This is a myth. I believe it was edweek that recently noted the study showing teachers are still in charge of what they do in the classroom more so than their principal or district administration, regardless of local, state, or federal passed laws or curriculum. I believe this is why so many teachers don’t speak up collectively regarding eduction reform. The “teacher” mystique holds everyone at bay with admiration, but testing is meant not to control what method is used but to determine if it is effective. Simple. To argue it replaces or changes what is taught in the classroom is to use the talking point of unions.

Furthermore, one must realize standardized testing does not measure a child’s success to advance from grade to grade, that is the purpose of report cards and teachers. The focus of standardized testing or NCLB is to measure how effective schools, districts, and states are in remediating students. That’s it. How else can a parent effectively advocate for services or methods to allow their student to catch up to their peers if they don’t know how far behind they are? This data is obtained from NCLB and state standardized tests. The NEA, et all, object to accountability efforts without saying or recognizing the true identity and shame of not meeting student’s needs for remediation. These students would require more funding so they never go there. Instead, they enlist the typical parents to voice descent based on bias. Shameful.

As for how this relates to homeschoolers, we don’t operate in a vacuum. Accountability is important. Parents who transfer their responsibility to educate their children over to the state, have accountability in a high school diploma (or for those at risk or special needs, NCLB testing to show remediation to achieve a high school diploma). Parents who retain this education responsibility, have accountability in GEDs (or minimally prepared for life and work). Wait? Don’t school drop outs get GEDs? Yes. In essence, those students who leave the system, are homeschooled too. The student has taken accountability for their own education.

If there should be any testing required for homeschoolers, it should be the passing of a GED. No standardized testing throughout the years as school systems do this for data used for curriculum, method, etc. to measure remediation not the end goal of a high school diploma. My homeschooled student will gladly test for a GED when ready, but states are still out of compliance with NCLB 6 years after it was enacted. True. Go check out your state compliance pages at the U.S. Dept. of Ed. website. While many states now have the proper plans written up now, they have yet to put them into practice. One can only surmise this has been a systemic delay in adopting NCLB while waiting for a change in federal party power. Unions hard at work in parent resistance.

What the Obama ed spokesperson was pushing in the sponsored education debate, was allowing portfolio review vs standardized testing. A bad idea. This is where students were long ago. A return to lowered standards and less data for accountability. Disturbing. As Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) co-authored NCLB, we can only hope there will be little tweaking from the Democrats in power with education data that affords parents and communities accountability. Because regardless if I homeschool, I am a member of my community and I should be valued. As such, I lend my support to parents and employers who need a way to measure just what that high school diploma means so I support NCLB (that “narrow definition of success”). Furthermore, I lend my support to parents who need accountability data to measure remediation for those not on diploma track so I support IDEA (that “taking into account individual needs and backgrounds of students”).

As for a win for smaller government? It matters not if what we get is ineffective and biased. Good luck to us all – go USA.

I thought it was a good program and the direction we should be going instead of this focus on schools. I understand the need for daycare opportunities for those who have to work and don’t mind it so long as we continue to recognize that this is the best second choice, not the ideal.

Amen! When FL passed a constitutional amendment for “high quality” fulltime universal pre-k programs, I wrote an op-ed column for the capital newspaper arguing as an education policy professional that the highest best use of the funds would be for parents, and let the kids nap or play outside. Or at least for the parent and child to come together, maybe for a half-day only but funded as one whole day equivalent(two half FTEs) — to read stories in rocking chairs together, to dance and play with words and puppets and blocks and water tables and clay, to paint and color side by side all while early education teachers modeled and engaged both as a couple.

But the parent training program I worked for in my district was outstanding and I would love to see it in every district. We held seminars and went to parents’ homes teaching them that they were their children’s first teachers and showing them that even if they couldn’t speak English and even if they couldn’t read, they could still play an important role in the education of their children.

My superviser taught one illiterate, non-English speaking mother how to “read” to her child using only picture books. As mom started to get involved, her child’s interest in school began to increase, his behavior improved and he began reading because he had a positive model at home.

If I ever go back to the classroom, it will be to work with parents, not the children. It was amazing how much a child’s education advanced when their parents took even a little extra notice in the home.

I would love to see more private initiatives, but they need to appear before I would even consider changing the public system. Decent alternatives are not going to sprout up by suddenly pulling all the money out of the system and leaving it to fail. Actually, the more I hear ranting about unconstitutional public schools, the more I want to ask how many private schools they have started for low-income students. I know of one in the entire United States. I would hope there are more, but I’m still a bit upset that private Christian schools in particular are cost prohibitive. Most of the people I know who homeschool do so because they can’t afford the tuition.

My interest in education extends to being committed to making sure there is education available. I pay my taxes and do not grumble about it. We buy the little nuts and candies and whatever else kids in our district come around selling. And I do my best to try to figure out who is running for school board because I do have an interest and I think our schools deserve the best people available.

I love it when they also support homeschooling, but I was 100% behind our previous commissioner of education despite the fact I had heard he was anti-homeschooling. Publicly and policy-wise he took a neutral stance. And he fought for what he believed was best for our public schools…I could never ask for anything more from someone whose job description centers on the public system, not private and home education.

…what is at issue here is our accountability to civic trust, to the common good of the society we share with non-homeschoolers.

I don’t get to bail out of accountability because I don’t use certain services. I still believe that our government is there to serve us, not the other way around. The common good of society is the protection of the individual, not the assimilation of all of us into a single mode of thought, action or education.

And I know that you are not saying that we all need to assimilate in such a way. I just believe strongly that when individuals are forced to sacrifice for the good of society, society itself suffers. When individuals are allowed to become all they can be, and are not forced into definitions or roles, society benefits.

And we have teachers harassing students for supporting McCain? Vice Presidential candidates hanged in effigy?

But the last thing I’d ever do is block speech or attempt to control what other parents are teaching their children. You are worried about “McCarthyite investigations” of elected officials, but what will the investigation look like when it enters private homes?

If we give that much power to the state, we will see the same thing we are seeing now amplified. But I think a lot of it has been there since the beginning…you just don’t see it as much when you don’t have it coming across your TV or computer.

What we give up to get our way, we can lose in one election cycle. I don’t want to invite the government into that role.

I used to think I believed that too, but now I feel we’re seeing the real dangers of a population near the tipping point of dangerous-to-democracy ignorance. Michele Bachmann, Congresswoman able to get reelected by openly calling for McCarthyite investigations into “antiAmerican” tendencies of her fellow elected officials. This TX school board member calling the president-elect a terrorist sympathizer plotting to overthrow our government. Etc. In the last 10 years we nearly tipped into the depths more than once imo. So I do now see education however obtained (not mere schooling and testing) for my neighbors’ children as essential to our justice system, economy, common defense and my own continued liberty.