Very interesting day! This has been my first chance to check this thread today. School days are so time consuming! lol!
NCmom, I'm glad you are opinionated and like to discuss things. It was very interesting reading your post. In many ways, believe it or not, we are very similar.
Unfortunately, mentally I'm "back at school" and have lost the focus I had the last two days, so I'm not going to be able to make many waves this post.

I did enjoy reading everyone's responses! A couple things did stick in my mind, from the woman from Australia, I do believe that all parents have the responsibility to do the best, choose the best, provide the best for their kids (I'm speaking not about material things, but the intangibles that are so much more important.) I also feel that government shouldn't interfere with religious practices...to an extent. Personally (and don't think I feel you or anyone else on this forum are for ANY of these things, you just started me thinking and so I'm putting down where I feel intervention is a GOOD thing) I'm against polygamy. Call me old fashioned...

I'm also very turned off by forcing women to wear burkas whether under the penalty of stoning or not. Stoning, btw, for any reason, is right out, imo. I don't care what ANY religious leaders say. Oh, and any kind of female circumcision. NOT ACCEPTABLE. But really, when it comes down to it, for most reasons, a person's beliefs are their own and it's one of the things that, I feel, makes the world more interesting. (I also feel intolerance is intolerable.

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About education... I don't feel everyone should go to college. Yikes! Think of how miserable many people would be! I do think that everyone should get a basic education because, it is from that, that the people who would truly benefit and enjoy further education would be found. I am a strong proponent of vocational training. Where I live now, the high school system is offering more and more "academy" courses for 11th and 12th graders. This is awesome. Nursing. Bookkeeping. Dental assistants. Auto mechanics. (Can you hear Sally Struthers voice?) Many, many kids don't want to continue going to school. They're miserable there! But most aren't given the opportunity for on the job training (farming, for instance.) Vocational training is a great way to train someone who would love to do nothing but play with cars all day the experience they'd need to get a job. (So, there. No more accusing me of thinking everyone should go to college.

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Oh, I HATE the double standard of "who do we listen to." Yes, it's the rich over the poor. But, wow, would actors and rock musicians PLEASE SHUT UP? (Sorry, my pet peeve.)
ncmom wrote:Also, I don't know how you were raised or how you raised your kids but in my house my husband and I own everything you have and as long as you are under our roof you live by our standards and rules. Don't get me wrong our kids aren't afraid of us and we don't mistreat them but there is a definite pecking order here and as old fashioned as this sounds dad has the authority to overrule mom and has the ultimate say. If our kids don't like the rules then tough we are doing what we feel is in their best interest. It is how my husband and I were both was raised and I am happy this way!
Yep, pretty much here, too. I've spoken to my kids about how this is simply a matter of respect. While here, while I am providing all for you, you should respect my rules even if you don't agree with them. (I believed this as a child, too, and my best friend stopped being friends with me because I told her while she was staying the summer with my parents she needed to respect their home and lifestyle.) As for being old fashioned...I cannot remember the comedian who said this but it totally cracked up my husband. "When we got married, my wife and I spoke about who was to make the decisions for the household. Well, we decided that she would make the little ones, but I would make all the big ones and it's worked for us. In 20 years of marriage, there hasn't been one big decision..." I guess I'm lucky. My husband and I have never disagreed on anything major and hardly anything minor.
Theodore wrote:Regarding learning to read - this is something everyone needs to do. I don't care what culture you come from, there's no good substitute for book learning.
I was speaking with my sister about this and her first response was, "How else would they ever be able to read the Bible if they never learned to read?" Just a thought.
Hmm, I still don't agree about the farming. Many of my relatives are farmers and each and every one of them utilizes modern equipment and methods to increase productivity. Their coffee tables are covered with magazines about the latest. I even have a good friend that writes for a fertilizer newsletter! The people I know share all the latest and best. What new strains of corn are more draught resistant, what hybrids are outstanding producers, etc. Often, they and their kids have gone to agricultural colleges to learn to take better advantage of the fact they are blessed with land. As for third world countries, ask the Peace Corp. Much of what they do is teach the farmers how to grow more on their land. Ah, well.
Theodore wrote:It's simple economics - a less restrictive government results in a much improved economy.
Because I'm feeling like digging somewhere

can you give an example of this?
Theodore wrote:Regarding government oversight of education - there are admittedly a few instances of "homeschoolers" who don't actually do any homeschooling, but far more instances of public schoolers who don't learn anything in the public schools.
Probably this is true, even if one looks at it proportionally, but the problem is that these few instances are the ones that set people off. These are the ones that all of us have to fight the stigma of. What people who work for the county school systems see is not that X number of PS kids can't read after 12 years of school, but that X number of kids taken from school under a religious exemption to be homeschooled never were. What is considered child abuse? The physical definitions everyone agrees with, it's the others, among them the varying types of neglect, that cause contention. If you were a school administrator and you found out that a family had pulled a child from your school under the pretenses of taking on the responsibility of education that child themselves, yet they did not, you would feel as though you were partly to blame. You, the school administrator, failed to provide for this innocent person and now they will suffer that failure their entire life. Now, that school administrator is going to look at every homeschooler a little more closely. Be a little more cautious. Ask questions. One bad homeschooler can effect thousands of future homeschoolers who will come into contact with that one person. (Who may NOT be against homeschooling at all, just be more cautious.) Does that make sense?
seekingmylord wrote:More regulation means more difficulty to comply, which means more opportunity to mess up so that the government can step in and take away my parental rights. Obviously, some people encourage this process and function of government, but I don't.
I'm curious, I've not read one person here who is for this. Unless you mean me?

Is this because I find filing once a year and testing at the end of it very little to do? When I look at what I expect of my kids each day as I homeschool them, honestly, how can I complain.
You know, if everyone was good and nice, if everyone did nothing bad toward another, if no one ever violated another's rights, governments would never have been necessary. But people do not always agree. We are sneaky, we want more than we have, we cheat, lie, steal, disclaim responsibility, hold up our hands and swear innocence while our brothers are lying at our feet with a knife stuck in his back. There has been no time in history where any people of any number coexisted without laws to define limits and set boundaries so that all will know how they are expected to behave and understand that there are consequences if they are crossed or broken. There is comfort in this! You know your neighbor won't steal your car and he knows you won't shoot him for his house. Rather than carry on about "the government" demanding you bow to their burdensome demands for filing an NOI every year, you should be working with the people who put forth themselves daily to try and educate all children. Speak with Mrs. O'Connor, the woman who lives near you and been working in the elementary school office for ten years about something you've found that works for LD kids, show Ms. Ortega, the ESL teacher, the new materials you found or developed, try helping these individual's, these people who are your neighbors and maybe even friends, improve the education system for all instead of coming across as anti-establismentarians.
Hey, maybe I have managed to post something that will make waves!

Night all!
