The Globe and Mail out of Canada has some nice commentary on homeschooling. I particulary liked the fact that the author’s “conversion” to a supporter of homeschooling occured not after being inundated by statistics and well-crafted arguments. Instead, she was confronted with a roomfull of homeschoolers in a homeschool information night at her library.
Seated beside a mom with coiffed hair, polished nails and an elegant suit, I listened wide-eyed as audience members talked about a world I had totally misunderstood and stereotyped.
. . .
None of them were hippies. None seemed overly religious or way out there. In fact, the only trait they shared was a conviction that they – as moms and dads – could better prepare their children for life.
She does have one question, however:
Research shows home-schooled kids outperform their public-school peers. So why so is there little or no financial encouragement for parents to take it on?
I don’t know how these things work up in Canada, but down here in the states I think the question is fairly easy to answer. For the most part, we don’t want the money. We don’t want the oversight and we don’t want the control.
We just want to be left alone to follow our convictions and educate our children in freedom.
Some previous discussion about tax credits, for the interested:
Federal tax credit for homeschoolers
MO looks at parental rights, tax credits for homeschoolers
homeschool homeschooling home education tax credits for homeschools
In my province we don’t get financial support and I’m fine with that for the reason you mentioned. Offering financial aid would open up homeschool legislation and I tend to think bureaucrats would want to tinker with it.
So we’re not all hippies with Bibles in each hand?
Good news.
We did, of course, have hsing virtual charter schools here (FL). They still exist but, as I understand it, funding for new students has been cut. Like so many other things.
Nance
Homeschooling String Theory says if you take government funding then expect strings to be attached. Thanks but no thanks. Really. (And that goes for tax credits too! unless you want the IRS involved in your homeschooling)
Call your Senators today and tell them to reject (as in DO NOT RATIFY) the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Hi Dawn!
I guess Canada ratified the Rights of the Child treaty way back before your children were born? [I just looked it up -- Dec. 13, 1991 -- my college junior was a baby.]
So why are you calmly blogging, when the jackboots will be coming for them any minute??
You should flee to the States for asylum — before it’s too late! — because not having ratified the UNCRC, we’re safer here than every other nation in the world, well, except for the only other country that understands true family freedom as we do (Somalia.)
Do you really think that ratification of the UNCRC is the measure of true family freedom? If there is something terribly wrong about how America treats its children, why do we need an international treaty to fix it?
And while Canada has indeed signed the CRC, it has not exactly fully implemented it, so I’m not sure how good of an example Canada is.
http://rightsofchildren.ca/human-rights-agreements-are-for-canadians-too
And the whole “only the US and Somalia” thing is misleading. I haven’t gone through all the nations by any stretch, and don’t know that it really matters. But New Zealand is a signatory and had some interesting reservations:
Reservations:
Nothing in this Convention shall affect the right of the Government of New Zealand to continue to distinguish as it considers appropriate in its law and practice between persons accord ing to the nature of their authority to be in New Zealand including but not limited to their entitlement to benefits and other protections described in the Convention, and the Government of New Zealand reserves the right to interpret and apply the Convention accordingly.
The Government of New Zealand considers that the rights of the child provided for in article 32 (1) are adequately protected by its existing law. It therefore reserves the right not to legislate further or to take additional measures as may be envisaged in article 32 (2).
The Government of New Zealand reserves the right not to apply article 37 (c) in circumstances where the shortage of suitable facilities makes the mixing of juveniles and adults unavoidable; and further reserves the right not to apply article 37 (c) where the interests of other juveniles in an establishment require the removal of a particular juvenile offender or where mixing is considered to be of benefit to the persons concerned.
And looking at how it is being applied and how the language is being used is not exactly terror of “the jackboots will be coming for them any minute.”
It is asking questions and seeking answers. I have two sides conveniently delivered to me: “The CRC will end homeschooling” and “Fear of the CRC is nothing but fear mongering.”
I’d like to look at a little myself and see what is actually happening.
There is a pretty long lag between signing something at the UN and actually doing anything about it.
I must’ve missed the subtext, if this post was really questioning the UNCRC in Dana’s usual thoughtful fashion?
I thought it was reconciliatory and heartening progress, good news that homeschoolers are increasingly finding civil, confortable common interest in participatory governance of education, getting to know each other and work together, remembering why we’re not Somalia and needn’t be.
Dana, you make the key point that every sovereign nation ratifying the UNCRC (not just Canada or New Zealand) can and does implement various parts of it under its own laws, with the will of its own people and with whatever “reservations” or emphasis, de-emphasis it may deem fitting for its own culture.
Why would this be any less true in the US? It wouldn’t.
I believe all parents should have the option of enrolling their child in a virtual charter or independent study program if they wish. I’m not going to get into the whole debate over whether or not enrollment in such a program is “homeschooling”. All I’m saying is that it should be an option available to everyone and not just those living in certain places.
I suspect that making such a program universally available would quiet the call for tax credits.
I have been searching for info like this all week! Now I finally found it here on your blog. Thanks for this.
And how do we know what reservations to make if we don’t look at how this is actually being implemented?
Here in the US, we don’t have this kind of freedom once a treaty is signed:
Since Canadian constitutional law does not generally permit the federal government to legislate over matters that fall under provincial jurisdiction even for the purpose of implementing an international agreement, Canada makes reservations to this effect if implementation would require provincial cooperation.
Comparisons with other countries are tricky, either to support or condemn the UNCRC or any other program. We’re different nations, with different laws, different histories and different views of the world. But here, if we sign this, it does become law and we don’t have the same kind of flexibility to implement as we see fit and/or leave it up to individual states to decide how to implement.
Then perhaps the constitutional amendment process here, would be better put toward the end of those sorts of flexibility? AS opposed to DOMA, federal parent rights, etc.
I got into a discussion with a teacher in my church (have had several with her)and she was shocked when I agreed with her about getting funding from the state in the form of vouchers. I am totally against it. There is no such thing as money for nothing. While there may be “no strings attached” at first, it never seems to stay that way.
And as for the UNCRC, it is just another way to take away control from the parents and give it to the all knowing government. In other countries (like Germany & now England), it has been used to come in and take children from homeschooling families just because they want to with no proof of any wrong doing. It can, as a matter of fact does happen here. Look what happened down at the FLD ranch in TX (not that I agree with their way of living in any way shape or form) But the officials came in and did whatever they wanted without the legal right to do so! Grant you, the courts did finally set things right (legally) but think of the damage done!
I echo the same remarks for government funded homeschooling – I don’t want all the strings that will come with it. Period.
I may have an unusual insight into this. I am Canadian. Three years ago I moved from British Columbia (pacific coast) to Ontario (other end of the country). I have been homeschooling my 13 year old daughter from the beginning. In B.C. they have government funding, while in Ontario they do not.
There were two options in B.C. You could register with a school and have no government involvement and get about $150 of the tax money that the school got for the student to be enrolled (the tax money amounts to about $7,000!) Or you could register with a school, and receive about $1000 which could be used for curriculum, extracurricular activities, etc . This option required that you report to a teacher and provide a portfolio. The other benefits are that the community and government accept homeschooling, and homeschoolers are not shunned–they are celebrated. Everyone wins.
In Ontario, there is no funding. We are required to register with a schoolboard (if our child has been in school already), and we receive nothing more from the government. Here, homeschooling is seen as something that is at work against the system. We are the enemies of schools, society–we don’t fit in. The reporter from The Globe and Mail expressed exactly what I have experienced here in Ontario. Stereotypes and misunderstandings.
Personally, I liked the funding and governement involvement, because they did not see my decision to homeschool my child as an attack on public school funding, etc. Just my experiences.
Interesting, but I wonder if it is perhaps the acceptance of the people of British Columbia which has encouraged the province to look at ways to provide funding for homeschools? The states here most likely to offer (or look at offering) tax credits to homeschools aren’t those with heavy restrictions, but instead seem to be those like Alaska and Missouri where homeschooling is more widely accepted and minimally regulated.
I think the government’s approach to homeschooling mirrors society’s acceptance of it rather than the other way around.