I just read an article about a homeschooling family who wants their daughter to participate in band at the middle school level. The way I understand it is that the daughter can participate in it as a class, but not in any of the extra-curricular aspects of the class (band concerts, contests). The school policy is that students must take at least 4 classes or be a part-time student in order to participate in extra-curricular activities (sports, clubs, etc.) But band is a class AND an extra-curricular activity, so it's not so clear. This is where the parents are fighting the school.
This got Matt and I thinking- is this right?? As a fellow homeschooler, I knew that we were allowed to take classes at the schools and at the beginning of the school year, I asked Megan's elementary school about taking art class and her school said it was alright. She takes art class every Monday. We are paying taxes, right? I'm not sure about the policy if she would like to participate in an after-school club though.
Matt thinks that we should be able to participate in anything we want at school since we pay taxes and the taxes go for the school. Or should the schools be able to limit the parents on what the kids can do?
This brought on another conversation- school vouchers. This is where you get money in form of a voucher (the tax money you paid that would usually go to the public school) and you can use it wherever you wanted for education. In our case, we would get the voucher in the amount of the taxes we paid and we can put it towards homeschool curriculum. Other students who attend private schools could take this money and apply it towards tuition.
We definitely support school vouchers. At this moment, we are paying taxes but getting nothing in return (except Megan's art class). All our money is going to educate everybody else's kids PLUS we have to spend more money on homeschool curriculum. Some parents pay taxes PLUS tuition for private school.
What do you think? Do you favor school vouchers? Would our public school system fall apart if we gave the power back to the parents? What would happen if all homeschoolers and private school chidren went back to public school? Would there be enough money to educate everybody? There doesn't seem to be enough the way it is.
On the other hand, what if everybody homeschooled? I know this is not possible, but imagine how we could help society. I read somewhere that it costs over $10,000 a year to educate one student in the public school system and this is with about twenty kids to a class. I paid about $300 for homeschool curriculum and have one student in my class. :) Wow, that is a savings of $9700 per student! We would save so much money!
Anybody have any thoughts?
As should be expected, I agree (at least in part) with all of your points. However, some would argue that the cost of keeping a parent home from work where they are creating positive economic gains would offset the gains acheived through the savings of educating their own children. I see this as a wash. What I think it comes down to has nothing to do with economics. Instead, the primary reason to consider vouchers is for accountability. We live in a world where money is the ultimate motivator. As such, providing vouchers empowers people to use their collective influence to drive the direction of our educational system.
ReplyDeleteIn the real world (which is where I work), people are rewarded based on the merit of their efforts. I don't think we should expect any less of our teachers and educational system as a whole.