Why a public educator says now is the time to homeschool

Homeschooling: The Future of Education

Education is one of the bedrock institutions in the United States.
A public education for children K-12 is an assumed right of every child in every state.
I was part of this system, and I loved it!
I truly believe my calling and my gift is to teach.
And yet, to every shiny penny, there is a heads and a tails.

Our educational system is, in my opinion, failing…miserably.
I am a public educator who believes that now, while this foundational institutional finds firm legs again, every parent should look into homeschooling as a very viable option.

Before the tomatoes start flying – from either direction, hear me out.
I will have an article next month on why parents are flocking to homeschooling, but these are the reasons why I, a public teacher of the past, feel that the public educational system is failing our future generations.

• Extreme Ideas Taught in School
• Schools as Social Service Providers
• Outdated Curricula
• Failing to Look at What Children Need
• Administrivia: Tests
• Deprioritizing Academic Excellence
• Failure to Re-evaluate During Covid

Extreme Ideas Taught in School

Schools are a place where we should be teaching our children a foundation of basic skills.
Then, [hopefully] we teach them how to learn, strategize, problem solve, and think critically so that they can face whatever the world becomes when they “grow” into it.
We can no longer teach a generation to be ready for the world they will enter, by the time we know what we need to teach, the world has already moved on.

Instead of preparing our children to be independent thinkers who can figure out what they need to for their own futures, our schools seem to be encouraging our children strongly feel the way the current trend thinks they should feel towards a social or political sway.

The interesting thing about this is in politics and education it seems we go through extreme swings.
Bringing those extremes into a classroom to teach our children is irresponsible.
It is also a colossal waste of time.

Extreme Ideas:

• Oregon no longer requires reading, writing, or mathematic knowledge to graduate. 
  They do have to take and pass classes, but they can get three different certificates: modified diploma,” “extended diploma” and “alternative certificate
  
  

• Critical Race Theory is being taught in our public schools, even when reading and math scores are at the lowest they have been in decades.
  62% of adults ages 18-20 encountered a CRT education in public school-it is important to note, of this 62%, only 82.4% went to public school.
  
  

• Sex education is no longer when a sexy sperm comes “a-calling” to that bodacious egg, we have a baby…and all the hows and how nots to make sure the kids are not “taken completely unaware” by this action.

  Sex education has become telling young children that they are not boys or girls even if they physically manifest that way.

This is a great segue to the next section.

I feel, that school should be separate from ideas that are not academics related.
I also feel that teachers have a very serious task of helping young minds grow their own way.

A child often times loves their teacher and admires them.
They will reflect the teacher’s viewpoints because of this admiration.

It is therefore, crucial that the teacher does not give away any personal feelings or thoughts on social, political, or religious beliefs.
This seems to be a laughable way of thinking in today’s educational institutions.

This is reason number one for why I believe it is time to homeschool and parents should take their children out of the public education system and nurture critical thinking at home.
Homeschooling allows parents to spend less time on actual school work and more time on activities that grow a child and family because they are not wasting time teaching classes that are not relevant to the future success of their child.


**I want to be perfectly clear, I now believe it is the responsibility of the parent to do this job and for the parent to not “infect” the child with their beliefs.
I believe very strongly in teaching a child how to think for themselves.

Schools as Social Service Providers:

There is a very fine line between educating a population for what they need to know for the future and social services.

An example of this is the DARE and GREAT programs.
DARE, or Drug Abuse Resistance Program was taught to children in elementary schools.
It was a program that teachers needed to make time for in their schedule and an officer would come in and teach to the class.
GREAT, or Gang Resistance Education and Training was taught to children in middle schools.
It was also taught by a police officer.

Sex ed is taught in our Prescott schools.
Parents have argued many sides to this education.
One side being that this should be taught at home.
Another side being that “Abstinence” education, is not realistic (true confessions, I was on this side).
I feel that more knowledge is good knowledge and I wanted kids to know that IF they were going to do the “deed” the ways they should prevent a pregnancy and disease.

Mental Health-this covers a lot.
This is where the entire transgender issue comes in, in my opinion.
Here is what I know, the transgender population and their supporters are very “loud” right now,
They are in our legislation, changing our laws, and in our schools.
The reality, however, is for al of the noise, expense in new webinars, policies, awareness seminars, etc and laws, only 1.14% of US citizens identified as transgender as of June 2024 and another 1.52% identified as non binary.
So, let’s say, this population has 3%.
Just think on that.

Depression, Anxiety, Cutting, Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia
No parent wants to face a teen with these problems.
No teen wants to try to navigate the bleak landscape of one of these diagnoses.

All of these “programs” are incredibly important.
They are all prevalent in our society.
I just tend to wonder if our public schools is where we should be teaching these social issues.

We have relied on the parents in the past to teach their children about drugs or sex.
And the schools ended up taking over because the numbers were up, parents were not effective at educating their children in a way that discouraged substance abuse or teen age pregnancy.

I think it may be time for the public schools to cut out as much as they can.
These are all services that public schools MUST offer that private and charter schools do not have to offer.
These are one of the reasons that public schools are always making “cuts;” they are paying for too much.
They cannot cut busing.
They cannot cut education for the disabled or the gifted.
They cannot cut specific occupational or physical therapies or counseling for students.
They cannot cut reduced lunch or free lunch programs.
They must accept all children within their regional boundaries, meaning they must put money aside for behavior classrooms.
They must offer free testing to parents for special education, gifted education, or dyslexia.
Because public education is free, they cannot require students to buy school supplies, so they must have those in case a student does not.

I reached my proverbial limit, clear back in 1998, when I saw too much energy, time, and resources being funneled into, albeit, worthy programs, but not school curricula.
I think a line should be drawn and we should expect our parents to take responsibility for their children; they are parents.

This will get a lot of critics, but the reality is people have to step up and take responsibility.
We cannot be a country of “okay” education or “just enough” because we are making up for all of the parents who we THINK will not teach their children.

This is reason number two for why I believe parents should take their children out of the public education system and grow generations at home who think and strategize.
All of this the parents can do, while discussing with their children the dangers of drugs and vaping or the way their family feels about sex.
They can look at their own family history and make a personal story and appeal about mental health.
They can recognize their children’s unique needs.

Outdated or Over-Taught Curricula:

I finally get a topic I won’t go on and on about!

To start, the over-taught curricula is one of my “bones to pick.”

I looked all over the internet, I cannot give you any firm data or research.
I just know based on “being” there.
I taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.
When I spoke to my 6th graders, many had already learned about WW2 or the Civil War.
None had learned about the Korean or Vietnam Wars, and these were not on my curricula to teach.
My theory, back in 1997, was that these two wars, specifically, had messages that taught empathy and were therefore, deemed a more important part of history, so they were taught multiple times, rather than teach something new.

We also spend at least 3 weeks at the beginning of the year, each and every year, reviewing the previous years content.
We, as teachers, need to do this to determine where our classes are so we know where to begin teaching in earnest.
The students need this refresher because many have experiences a “Summer Slump” and have forgotten a lot over the long break. (LINK)

Then, the week before Christmas and the week before school gets out for the year, are two completely wasted weeks, academically.

And there is usually some review, but often just a day or two, after Christmas break.

Some of this is unavoidable, I don’t love it, but it is what it is.

What I am really against is the public education’s, as an institution, seeming refusal to assess what they are teaching, what is needed, and “trim the fat” to add the new cream.

I have looked at whether or not teaching writing papers or art  are still beneficial.
In a day and age when literally, everything is computer based, I would think a communication course on how to ask Google and AI questions that result in the answers you are actually seeking would be a must, for example.

We, as a society, often times do not like change, however, our children, need to be effective, efficient, well “educated,” and happy in the world they will face, not in the world we grew up in.
A world, that arguably, does not even exist now.

This is reason number three for why I believe it is time to homeschool.
When parents homeschool their children, they can look at what their children are interested in and what the world is demanding of its citizens.
Then the parent can help guide the child through an education that will better prepare their child.

Administrivia and Tests:

I loved teaching.
I enjoyed thinking of creative ways to make introductory sentences exciting.
I wanted to share my love of writing and reading with my students.

I detested administrivia.
There is a “council” for almost everything.
And, you get “voluntold” for many events, councils, and positions.

Then there was all of the paperwork.
Oh my heck!
When students chose to fail and not do assignments, you must record how many times you reached out to that student, how many chances you gave them to try, and how many times you sent notes home and called the parents to try to get their support.

And in the end, the parents still came in and told you that it was your fault their kids were failing (this is why you had to the piles of paperwork).

If that was not defeating enough, the school administration switched allegiance, maybe around the mid to late 1990’s.
There was a time that the administration was on the side of the students and the teachers.
Then came the backlash of tenure.
This is all my interpretation.
We had some dinosaurs in the schools, no doubt.
And it was impossible to fire a teacher who had been around for awhile, even in Arizona, a principal had to have a lot of evidence and show at least a year (I think-it could be two) of trying to work with that teacher and that teacher not doing so.

So, the magic answer came!
We will determine the “goodies” and the “badies” based how their students score on state wide tests, after all, standardized tests are the same for everyone.

Well, what is not the same for each teacher is the school, the students, the money coming into the school for resources, and the support from home.

Teachers names were being printed in newspapers with their test scores so the parents and public could “obviously see” who was a good and deserving of a raise teacher and who was not.

So, teachers, did what was necessary and what the public was screaming for, they worked to raise test scores.
Teachers knew this was not the whole picture, but it was the picture they were being assessed by.

Ten years later, no one remembered the why, the teachers only knew that they had to make sure their children passed the standardized tests.

And so, yes, teaching to aspects of the tests became a standard in education.

This is reason number four for why I believe parents should take their children out of the public education system.
I feel assessment is crucial for growth.
However, there are many ways to assess a child’s knowledge.
One of my favorites is portfolio assessment.

Are you ready to homeschool, but don’t know where to start!
I have a plan for you!

MAP OUT YOUR ENTIRE HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM!

I CAN HELP YOU, TAKE IT STEP BY STEP

• These sheets go with the article: "Map Out Your Entire Homeschool Curriculum"
• Download and copy as many as you need (years, goals, and subjects)
• Yearly Goals has 8 years and 5 main goals for each year
• Annual tracker helps you break down each year, each main goal
• Which skills will you teach and when, to achieve the desired results-it is easy to see when you map it

Instructions included

Name

Email

Breathe a sigh of relief-you got this!

Enjoy the journey with your child! 
Get the planning done easily and in advance!!  

Deprioritizing Academic Excellence:

There was a time that we, as a nation, were very concerned with producing as well educated students, after high school, as China.

I cannot find the articles on it now.
It was before the internet.

I have commented to others in education about this, and they remember.
It was a big deal for awhile.
We were comparing our students’ hours in a day and year compared to those students in China.

And then, crickets.
We gave up.
Our kids no longer deserved the attention we were giving to try to assure them the highest quality education we could.

Through the years, we have continually had “good and just” laws come to us that have watered down education.

No Child Left Behind.
What this meant to the teacher:
We could not move onto another concept in our classroom if a child did not understand the one we just learned.
I am a teacher, I love kids.

However, the reality is that not all children are bright in the same way as each other.

Some kids are, in fact, meant to work with their hands-my youngest son is one of them.
And his is brilliant at direction and spatial locations.
But not so much at written instructions.

For a teacher to have to stop a classroom’s learning so that one child can be taught and retaught in different ways, means that the other 97% of the kids are bored.

And we have the parents calling because their children received behavior notices.

Do you see the cycle?

SEI or Structured English Immersion teaching.
In Arizona, all of our lessons had to incorporate SEI.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the SEI tactics are good, simply because they address different learning styles and in the public schools, written and oral learning styles are primarily taught to.

However, one of the “rules” to SEI is that you teach a concept three different ways.
Again, you have the, now 15% who did not get the concept the first or second time, and 85% of your students who are bored.

Remember that discipline and upset parent phone calls cycle-yup this one starts it again.

We are deprioritizing academic excellence, and instead prioritizing the few who are behind.

This means we are teaching less or we are teaching at a much more shallow level.

If your child wants to be a college professor, archaeologist, marine biologist, astronaut, fill in the blank with any career that requires higher education, we are no longer catering to their needs in the public schools.

The public schools are now catering to the very few individuals who have difficulty learning a concept.
Or they are catering to the children who are way below “grade level” or who speak another language and should not even be in the regular classroom taking a good education away from a child who really wants one.

This is reason number five for why I believe parents should take their children out of the public education system.
The public schools simply no longer care about every child doing their best.
You, as a parent, have to fight for your child’s best education and right now that is you.
And here is an interesting fact:
The home-educated typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests.

Covid

My final reason for bailing on public education and recommending homeschooling is the reaction to Covid by the schools.

Firstly, I want to state, I am not basing this on the end of the 2019-2020 school year.
No one knew which way was up.

What absolutely disgusted me and made me finally throw in any remaining support I had for public schools was…
4 hours on a computer for kindergarteners.

The schools had all summer to regroup.
They were given funding, a lot of funding to figure out a better way to teach.

You know what they ALL came up with?
Spend the money on computers for all of our students and improve internet access.

Yup, let’s get kids on screens even longer, that is the best idea they could come up with.

Even though THEY are our education resource.
Even though THEY had been telling parents for years the dangers of children on screens.
Even though THEY know many of the children cannot learn visually.

They knew going into it, that parents were going to have a hard time “making their children” do the work.

And, what makes me really sad, homeschool cooperatives were still going strong.
Their children were meeting, some by zoom, some in person, but they were still learning and excelling.

The schools had an example of a format that worked!
However, instead of looking at what public education deems its competition, they came up with throwing children on screens for hours a day.

Our schools had the opportunity, the time, and the money to become better.
And they didn’t.

I have done the big “reveal.”
People ask me, “Why do you write homeschool articles and have products to support homeschoolers when you are a public educator?”

Well, I was a public educator.
I believe whole heartedly in the concept of a public education.
I just think that the entire institution has gone horribly off course.
Instead of thinking what is best for the children, it seems to be trying to marginalize the masses while celebrating the very few.

“There’s a lot more to school than showing up on time.” Matilda