View Single Post
Old August 14th, 2005 #31
Alex Linder
Administrator
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 45,756
Blog Entries: 34
Default

http://www.detnews.com/2005/schools/...A01-280168.htm

Riet Schumack teaches her adopted ('groid) son Joshua, 10, and her three other adopted kids in her Detroit home.

Back to school

Kids learn at home, but no one's watching

["but no one's watching" - the government's mindset in a nutshell]


With homeschooling on the rise in Michigan, critics [NEA, jews] want tougher laws and more monitoring.

By Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News

"I didn't really find it challenging at all," Kelly Flack, 15, an Olympic figure skating hopeful, says of her time at Stoney Creek High.

ROCHESTER -- Kelly Flack twirls on the ice at Onyx Skating Center while her mother teaches elementary school in Illinois.

A heavy practice schedule and dreams of competing in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games have the 15-year-old figure skater living away from her family and taking self-paced homeschool courses on the Internet under the supervision of her grandparents in Rochester.

She's part of what experts say is a growing trend of parents pulling their kids out of the classroom and teaching them at home. But critics complain that because Michigan has one of the nation's most liberal homeschooling laws -- requiring only voluntary registration -- there is no way to monitor how many children are involved and whether they are getting a better education or any education at all.

While providing a religious values-based education used to be the main motivation, many of the newest homeschoolers are simply dissatisfied with the educational experience provided by public schools.

"I didn't really find it challenging at all. I got all A's," said Flack, who last year attended Stoney Creek High School in Rochester.

"The teacher spent most of her time trying to get the students to calm down. I can get more done at home than in school."

Her mom, Suzy Flack, agreed: "I know some of my fellow teachers accuse me of rooting for the wrong team, but it really depends on the student and the circumstances."

Michigan is among 10 states that do not monitor homeschools, while the other states have varying degrees of oversight, including notification, test scores, evaluation of student progress, curriculum approval and home visits, according to the National Home School Legal Defense Association.

"I believe that 95 percent of homeschoolers are probably better off at home than in a school," said David Plank, co-director of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University.

"But the state's concern should be about the other 5 percent. We have no information about what kind of education they are receiving from their parents. Not finding out is a failing on the part of the state of Michigan."

The homeschooling movement took off here in the 1980s with parents who mostly were motivated by religious and/or anti-government sentiments, Plank said.

"There is clearly a third group out there now: Parents who feel they can do a better job than the public schools," Plank said.

"It is the least understood segment because they are the least outspoken. I have no handle on that, and I don't think any researchers do. It is a silent part of the movement."

Nationally, the number of home-based students grew an estimated 29 percent in four years, from 850,000 in 1999 to 1.1 million in 2003, the latest data available from the National Center for Education Statistics. That's about 2 percent of the nation's school-age children. The Education Policy Center estimated there were 126,000 homeschooled students in Michigan in 2003, based on comparisons of enrollment data, census figures and dropout estimates.

For the Michigan Department of Education, the number of homeschooled students is harder than ever to determine. Voluntary registration has declined. For the 2004-05 school year, 943 households reported educating 1,566 students, a figure down from previous years. Many of those who register do so to qualify for special education assistance or extracurricular activities like music and athletics at local public schools.

Neal and Katherine Jackson pulled their son out of fourth grade in a Detroit public school two years ago. They didn't register with the state. After a year at home for Jamal Bermudez, 11, Katherine Jackson this fall plans to also homeschool her daughters, Jasmin Jackson, 9, and Diamond Jackson, 7.

"It's not the education; it's the social issues in the schools," Katherine Jackson said. "The children are troubled there. The parents are troubled. There's no cure in sight."

Jackson said she confirmed that homeschooling worked for her son when she took him to a Sylvan Learning Center and paid to test his reading and mathematics skills. She said he was ahead in reading and on par with math.

"I had my doubts about whether I could do it, but the one-on-one attention made an amazing difference. Everything improved, including our relationship," said the homemaker with no training as a teacher.

The Home School Legal Defense Association says a national survey of homeschoolers found about 30 percent remain motivated by religious reasons and 31 percent by the negative social environment in schools.

"We are seeing another group of people who are acting out against what they see in public schools," said Ian Slatter, spokesman for the defense association, which has 40,000 members in Michigan.

"Younger, often urban, parents are taking matters into their own hands after growing tired of waiting and hoping for the problems of their public systems to improve."

Riet Schumack, with her husband, Mark, homeschooled their daughters and now are doing the same for four adopted children: Deborah, 15, Timothy, 14, Mark David, 12, and Joshua, 10. Their eldest, Marie, 21, and Nicky, 20, both are in college.

Riet Schumack was trained as a teacher before emigrating from the Netherlands.

"They had 30 students in a classroom in The Netherlands, too. They taught to the middle and lost both the top and bottom portions of the class," she said.

Joan Rusch meets weekly with other homeschooling parents at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Davisburg, west of Clarkston in Oakland County. Rusch is homeschooling her children -- Benjamin, 14, Abraham, 11, Isaac, 9, and Arron, 4. She said most of her friends are homeschooling to impart religious values that even parochial schools are failing to teach.

"But there are more who are doing it for other reasons, too," Rusch said. "There are fears about violence in the schools. Even in our local district in Holly, there was a kid with a hit list. It makes you worry."

Kathy and Gary Holcomb started homeschooling their children in 1988. They now organize homeschool seminars and support-group meetings in Southfield. They publish a monthly newsletter mailed to about 1,000 Metro Detroit families.

"We started with our kids, pulled them out of a private school. We couldn't afford it," Gary Holcomb said. "Back then, our meetings were mostly suburban people. Now our groups are probably half African-Americans from the city."

Joyce Burgess, a founder of the National Black Home Educators Resource Association, said a growing number of families is looking for an alternative.

"We are fed up with the public school system," Burgess said. "African-American families have seen the horrors of what has happened: children who aren't being taught to read, dangerous situations in the schools. New moms and dads are deciding they just aren't going to go that route."

Homeschoolers who take publicly reported tests like the Michigan Educational Assessment Program's and college entrance exams generally perform well. Among 2004 Michigan high school graduates taking the ACT, the average homeschool score was 23.1, compared with 21.4 for all Michigan students tested

State law now requires parents to have an established educational plan for any homeschooled student. But because registering is voluntary, state authorities have no way to learn of the existence of homeschooled students, much less check the plan. Homeschooled students also are exempt from mandatory testing under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

State Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, chair of the Senate Education Committee, said he is a supporter of homeschool education and opposes legislation that would require mandatory registration. He said he is satisfied that homeschooling is producing good results, although he conceded there is no way of knowing what percentage of homeschooled students participated in the tests that have produced favorable scores.

"There are a lot of kids in schools right now who are falling through the cracks. You are going to have that," Kuipers said. "If a problem exists with a homeschool situation, there are rules in place that allow a school district and prosecutor, acting on information from, say, a family member or neighbor, to go after a violation."

You can reach Doug Guthrie at (313) 222-2359 or [email protected].