My friend Sprittibee forwarded the link to Parade Magazine's article "Intelligence Report," where they are polling readers on whether we think a teaching certificate should be required to teach kids at home.
Here's a particularly irksome quote from the article:
If upheld, the California ruling will send shock waves nationwide,” says Richard Kahlenberg, the author of a number of books on education. He says the case “pits those who believe parental rights are paramount against those who place a premium on well-educated citizens.”
I don't know this clown, Kahlenberg, but his spin is dizzying. So, it's either parental rights or well-educated citizens? The author of a number of books on education seems to have completely ignored statistics and more statistics showing homeschooled kids ARE the well-educated citizens.
Across the web of homeschool discussion groups to which I belong, there's been much ado over the apparent discrimination against homeschoolers by Subway's decision to exclude our kids from their latest essay contest. Read the rules, NO HOME SCHOOLS. The contest is co-sponsored by Scholastic books, an organization which has, in the past, included homeschoolers in their contests and promotions. They certainly show up at our book fairs and conferences!
Here's the deal: the grand prize is $5000 of athletic equipment to be donated to the winner's school. What the promoters intended, presumably, was that the prize would not be awarded to an individual family, but rather to a school for the benefit of a large group of kids. I can dig that. What would I do with all that equipment, anyway? My garage is already unusable as vehicle storage because we're collecting dust samples on all kinds of old athletic equipment, like a Nordictrack and a Bowflex, which make great hangers for extension cords and jumper cables, by the way.
I suggest we Christian homeschoolers do something totally radical...Christlike, even. We write each organization nice letters telling them how much we love their products, how disappointed we are that they did not include homeschoolers, what we think they could have changed in order to include homeschoolers and still honor the intent of the prize distribution and, finally, how we will continue to enjoy their products and look forward to being included in their next contest.
My point is, I think the exclusion is not an intentional stab at homeschoolers, but is a big, fat PR gaffe. Let's be smart about it. Writing letters pointing out the spelling errors in the rules list and promising to boycott is what the world would do. We can do better than that.
