It’s That Time of Year Again…

Every year when public school starts up again, there seems to be an opening bell of sorts letting people know it is open season on home educators once again.

This year we had two opening salvos-one from Kentucky and one from MSNBC. Kentucky is up first.

They are concerned about their absenteeism rate and have come up with a “No Excuses-Go to School” campaign which may sound good until you read what their concerns are:

“…a reduction in the dropout and home schooling rate of 25 percent by 2010…”

That’s next year, so they have set a pretty aggressive goal for themselves. The article again repeats that homeschooling is a major concern:

“One major concern of those involved with the district’s attendance plan is the recent rise of home schooling in the area.

“Parents that do home schooling need to keep attendance records,” Compton said. “There’s criteria they have to follow, and many of them are not aware of that.”

No, Ms. Compton is the one unaware of the criteria homeschools need to follow. According to Statute 159.030(1)(b):

“Homeschoolers need only send in a letter with this information (students in attendance at the school) during the first two weeks of school.” This has been the law since 1985.

This next part is important to note as well:

“All private and parochial schools …shall at all times be open to inspection by directors of pupil personnel and officials of the Department of Education. Section 159.040 School officials, however, have no authority to enter home schools, since they are protected by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

Part of Kentucky’s plan is to have people report to the schools when they see school age children out in public and not in school. For students that frequently miss school, parents “should expect a visit at their homes.”

Notice that they do not define how many absences define “frequently”. And the article also puts forth the lie that this “intensive focus on attendance is not motivated by the loss of funds due to absenteeism, according to Compton.”

This statement is at odds with the school board minutes on this issue which clearly state on page 2 that “the End of Year (EOY) average daily attendance (ADA) will determine the district budget for 2008-2009.”

The rest of the paper goes on to state the incentives for students that have perfect attendance. Funnily enough there is no mention of any extra educational advantages in this “No Excuses” program. Looking at the minutes, it is all about the money.

The second article of concern is about vaccinations. The headline reads “Vaccine refusals fuel jump in measles outbreaks” The next line reads “Cases at highest levels in a decade;many sparked by home-schooled kids”.

This article too has some informational gaps such as the fact that the article lumps the unvaccinated with those whose vaccination status is not known. So of that number mentioned, some of those folks were indeed vaccinated but are being counted as unvaccinated. They also included babies under one year of age -too young to get the shot-in this group. In other words they really have no idea how many people had some vaccination for the measles.

I also fail to understand why the focus is always on the people who were not vaccinated. Why don’t they have the same concern for the vaccinated people that still got the disease? After all if the vaccine works the way the medical profession tells us it should, then vaccinated people would not get the disease in the first place.

Right?

Technorati Tags: truancy, control, vaccinations, education, knowing your rights

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Under Investigation for Spanking

A mother in Idaho is being investigated for injury to a child after eight witnesses signed statements that she caused injury to a child.

“They described it as she was slamming her on the ground and smothering her as she was holding her.

…

The officer who issued the citation reported no visible signs of injury to the child, he added.”

One of these statements is false. How is it possible to “slam” a two year old on the ground without that child sustaining injuries? A bruise, scrape or cut would be visible if that was true. The officer could not see any physical injuries, but still cited the mother. I also want to know how that is possible.

Why was the mother restraining her child, you ask? The mother did not want her child to run out into the street while the parade was continuing. I guess these people would have preferred to see that little girl get really hurt or possibly killed instead of her mother restraining her. Then the same people could complain that the mother could not control her unruly child.

The parents are concerned that their children will be taken away from them. Let’s hope for all their sakes that does not happen.

Technorati Tags: discipline, parental rights, parade

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Anti-Pedophile Test

The U.K. has another scheme for protecting children:

“The system of vetting adults who work with children was introduced in 2002 in the aftermath of the horrific abduction and murder of two schoolgirls in Soham. But most parents still don’t realise that it has since expanded arbitrarily and can encompass virtually any adult who wishes to come in to contact with children.

So if you are not licensed by the CRB, don’t be surprised if you are discouraged from attending your child’s activities. What astonished Alka was that so many parents have come to accept such intrusive vetting as a fact of life.”

The result of all this is that some schools will not allow parents as chaperons at any school activities unless they have been vetted , or approved by the CRB (Criminal Records Bureau). This means that parents can’t be in classrooms for parties or continue to tutor students, among other things.

Now all adults think twice before helping any child in distress-whether that child is drowning in water, is distressed and crying or took a tumble. One nursery worker quit:

“I no longer feel comfortable about acting on my gut feelings and cuddling and reassuring a distressed infant,” she says. As far as she was concerned, if she could no longer cuddle the children in her charge and was forced to minimise physical contact with them, then her job had become “weird”.

I don’t blame her. One church program even wants people vetted who come in the morning to make sandwiches for the children. That’s all they do-make sandwiches and then leave, but they need to be vetted.

“In one example, a woman could not kiss her daughter goodbye on a school trip because she had not been vetted.”

Another woman did go through the process and was licensed (vetted, approved) and then was asked to go through the process a second time. She had enough and quit.

And as we all know, this vetting is not a predictor of future behavior-it only shows what a person has done in the past. It is a great way of preventing people from volunteering and also a good way to harass someone out of a job or position.

It is also setting the precedent for people to have to be approved, or have a license to have children. And the public will be so used to it that they will accept it. Make no mistake, this will also be coming to your country sooner rather than later.

Guess which other country makes you have a license before you can have a child-…I’ll give you time to guess…

That’s right, the same country that for reasons I can not fathom, has this years 2008 Summer Olympics.

Technorati Tags: parenting, children, licensing, vetting, criminal checks, volunteering

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More on Teen Pregnancies

It seems that the higher powers are very upset that the principal of Gloucester High said:

“…a lack of birth control played no part” in a quadrupling of the number of teen pregnancies at the school this year compared with last year.”

Yesterday after a closed door meeting with city, school, and health officials the mayor of the town said there was no independent confirmation of a pact. More telling to me is what she says about the principal:

“She also said that the principal, who was not present at the meeting, is now “foggy in his memory” of how he heard about the pact.”

I find it odd that the principal of the high school where this occurred was not included in this closed door meeting. I think that’s a big signal that his job is on the line. And he has not spoken to the media since the beginning of the month, due I’m sure to the gag order put on him by the mayor and various other officials.

In my earlier post I said that the two school clinic heads resigned their posts because they thought birth control pills should be given to students without parental permission. Yes this is a clinic on school grounds, operated during school hours and with these same parents money, but the clinic heads don’t think they should have a say in what goes into their daughters bodies.

I’m not sure why the principal saying what he did is cause to muzzle him and threaten his job. Other students were aware of this agreement and what is so awful about telling the truth, anyway?

Wait..I bet the school is afraid of being sued and they sure don’t want to lose any money. Losing money might mean they can’t have the clinic any longer or the on-site free daycare for previous students that got pregnant.

Technorati Tags: parental rights, taxes, teen pregnancy, whistle blowers

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Homeschooling Parents Sentenced to Jail

Germany is at it again:

“A mother and father who have been homeschooling their children each have been ordered by a German judge to serve three-month prison terms after a prosecutor said he was unhappy with fines the family paid and he wanted the parents jailed.”

This was the prosecutor’s intention all along-he wanted to jail the parents from the beginning. The parents are appealing, but I sadly do not think they will be successful. Germany has been going down this road for a long time now. They don’t want people to homeschool and jailing them and taking their children away would be a powerful deterrent to that.

Leaving won’t help the Dudeks either:

“Officials in Hesse have said not even the family’s efforts to move out of the region would halt their prosecution.”

And taking children away is no idle threat:

“…the Dudeks warned about a new German federal law that also gives family courts the authority to take custody of children “as soon as there is a suspicion of child abuse,” which is how the nation’s courts have defined homeschooling.

“The new law is seen as a logical step in carving up family rights after a federal court had decided that homeschooling was an abuse of custody,” said the letter from Juergen Dudek to the HSLDA.”

How soon before this spreads to the rest of the EU?

Technorati Tags: parental rights, homeschooling, child abuse, civil liberties

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Teen Pregnancies

Gloucester High School officials are all a twitter because they have a record breaking number of teen pregnancies this year-17. Not only that, but most of them are girls 16 and under.

Why isn’t CPS stepping in and ripping these girls away from their families? At least here, unlike in Texas, we know these girls are underage. And the men are overage:

“In addition, at least some of the men involved in the pregnancies are in their mid-20s, a fact that prompted Mayor Carolyn Kirk of Gloucester to ask about statutory rape charges at last month’s School Committee meeting.”

Many of these girls made a pact with each other to become pregnant.

The school does have sex education classes starting in middle school and ending their freshman year.The program does seem to be working, since obviously many students are educated in how to have sex. They also have on-site day care at the school.

School officials are busy blaming movies and culture for this epidemic, and two of them resigned because they blame parents for not allowing birth control to be distributed without parental consent.

They see no correlation between the teen pregnancies and their daycare and sex ed programs-go figure.

Technorati Tags: teen pregnancy, high school, sex education, parental rights

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