound of her voice, is a prodigy who can't be older than eight years old. Imagine being as smart as a teenager when you're eight. What are the schooling options there?
Alternative methods are important, but there are often alternatives that aren't private schools or bullshit religious homeschooling, so they have to adopt to state standards. I wish Pierson wasn't involved, but it's not like they aren't providing ever public school kid with instruction as it is. At least I get to tell her what is bullshit in her social studies and health classes this way.
k12.com offers free at home state schooling in all 50 states and will give you a computer if you need it and your states school system supports that. It's not home schooling it's the state curriculum taught by licensed teachers online and your kid takes the state tests. They are even qualified to join the local sports teams and such through some reciprocity thing.
I don't know that company personally, but at a glance it appears to be a for-profit corporation that has been the subject of litigation recently. So... not really what we need.
The funding needs to be going into public schools via taxes, not to private corporations via tuition. We need local oversight by public schools accountable to voters for all education. That company--again, at a glance--seems to be the exact opposite, and kind of part of the problem.
I did k12 for high school. Not to say the company doesn't have any issues (every company does), but my experience was good. I graduated with honors and had a much better time than the one year I did in a brick and mortar high school.
k12 is serving kids who would be left behind without it. There's lot's of children who can't attend in person school for a variety of reasons. If you know of another program that uses licensed teachers and the state curriculum and tests and is paid for by taxes I'm all ears!
Yeah, and appropriate funding. None of this 20+ kids to a classroom nonsense.
But then they will be smart and educated and won't fall for the same political lies!
/s
What a narrow-minded take. Not everyone fits into your one size fits all box. Alternative schooling needs rigorous regulation to make sure the schooling actually happens, but it doesn't need to happen in a government institution
Do you mean... we need schools that cater to alternative learning styles? As someone with ADHD who struggled in school I absolutely agree.
Do you mean... we need those schools that cater to alternative learning styles to be exclusively available to the wealthy? Nope, fuck off.
Everyone goes to the same schools and if the schooling isn't good enough for wealthy parents they can advocate for better teaching methods. Maybe we even have public satellite schools for people who need those alternative teaching instructions! But pay to learn... that can get fucked.
“We need a one size fits all solution!” screams the person who hasn’t discovered yet that people’s needs can be wildly different.
I agree that the situation with private/religious/home schooling does need reform but to say it should not be allowed at all is a bridge too far.
I tried to place my gifted child in public schools and they were like “Sorry but they have to go in the grade that matches their age” despite the fact that they had mastered most content from 2nd grade by the time they were 1st grade age. So my options were let my child academically languish for a few years while they didn’t learn a work ethic because they already know everything - or put them in private / home school to keep them growing academically.