Can’t help but jump back in here, and this is a healthy, respectful discussion here. Kudos to all.
Let me state my position here – I am pro-parent in terms of education, meaning that parents have first call in how their kids should be educated, not the state. I support all kinds of educational models, and I support every effort to take a hammer to the failing public school model we have in this country. If you want to get technical, I love Sol Stern, and I loved Dianne Ravitch back when she worked for Reagan and wrote for Commentary and before she became a union shill. I worked for five years in public schools and was proudly anti-Union. I have supported every reform measure taken by the Alabama legislature (Common Core is a trickier matter – ask me later), even when they’ve gone about it in a clunky way. I support home schooling and private schooling, and I said earlier that my wife and I are willing to make severer personal sacrifices to give our kids a strong, traditional private education.
But all that said, my view is that when you opt out of public school, you opt out of all it offers – debate team, theatre, scholars bowl, track, football, cheerleading, choir… the whole deal. The reason is that while we call those activities extracurricular, they really aren’t. You have athletics as part of your schedule. You meet with your coaches in the hallway. You’re expected to behave in a teacher’s classroom. You’re expected to demonstrate leadership in the lunchroom line just as much as in the locker room. I was an academic coach – not an athletic one – and I would not have liked the idea that my kids would only show up after three for practice but were essentially unavailable until then. I would imagine my colleagues in the athletic department felt likewise.
Again, I support homeschooling, and I’m willing to see high school (and in turn, college) athletics suffer a little if it means an overall rise in the quality of education in this country. But if you make the decision to opt out of public schools, I think you have to live with the opt out in other areas, too. Again, the answer would be for private schools to establish a home school umbrella that would allow kids to participate, but until then, I think homeschoolers must learn to live with community ball or supplement the education after hours.
Let me state my position here – I am pro-parent in terms of education, meaning that parents have first call in how their kids should be educated, not the state. I support all kinds of educational models, and I support every effort to take a hammer to the failing public school model we have in this country. If you want to get technical, I love Sol Stern, and I loved Dianne Ravitch back when she worked for Reagan and wrote for Commentary and before she became a union shill. I worked for five years in public schools and was proudly anti-Union. I have supported every reform measure taken by the Alabama legislature (Common Core is a trickier matter – ask me later), even when they’ve gone about it in a clunky way. I support home schooling and private schooling, and I said earlier that my wife and I are willing to make severer personal sacrifices to give our kids a strong, traditional private education.
But all that said, my view is that when you opt out of public school, you opt out of all it offers – debate team, theatre, scholars bowl, track, football, cheerleading, choir… the whole deal. The reason is that while we call those activities extracurricular, they really aren’t. You have athletics as part of your schedule. You meet with your coaches in the hallway. You’re expected to behave in a teacher’s classroom. You’re expected to demonstrate leadership in the lunchroom line just as much as in the locker room. I was an academic coach – not an athletic one – and I would not have liked the idea that my kids would only show up after three for practice but were essentially unavailable until then. I would imagine my colleagues in the athletic department felt likewise.
Again, I support homeschooling, and I’m willing to see high school (and in turn, college) athletics suffer a little if it means an overall rise in the quality of education in this country. But if you make the decision to opt out of public schools, I think you have to live with the opt out in other areas, too. Again, the answer would be for private schools to establish a home school umbrella that would allow kids to participate, but until then, I think homeschoolers must learn to live with community ball or supplement the education after hours.
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