Wow. I didn't mean to set off a fire storm by commenting on parents who bail on the school system. I truly respect all of the people who dedicate so much of their time, energy, and passion to teaching their child outside of the system. Please forgive any misunderstanding.
I was thinking about this all afternoon and wondered if our parents had any of the same discussions? Not many of us were homeschooled, were we? Somehow most of the people on this web site made it through the system without losing the light and joy that learning brings. It made me question whether the school system has changed over the last 30 years or so.
If I think back to the 50's and 60's (okay that is a little bit before my time... but not by much), as a country, we were focused on winning the space race to the moon and the cold war. We viewed all of our resources as vital to beating the Russians and chief among those resources was the education of our children. They literally believed that the country depended on the next generation of kids, and schools made sure that the kids were given all the tools they needed to contribute to the welfare of the country. It was a time of tremendous leaps in inventions and medical breakthroughs, where great emphasis was placed on science and math. But our schools were seen as the foundation for all of those advances. Does any of that sound like our current school system? I thought not.
My point is that if the schools could do it in the past, then they can do it now.
