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Hernando Today

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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Hernando Today

Published: August 22, 2008

Updated: 08/22/2008 10:03 am

Homeschoolers

At Distinct Disadvantage

"Trust us" was the message loud and clear from the parents attending the Hernando County School District's outreach meeting to homeschoolers. We know what is best for our children. Unfortunately, when confronted with some "facts" concerning the success of home schooling for high school age children their response was not academic concern, but complete denial. Silly me, I thought these parents were truly concerned with excellence in education.

The parent's real concerns had little or nothing to do with education. The first gentleman to speak, a police officer, was convinced the schools were unsafe because his daughter was slightly injured by another student. Another parent obsessed about her fears that her daughter might be tempted into sex in an immoral environment. Then we had the "lack of Jesus in the classroom" concern. And finally, "the public school teachers are basically incompetent," argument.

Mind you many, if not most, of these people had not been in a public school class room in years. Where they got their information, I don't know, but it was absolutely correct and irrefutable in their opinion. Anything contrary was a grievous lie and a complete misrepresentation. But here are a couple of things that parents need to consider when making the decision to home school their high school age children, especially if they are considered "bright" or "gifted."

In 2005, more than 2 million students took Advance Placement Exams covering a large variety of subjects. Homeschoolers only took 1,282 of these tests. There are about 315,000 high school age home schooled children in the U.S. In 2005, the average high school age home schooled child did an average of 67 points higher on the SAT reading and math portion of the test than students enrolled in public education according to the largely debunked Rudner Report. The difference is not statistically significant.

Worse, if you compare the home schooled children to children in the same socio economic group, most studies show a 30 to 40 point deficit for home schooled vs. public education children. No data indicates parity. There is no information comparing home schooled SAT scores to public school children in AP and IB programs. But I am sure that research would be embarrassingly bad for homeschoolers. By the way, our average student in the United States is a person who ranks 24{+t}{+h} in math and 25{+t}{+h} in science out of the 25 most industrialized nations. Do you really want average?

In fact, there are no controls, oversight or review procedures in Florida and most states for home school education, yet they want to lap at the public tax trough. Home-schooled high school children are at a significant disadvantage. Who teaches them physics, calculus, chemistry, statistics, biology, physiology, argumentation, art, persuasive writing and music? These are not on-line or virtual school courses; these courses require labs and practicums. The real truth of the matter is that the home-schooled child misses most if not all of these subjects. It's a paradox that in their zeal to shelter and keep their children safe, these parents expose their children to the worst evil of all - a wasted mind.

The information for this article can be found in a variety of articles found in Education Weekly, The College Board Web site and the Rudner Report.

Michael W. Maynard

A/P English language teacher

Asleep At The Switch

On Aug. 15, I received in the mail a "Political Advertisement" for the re-election of Hernando County Commissioner Jeff Stabins, District 1. I also received the same day a "Sample Ballot" from Supervisor of Elections Annie D. Williams, informing me of where to vote and how to correctly fill out a ballot based on the sample provided and advising me to take it to my voting place for reference when actually casting my vote.

The problem is that early voting started on Aug. 11. It seems to me that if you are on top of your game, you would make sure the above information was in the hands of the voter prior to the commencement of the legal voting period. Perhaps Mr. Stabins and Ms. Williams, our current elected officials, are just too comfortable in their current positions and lost the drive and ambition to be the best they can be

I think it's time for a change!

Don Richter

Weeki Wachee

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