Tag Archives: Homeschooling

News

Atlanta public schools caught helping students to cheat on standardized tests

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Beverly Hall and Atlanta public schools
Beverly Hall and Atlanta public schools

From the liberal Atlanta Journal-Constitution, news of a cover-up of “systemic” cheating in the Atlanta public schools. (H/T Reason to Stand)

Excerpt:

State investigators have uncovered a decade of systemic cheating in the Atlanta Public Schools and conclude that Superintendent Beverly Hall knew or should have known about it, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.

In a report that Gov. Nathan Deal planned to release today, the investigators name nearly 180 educators, including more than three dozen principals, as participants in cheating on state curriculum tests, officials said over the weekend. The investigators obtained scores of confessions.

The findings suggest the national accolades that Hall and the school system have collected — and the much-vaunted academic progress for which she claimed credit — were based on falsehoods. Raising test scores apparently became a higher priority than conducting the district’s business in an ethical manner.

[…]The report’s release culminates more than two years of inquiries into Atlanta’s huge gains on the state-mandated Criterion-Referenced Competency Test in 2009. An AJC analysis first detected statistically improbable increases in test scores at two Atlanta schools in 2008. The following year, the AJC published another analysis that found suspicious score changes on the 2009 CRCT at a dozen Atlanta schools. The newspaper’s reporting ultimately led to the state investigation that is being released today.The investigators’ report, officials said, depicts a culture that rewarded cheaters, punished whistle-blowers and covered up improprieties. Strongly contradicting denials of cheating and other irregularities by Hall and other top district executives, the report describes organized wrongdoing that robbed tens of thousands of children — many of whom came from disadvantaged backgrounds and struggled in school — of an honest appraisal of their abilities.

At the same time, the document apparently provides a scathing assessment of the school system’s handling of the scandal, accusing district leaders of hampering the special investigators’ efforts to uncover the truth. The investigators reportedly accuse Hall and her top aides of refusing to take responsibility for the district’s problems.

The report also will detail potentially criminal acts by district officials, the AJC has learned.

In an effort to maintain Hall’s high profile in national education circles, the superintendent and her top aides reportedly tried to hide unflattering information as far back as 2006. District officials illegally altered documents related to the test and withheld material that should have been released under the state’s Open Records Act, the report is expected to say.

There is a possibility of criminal charges, and I do hope that this woman and all responsible spend at least a few years in jail.

We need to get taxpayer money out of the public school system, and back into the hands of parents, through a federal voucher system. Let the parents decide which school is best for their children. Let them buy education the same way that they buy things from other retailers. Choice and competition. Lower price and higher quality. If they don’t like the results that public schools provide, then let them take their money to a private school – or use the money to homeschool.

Notice that the largest teacher union, the National Education Association (NEA) has endorsed Obama. Democrats protect the failings of the education establishment, in exchange for votes and political activism. The faster we vote the Democrats out, the faster education in this country will improve.

News

Quebec judge orders three-year-old into daycare for “socialization”

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Map of Canada
Map of Canada

From Life Site News. (H/T Mary, Eleanor)

Excerpt:

A Quebec judge has ordered a three-year-old and a five-year-old to attend state-funded day care following claims that the children lacked proper “socialization.”

The parents of the Notre-Dame-des-Bois family were also ordered to place their two elder homeschooled children in public schools, and accused of failing to act quickly to correct learning disabilities, despite their doctor’s testimony to the contrary.

“This is a shocking decision,” said Paul Faris of the Canadian branch of the Home School Legal Defense Association, who have backed the family’s case. He told LifeSiteNews this is the latest in the Quebec government’s ongoing effort to “clamp down on choice in education.”

He said the most concerning part is the judge’s decision to “order the younger children who were not of compulsory school age into day care for socialization.”

The family, who have homeschooled for four years, were reported to the province’s Youth Protection Services in November 2009 after a run-in with the local school board.  The elder children were ordered into school in April 2010 after court proceedings began in February 2010.  There was a four-day trial in November, and Judge Nicole Bernier issued her ruling in March.

Faris said the court refused to hear the parents’ expert witness and dismissed the testimony of the family doctor, who has been fully supportive of their medical decisions.  In her ruling, Judge Bernier claimed the family doctor’s testimony lacked objectivity and was “full of bias” owing to his relationship with the parents.

Faris said the judge gave “excess weight” to the government’s experts, who he says “found that one child’s hearing impairment ‘indicated’ that the parents could not be trusted and therefore all the children should be enrolled in public school programs.” Judge Bernier determined that the security and development of the children was compromised by parental negligence.

In her ruling, Judge Bernier called the mother’s teaching approach “outdated,” saying it emphasized repetition exercises and acquisition of knowledge rather than the Ministry’s preferred approach of teaching learning skills.  She also criticizes the elder children’s social development, noting that they had difficulty at first with the other children when they entered the classroom.

“The parents, though aware … of the need to stimulate each child by interactions with peers of the same age, outside of the family, either at school, kindergarten, or day care or occasional education trips, maintain their interest in the teaching model of the home school,”  she wrote, going on to lament that they are “refusing to integrate the youngest in kindergarten or day care, and opposing educational outings for the children.”

“Their reasons are always the same and regard a social mistrust that does not meet the needs of their children,” she added. She also took issue with the fact that the parents apparently had not obtained a homeschooling exemption under the Education Act, which requires that the parents offer a program equivalent to that offered in the schools.

I do not recommend that anyone get married or have children in Quebec. The government and courts seem to think that they are the parents of your children, and the regulators of your marriage. So why bother letting them run your life? Go somewhere else instead. Just imagine – being these parents and paying taxes to these fascists for years, so that they can now take your children away from you. This is where the secular leftist obsession with equality of outcome and uniformity of thought leads. They really are fascists, and they really do hate marriage and family.

This story is particular ironic, considering the news story about the 16-year old homeschooled child entering LAW SCHOOL, having completed her Bachelors degree prior to turning 16. Perhaps this child could move to Canada, get on the Supreme Court of Canada, and overrule this left-wing judicial activist? That should be the mission of all homeschooled children, in my opinion. They should be planning on it.

And in other news, the gay rights lobby is forcing their agenda into the Ontario’s Catholic school system. The governments in Quebec and Ontario are both Liberal, and are supported even by some Catholics. These Catholics think that it is the government’s job to redistribute wealth in order to equalize life outcomes and achieve “social justice”. Imagine how shocked they must be now, to find government intruding into their private lives.

News

Homeschooled student about to enter law school at age 16

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Reggie sent me this story from WSU Today.

Excerpt:

A 16-year-old student from Union, Wash., will soon become the youngest person on record to graduate from Washington State University.

Kayla Heard could talk at age one and read at 18 months. She started first grade at three, graduated from high school at ten and began community college at 11.

Kayla was home-schooled and is earning her social sciences degree though WSU Online.

“My parents felt it wouldn’t be good to send me to a campus at such a young age,” she said. “I appreciate their decision, mainly because online studying has given me quite a bit of flexibility in my schedule.” Kayla and her family will attend the May 7 commencement in Pullman.

Kayla’s mother said she knew her daughter was different early on.

“When she was a baby, she respected paper,” Marlyn Heard said.  “She didn’t tear it or put it in her mouth. She would look at a picture or writing like she wanted to know what it said.”

When Kayla was seven months old, her mom laid out flash cards with numbers and letters.

“In two months she knew them,” Marlyn said. “She would pick the right ones – before she could speak.” Kayla could print letters at three and write in cursive at four.

At the age of two, Marlyn said, Kayla realized that all the presidents of the United States have been male. She looked at her mom and said, “I’ll be the first female president. And I’ll defend the rights of children.”

Kayla graduates with a 3.71 grade point average. She’s already passed a law school admissions test, and will spend the summer filling out law school applications.

“I’m interested in pursuing a degree online in international law,” Kayla said. “I have a passion for traveling and learning about foreign cultures.” She wants to work abroad, possibly in Hong Kong, and she plans to “visit a plethora of foreign countries” before settling down.

Kayla spends her spare time singing in church, playing piano and guitar, and reading and writing. She also stays in her room a lot, Marlyn said. “We call her cave girl.”
Are there other brilliant members of the Heard family?

“I have relatives who are scholars, but not like Kayla,” Marlyn said. “And my son is more like a normal kid. He’s 12. When he was a baby, he put the flash cards in his mouth.”

This is what I expect from homeschooling families.

Homeschooling is not something that the secular left is OK with. The secular left doesn’t want parents to have a big influence on their children. The secular left is not OK with the generally traditional moral beliefs of the parents. They don’t want some families to be different from other families. They want everyone to be the same, even if that means that the public schools make everyone equally crappy. If homeschooled children today expect to homeschool their own children tomorrow, then they better set goals to get into the university and have an influence on public policy. Because there are forces at work who want to take homeschooling away, no matter how well it works.

Somehow, we have gotten the idea that our children are not our responsibility, and that God will not hold us accountable for the children we raise. I think that’s wrong. Why are we all so anxious to lower the bar for ourselves and lower expectations? Why don’t we look at children as serious projects worthy of our attention and RAISE the bar for what we expect from them – and help them all the time so that they can achieve it? You can’t make a succesful child like this without giving them care, attention and guidance – letting them see downfield where the challenges are so they can make the right moves NOW.

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