We’ve seen Marc Morano from time to time on network news programs. Usually he’s being heckled by somebody brought on for “balance” like Joe Romm or some clueless professor named Watson from East Anglia. This time, nobody wanted to come on, and it wasn’t because of fear of debating Marc. “no pressure”
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>>Can Muslims live by Sharia Law, and have a Sharia court in
>>England? Start at the beginning with this!
But that would be grasping the nettle! Politicians in the UK cannot do that, so they tinker around the edges – and that is why you are losing some freedoms in home education. Not saying this is right, mind, just laying out the facts of this Brave New World (that nobody voted for).
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@Ralph says: October 6, 2010 at 11:32 am
Interesting bit about grasping the nettle and your politicians. For English demographics, language, and culture issues, it would help if having children came back into vogue. Or is that too wild and crazy.
I hope it has been shown that the issue of home education gets conflated with the failures of all these other government policies such as immigration, protective services, law enforcement, welfare, public housing concentrated in certain areas, etc..
And the solution suggested is…more government policies and restrictions!
‘I hate to admit that I was wrong to think that there was no one (other than those who made it) who actually thought this video was a good thing. Take a look at this post at: http://www.greenchipstocks.com/articles/3-offensive-images-of-climate-change/1122
G.
Hi Zeke,
Zeke the Sneak says:
October 6, 2010 at 10:09 am
anna v, hi.
I may be old fashioned, but I thought snatching purses was against the law.
We do not need to make new laws for that.
We are not talking of snatching purses, we are talking of homeschooling children on how to snatch purses.
By what you write you give no value to a multicultural society. Fortunately or unfortunately Europe is one, and talking of “English citizens” is racial discrimination, because the Muslims are also British citizens . There should be one rule for all cultures in this multicultural society that willingly or not we have become.
In order to have a handle on the new cultures that have been grafted on our lands, some of the freedoms of the old cultures will have to be sacrificed and compromises reached.
In Greece homeschooling is allowed only for ill children who cannot attend a normal school. School attendance is compulsory for all greek citizens until the age of 14. This is not easily imposed on the nomadic Roma population, who evade it by not having a permanent address.
The school has to be approved and have the approved curriculum from the ministry, but can be private, church sponsored or even other government sponsored.
On a side note: Parents do not own children, but owe children a careful preparation for the realities they will face in the world. An extra demerit of home schooling, imo, is the lack of socialization and competition with a peer group of children to prepare them for the world outside. It is a disservice to the children to protect them in a greenhouse until the age of 18, again in my opinion.
fah fah fah says:
October 6, 2010 at 7:35 am
The goal of 10:10, which is to have people really think about their energy consumption and be aware of it daily and try to reduce it in small ways, is a good one.
No, their goal, which is clearly stated is to reduce “carbon emissions” by 10% a year. It’s nothing but a feel-good ploy, to make the useful idiots who Believe in the CAGW/CC/CD mantra.
Anyone who really wants to reduce their energy consumption already knows how to do so, and the only reason to (or not to) is simple: if it saves money. Saving money is good, and is a good goal for anyone. “Saving the planet”, on the other hand is little more than Green Religion. It most certainly has nothing to do with science.
Legally what you are arguing is that parents must be assumed to be unfit to raise their own children, and the state must educate them in all circumstances.
Current laws and historic court decisions in both the US and England assume the right, fitness, and “high duty” of parents to raise their own children.
Therefore, what you are arguing for in the case of these two countries is an unprovoked massive expansion of government into intrinsic family relationships, stripping parents of legal and traditional rights, and re-casting the citizens as incompetent and unfit.
Zeke the Sneak says:
October 6, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Checks and balances are not black and white. If wise people devise them they can be extremely useful.
Example: parental authority rules unless the court decides the parents unfit.
I know that in the US you have the Amish, and the Mormons and who knows who else who benefit from the lessez faire attitude of the states to a lot of societal general customs. ( still polygamy is outlawed though). Also you have the “melting pot” mentality where cultures are assimilated and third generation people become mainstream. Up to now this has worked. I do know what will happen when your latin american population reaches large numbers, though.
It is not the tradition in fossilized Europe which is faced, England first because of the sins of the Imperial past, with a large influx of new cultural input. Have you been to the London underground? The majority are of different than english culture. A modus vivendi has to be found and a law and order procedure that will respect equal rights and non racial discrimination for all. This means the original populations will have to compromise to a change of their customs to allow for a smooth transit to the multicultural society: smooth means no social unrest and not nurturing terrorism.
Schools and schooling are an important part of this tradition, and home schooling’s check and balances have to be finely tuned so as to progress towards a tolerant society from all directions.
In Greece, where we are used to the imperative of the public/state school attendance for children nobody thinks it a hardship not to be allowed to educate the children at home uniquely. They can always do it after school hours and days.
anna & Zeke,
When another opportunity to discuss your subject comes up on a future thread I will join. Another time . . . . . just toooo many irons in the fire for me right now.
There are certain questions that are litmus tests of a person’s fundamental views of mankind and of philosophy in general. The question of the relationship of individuals (and families) to society is one of them. That is why I find it a key topic.
John
There is no legitimate role or future for government in creating a “tolerant society” and a “multi-cultural” society, esp. by radically overturning existing rights, duties, laws and court decisions.
Neither is this a legitimate objective for education.
Educational standards to which citizens agree on a state-by-state basis include hours of instruction (for example, 800 per year) and subjects taught (Language Arts, Social Science, Math, Science, Phys-Ed, Art/Music.)
The success of homeschooling parents in educating their children by providing individualized attention as well as flexibility are reflected in tests in which homeschooled students outperform their peers in public schools.
National Average Percentile Scores
Subtest Homeschool Public School
Reading 89 50
Language 84 50
Math 84 50
Science 86 50
Social Studies 84 50
Corea 88 50
Compositeb 86 50
a. Core is a combination of Reading, Language, and Math.
b. Composite is a combination of all subtests that the student took on the test.
Zeke the Sneak says:
October 7, 2010 at 9:05 am
Well, Zeke, we will not agree on this, I suspect because we live in different societies. Even in Greece we are turning into a multicultural society: albanians, bulgarians, rumanians, nigerians, pakistanis, chinese, …. and the indigenous turks and roma.
Organized society, called government and its agencies, somehow has to deal with this and introduce a minimum of homogenization that will allow smooth running of the country, i.e. no terrorist cells and gross dissatisfactions . The handle of schooling is important to this objective, as I see it.
Your comparison of home schooled in the us and public schooled made me laugh.
According to your table all children then should be home schooled by law. You know what would happen? Back to feudal conditions where illiteracy was 70% or more.
It is evident that the home schooled sample has educated and affluent parents, who can afford the time and effort of schooling, if they are not paying tutors.
The true comparison would be taking the home background of the public school children into account: education and income of parents .
The test:
Drawing from 15 independent testing services, the Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics included 11,739 homeschooled students from all 50 states who took three well-known tests—California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford Achievement Test for the 2007–08 academic year. The Progress Report is the most comprehensive homeschool academic study ever completed.
“As mentioned earlier, the achievement gaps that are well-documented in public school between
boys and girls,
parents with lower incomes, and
parents with lower levels of education
are not found among homeschoolers.
While it is not possible to draw a definitive conclusion, it does appear from all the existing research that homeschooling equalizes every student upwards. Homeschoolers are actually achieving every day what the public schools claim are their goals—to narrow achievement gaps and to educate each child to a high level.
Of course, an education movement which consistently shows that children can be educated to a standard significantly above the average public school student at a fraction of the cost—the average spent by participants in the Progress Report was about $500 per child per year as opposed to the public school average of nearly $10,000 per child per year—will inevitably draw attention from the K-12 public education industry.”
http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200908100.asp
Household income had little impact on the results of homeschooled students.
$34,999 or less—85th percentile
$35,000–$49,999—86th percentile
$50,000–$69,999—86th percentile
$70,000 or more—89th percentile
The education level of the parents made a noticeable difference, but the homeschooled children of non-college educated parents still scored in the 83rd percentile, which is well above the national average.
Neither parent has a college degree—83rd percentile
One parent has a college degree—86th percentile
Both parents have a college degree—90th percentile
Parental spending on home education made little difference.
Spent $600 or more on the student—89th percentile
Spent under $600 on the student—86th percentile
The extent of government regulation on homeschoolers did not affect the results.
Low state regulation—87th percentile
Medium state regulation—88th percentile
High state regulation—87th percentile
But Zeke, the true comparison would be by finding a sample of public school children where the parents had the same education and income as the home schooled children.
Of course dedicated and caring parents will have a great effect possibly with minimum expenditure.
The objective of “wasting”money on teachers for the hoi polloi is in order to bring up the educational level of as many people in society as possible. Feudal systems worked on the elitist principle, usually with the moral support of religion. Knowledge was not to be distributed to the masses.
This is not the objective of modern societies, at least as far as I know.
anna v says:
October 7, 2010 at 10:30 am
Of course dedicated and caring parents will have a great effect possibly with minimum expenditure.
Yes, and unbelievably, it is the goal of many to make it illegal.
Teachers unions and those who desire a UN agency to determine domestic educational policies in the US are working hard at this right now. They expect to bypass all of us and state laws in the most slippery, slimey way, by ratifying a Treaty.