Originally Posted by indigo
Originally Posted by Val
Here's problem with homeschooling for a year, learned the hard way at our house.

Schools won't accept courses that aren't taught by accredited institutions... In their minds, there is a procedure, and it must be followed. Anything off the path doesn't count.

Val, this is especially chilling because, if I understand correctly from other posts on the forum, you may be more qualified to teach math than many/most licensed math teachers at accredited institutions?

Bostonian, I agree. Demonstrating knowledge by proficiency testing or essentially submitting a portfolio are respected and time-honored approaches.

I like to think I'm more qualified to teach math to my kids than the person who tells my two younger ones that "The sum of m and 9" is m+9 and NOT 9+m. Or that writing 1/4 = 0.25 is wrong because 0.25 = 0.25. But instead, I've been chastised for teaching them and undermining this great teacher's amazing pedagogy.

I also like to think that testing a kid is an obvious response to a parental claim, but I've been on this board long enough to know that resistance to it is ubiquitous. Many people on this forum have complained that early elementary teachers won't even test their kids to see if they really can read at the level mom and dad are claiming. I mean, how hard is it to hand a Magic Tree House book or whatever to a kindergartner and say, Okay, start reading?

Originally Posted by indigo
There may be an emerging trend of schools wrestling power and control from parents. The larger the proportion of disengaged parents who are not supporting their child's education, the wider the door is opened for government schools to oversee and monitor parenting. Many districts offer parenting seminars, schools may record educational, demographic, and personal items into longitudinal data collection student information systems, and schools have the ability to monitor inside the home via school laptop video cam and microphone.

Personally, I think that many of them are simply mediocre types who really don't have a clue and are acting as mediocre types tend to act.