More state districts add online education
January 15, 2007
In the continued march toward more online learning, a growing number of school districts throughout the state are looking into opening virtual schools - with at least three more possible this fall.
They would join the dozen that exist in the state, including ones in Kenosha and Monroe that opened this year, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Calls revived for national education standards
January 12, 2007
WASHINGTON - The No Child Left Behind law was supposed to level the playing field, promising students an equal education no matter where they live or their background. From state to state, however, huge differences remain in what students are expected to know and learn.
Each state sets its own standards for such subjects as reading and math, then tests to see whether students meet those benchmarks. The practice has come under increasing scrutiny as Congress prepares to review the five-year-old law.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Big Brother database to record the lives of all children
January 7, 2007
The home life of every child in the country is to be recorded on a national database in the ultimate intrusion of the nanny state, it has emerged.
Computer records holding details of school performance, diet and even whether their parents provide a 'positive role model' for 12 million children will be held by the Government.
Police, social workers, teachers and doctors will have access to the database and have powers to flag up 'concerns' where children are not meeting criteria laid down by the state.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Homeschool-public school bonds growing
December 21, 2006
More parents are supplementing lessons at home by embracing public school partnerships
Students at the tiny, nondescript public school building in North Seattle have no playground, no formal cafeteria, no sports teams, no bells signaling the end of class. They come and go as they please, and the nearly 250 who pass through the halls don't even consider themselves public school students.
They're among the more than 20,000 children statewide who are thought to opt out of public schools each year. They and their parents are drawn instead to the flexibility and freedom of homeschooling.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
A new chapter in education: unschooling
October 6, 2006
Shana Ronayne Hickman of Cedar Park, Texas, says unschooling has worked well for her son, Kenzie, 8.
She first learned of unschooling when her son was 3. “It made more sense than anything I had ever read in my life,” says Hickman, who now publishes an unschooling support magazine called Live Free Learn Free. “Of course, people learn best when they’re interested in something. Of course, we retain information much better when we actively seek it out. Of course, learning through life is ideal.”
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Kids buy lunches with scans of fingers
September 5, 2006
New system to replace having to remember PIN numbers
ROME, Ga. - The never-ending march of technology now means school children here can pay for their cafeteria sloppy joes with their fingers. Rome City Schools is switching to a scanning system that lets students use their fingerprints to access their accounts. In the past, students had to punch in their pin numbers.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
The New Science of Siblings
July 13, 2006
Your parents raised you. Your spouse lives with you. But it's your brothers and sisters who really shaped you. Surprising research reveals how...By JEFFREY KLUGER
There are a lot of ways to study a painting, and one of the best is to get to know the painter. The splash or splatter of color makes a lot more sense when you understand the rage or whimsy or heart behind it. The songwriter, similarly, can lay bare the song, the poet the poem, the builder the building.
So what explains the complex bit of artistry that is the human personality? We may not be born as tabulae rasae. Any parent can tell you that each child comes from the womb with an individual temperament that seems preloaded at the factory. But from the moment of birth, a lot of things set to work on that temperament--moderating it, challenging it, annealing it, wounding it. What we're left with after 10 or 20 or 50 years is quite different from what we started out with.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Baby TV: Good for junior?
July 11, 2006
NEW YORK -- Escalating an already heated international debate, a first-of-its-kind TV channel designed specifically for babies is now available in parts of Canada, and parents are weighing the arguments against subscribing to the channel for their kids -- an age group some experts say should be kept away from television altogether.
The new, round-the-clock channel is called Baby TV and is now available through Rogers Cable.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Virtual schools expand Kansas districts' reach
July 11, 2006
The Lawrence school district is looking for more students and has come to Wichita, about 180 miles away, to find them. Lawrence is advertising in The Eagle and other papers statewide for students to enroll in its virtual school, which allows students to attend classes without leaving their homes.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
The Magic of the Family Meal
June 12, 2006
The statistics are clear: kids who dine with the folks are healthier, happier and better students, which is why a dying tradition is coming back...By NANCY GIBBS
Close your eyes and picture Family Dinner. June Cleaver is in an apron and pearls, Ward in a sweater and tie. The napkins are linen, the children are scrubbed, steam rises from the green-bean casserole, and even the dog listens intently to what is being said. This is where the tribe comes to transmit wisdom, embed expectations, confess, conspire, forgive, repair. The idealized version is as close to a regular worship service, with its litanies and lessons and blessings, as a family gets outside a sanctuary.
That ideal runs so strong and so deep in our culture and psyche that when experts talk about the value of family dinners, they may leave aside the clutter of contradictions. Just because we eat together does not mean we eat right: Domino's alone delivers a million pizzas on an average day. Just because we are sitting together doesn't mean we have anything to say: children bicker and fidget and daydream; parents stew over the remains of the day. Often the richest conversations, the moments of genuine intimacy, take place somewhere else, in the car, say, on the way back from soccer at dusk, when the low light and lack of eye contact allow secrets to surface.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
The Gilded Age of Home Schooling
June 5, 2006
In what is an elite tweak on home schooling — and a throwback to the gilded days of education by governess or tutor — growing numbers of families are choosing the ultimate in private school: hiring teachers to educate their children in their own homes.
Unlike the more familiar home-schoolers of recent years, these families are not trying to get more religion into their children's lives, or escape what some consider the tyranny of the government's hand in schools. In fact, many say they have no argument with ordinary education — it just does not fit their lifestyles.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Homeschooling grows quickly in United States
March 2, 2006
Nobody is quite sure exactly how many American children are being taught at home. The National Center for Education Statistics, in a 2003 survey, put the number that year at 1.1 million. The Home School Legal Defense Association, which represents some 80,000 member families, says the figure now is quite a bit higher -- between 1.7 and 2.1 million.
But there is no disagreement about the explosive growth of the movement -- 29 percent from 1999 to 2003 according to the NCES study, or 7 to 15 percent a year according to HSLDA.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Homeschoolers are unconventional off the court, winners on it
February 28, 2006
The bleachers were packed with fans waving mini-flags and rooting mightily as the North Jersey Homeschoolers warmed up for their final home game. Players were leading cheers and a toddler ran around the gym wearing a tiny jersey to show support for her family's favorite team.
The scene, in many ways, was no different from that of other area high school basketball games. Yes, the game was held in a cramped church gymnasium with a tile floor. And yes, head coach Michael Harrison led an opening prayer. But in the ways that count on a basketball court, the Homeschoolers have proven they are just the same as other area programs. And many times, they're much better.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Businesses cater to homeschool families
Feb 6, 2006
Jill Nardini planned to homeschool her family even before she had children.
Nardini, 44, a self-described older mom who had fertility problems, said she wanted to spend as much time as possible with her children. Her desire to teach her 9-year-old son Joey and 7-year-old daughter Jessie about their Christian faith also influenced the decision.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
No school, no books, no teacher's dirty looks
Feb 3, 2006
It's a child's dream. Wake up whenever you want, with nobody telling you what to do and when to do it. And here's the kicker: No school to rush off to.
Welcome to the world of "unschooling" -- an educational movement where kids, not parents, not teachers, decide what they will learn that day.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Homeschool Elves
December 21, 2005
Dozens of homeschoolers made Christmas decorations and other hands-on projects during the Eighth Annual Homeschool Elves Workshop Friday at Mt. Shasta City Park.
“It's loads of fun,” said Golden Eagle Charter School director Shelly Adams. “It brings all the homeschoolers together whether they are in a charter school or not. Kids like to make things for their moms.”
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Homeschool Graduates Now Considered "Preferred Enlistees"
December 13, 2005
After a long struggle, the military has now fully opened the door to homeschoolers. Homeschool graduates who desire a career with any of the four branches of the Armed Services are being treated as "preferred enlistees." This means that homeschool graduates who enlist in the military will be treated as Tier I candidates even though their formal status will remain Tier II. As a result of this change, homeschoolers will receive the same educational benefits, cash bonuses, and available positions in the Armed Services as any of their peers. Homeschool graduates are now able to compete on an equal footing with other types of graduates for the 80,000 positions in the Army, 30,000 in the Navy, 23,00 in the Marines, and 20,000 in the Air Force that need to be filled with new recruits annually.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
More Black Families Homeschooling
December 11, 2005
Denise Armstrong decided to home school her daughter and two sons because she thought she could do a better job of instilling her values in her children than a public school could. And while she once found herself the lone black parent at home-education gatherings that usually were dominated by white Christian evangelicals, she's noticed more black parents joining the ranks.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Preschool harms children's development
November 11, 2005
Study: Preschool harms children's development Homeschool group uses Berkeley research to encourage parents to keep kids at home.
A new study on the effects of preschool on children, which finds attendance harms kids' emotional and social development, is being used by a homeschool organization to help encourage parents to educate their children at home.
The study, conducted at UC Berkeley, found that while youngsters gained cognitive abilities via the preschool experience, behavioral problems also increased – especially among kids from wealthy families.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Homeschooled Fil-Am wins $10,000 in 'Jeopardy!'
November 4, 2005
LOS ANGELES, California -- Joseph Henares, a homeschooled Filipino-American boy, recently won a "Back to School" edition of "Jeopardy!" -- America's popular TV quiz show.
The 12-year-old Henares received a cash prize of $10,000 in the competition that involved 15 contestants selected from more than 500 kids all over America. Joseph emerged the winner after five daily episodes were taped at the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California.
Interviewed by phone and e-mail, Joseph credited his "Jeopardy!" triumph to his "mom, who helped me review different topics that we thought would be on the show, and my dad, who helped me with strategy and taught me how to bid in the Final Jeopardy!"
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Home away from home
August 30, 2005
When the new kid in the neighborhood asked the Matthews boys where they went to school, they replied: “Downstairs.”
Josh, 10, and Zach, 8, have always been homeschooled, a style of education sometimes misconstrued as socially inept or curriculum-intense.
Their mother, Carrie, and other parents of homeschooled children are turning to co-operatives, or co-ops, to change those misconceptions.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Back to HOME school
August 20, 2005
Becky Sanchez of Mulvane started conducting homeschool for her three oldest children at the dining room table of the family's house on Mulvane Street. The kids' books and papers were front and center.
"I was always looking at it," Sanchez, mother of nine, said. So she moved the kids into the windowless attic, along with some desks. It separated school from the rest of life.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Marin County kids in need pack home school supplies
August 19, 2005
About 250 Marin County kids from disadvantaged homes picked up backpacks full of school supplies last Friday thanks to an annual drive put on by the Ritter Center in San Rafael.
Now in their sixth year, the Back-to-School Day organizers round up donations of supplies and money from local businesses, groups, churches and individuals and distribute them to children of Ritter Center clients. The center works with individuals and families at risk for homelessness, offering food, clothing, crisis counseling, medical care, shower and laundry facilities and referrals. The back-to-school program has grown larger each year, said Development Director Susan Mitchell.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Home-schoolers Find Support at Meeting
July 31, 2005
After a workshop on how to teach reading, Muriel Valdez felt inspired that she could educate her children without sending them to school. Valdez, a 38-year-old Riverbank woman, went to the 12th annual Home Education Convention in Modesto on Saturday to find out more about home schooling.
She is interested in handling all the teaching herself, to protect her 4-year-old and baby-on-the-way from common societal occurrences she said aren't moral.
And yet, Valdez wonders if she is qualified to teach full time through high school.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Homeschool vs. Public School: Clearing Up the Myths
July 26, 2005
Carolyn Miller said, "I think most moms are teachers. They're the same." She's a homeschool teacher-parent. Her husband, Stan, a clinical psychologist, is the "principal" of the Miller family's homeschool.
Residents of Austin since 1999, the Miller family's three children have been homeschooled all their lives.
This fall, Lizzie, the oldest child at age 14, will be the first child to attend public school, when she enrolls for freshman classes at Austin High School. Her parents have no qualms about releasing their daughter from homeschooling to attend public high school.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
Homeschool on the Rise
July 20, 2005
There are about 1.1 million school-aged children in the United States who do not attend school in the traditional sense. Instead, they are privately enrolled in homeschooling programs that teach to state standards and outside the public school curriculum.
According to a study released by the National Center for Education Statistics, the percentage of homeschooled students in the U.S. increased from 1.7 percent of school-aged children in 1999 to 2.2 percent in 2003.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
New Law Will Charge Those Intentionally Leaving Children Alone In Cars
June 16, 2005
In Las Vegas a new law that makes intentionally leaving young children alone in vehicles a misdemeanor won't take effect until October. But child safety advocates say it will help educate parents about the serious dangers related to leaving children alone in cars.
This is just a small reminder to all parents of the importance of knowing the life threating situations the summer heat can cause.
Click Here to read the rest of this article.
