Homeschool World Forum

It is sometimes said, by public school supporters, that if some children are taken out of the system to go to other schools, the public schools will deteriorate. And so, the thinking goes, parents have a “duty to societyâ€

A well-written post. To put it quite simply, the public schools have no real penalty for failure, therefore they can be as sloppy as they want without worrying about being shut down. An element of competition (and therefore, accountability to the general public) needs to be added if there's to be any hope of improving them.

Lobby for school vouchers! Things may get messy for a year or two while everyone reshuffles from bad schools to good schools, but the gains in the long run will be huge.

Massachusetts wanted to show people that they have good schools, but they chose to test the children instead of vouchers. We may have "good" schools now, but the children have suffered. One of the reasons I chose to homeschool is so that my children never have to take this test. The years that they are tested, they only learn how to pass the test, they aren't allowed the freedom to learn, they are under pressures to pass a test that show they are going to a "good" school. Vouchers are a much better way, that way the students aren't penalized. Hey maybe we can actually get a taz break for homeschooling!