More Black Families Home Schooling

RICHMOND, Va. - Denise Armstrong decided to home school her daughter and two sons because she thought she could do a better job of instilling her values in her children than a public school could. And while she once found herself the lone black parent at home-education gatherings that usually were dominated by white Christian evangelicals, she's noticed more black parents joining the ranks.

"I've been delighted to be running into people in the African-American home-schooling community," Armstrong said.

Home-school advocates say the apparent increase in black families opting to educate their children at home reflects a wider desire among families of all races to guide their children's moral upbringing, along with growing concerns about issues such as sub-par school conditions and preserving cultural heritage.

"About 10 years ago, we started seeing more and more black families showing up at conferences and it's been steadily increasing since then," said Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, a national advocacy group.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051211/ap_on_re_us/black_home_schooling

I'm extremely well informed on this topic and will hold my comments.

Do you home school?

Now our two kids are both in public high school to take advantage of PSEOP.

Blue

white (does that matter to your query?)

Blue

public schools?

BTW, I'm white

They are both A students and our oldest is taking college classes through PSEOP. We expect the younger to start doing the same in the spring.

We loved home schooling (almost 10 years worth), and the kids love public school now, too. They just love learning in general. :-)

Anyhow, when we found out about free college classes, we had to enroll in public school for those. I'm not one to pass up a bargain when it slaps me in the face. :-) Oh, and incidentally, we did not home school for religious reasons.

Blue

with my kids because I am temperamentally not the type that would do a good job.

But I can understand why some parents these days are not happy with public schools.. It all just seems like a gigantic hassle..

experience for both of us, since he had been terrorized by a kindergarten teacher, and his first grade teacher couldn't spell (!!). I took him out of first grade in the first weeks of it and homeschooled. I am an atheist, but had to sign up with a local Christian fundie church to get "permission" to homeschool. That sucked bigtime. Luckily, I did not actually have to do anything for or at the church itself. That would have been a dealbreaker.

I could see that my son was not going to learn much in that chaotic first grade classroom, even if the teacher COULD spell. Together, son and I worked on reading phonetically, sight reading those nonphonetic words, etc. We loved it.

When we moved and I decided to try regular school for 2nd grade, they tested him and said he couldn't read, so he'd be put in one of those "extra" classes to help him along. I was dumbfounded, because the kid was reading 2nd and 3rd grade books. By the time the special reading teacher had him for a week, she took me aside and told me that he was reading just fine...but, it seems, he didn't know how to take tests, and had been put in the remedial class because he flunked a paper-and-pencil test! OOOOOOOKAY, did anybody think to hand the homeschooled kid a book to see if he could READ? He didn't need to be put in a remedial reading class to learn how to take tests......but I digress.

His second-grade teacher was a gem and he loved her. He reads just fine --no problems there. He doesn't LIKE to read for pleasure, but that's a boy for you. Most of them just don't see the point.

It was just stunning watching the first two get pregnant at 15 1/2 and then not have ANY real education when they needed a job later. Gotta wonder about college too. The eldest who is 23 now, is too afraid to go to college. She did enroll in High school at 19 and graduated last year, while taking care of her kid. She wanted to do it right and not be on welfare anymore. Now shes trying to get over her fear for college. She found high school very embarassing because of her age. But like I said she did it. :)

The other is quite honestly, a crack addict.

The third uneducated niece is 11. She'll be pregnant and on drugs in 4 years. Her parents only let her run around.

Other than that, growing up I knew a few klepto home school
kids and 2 childmolester home school kids.

But don't worry, I'm sure it's just a coincidence that ALL I know have been f-ed up so far. Homeschool proponents insist is a coincidence.

I figure it's only 9 with the 9th being the 11 yo whos future is yet to be seen. Oh, but the one below pulled out of it and enrolled herself in HS.



My brave niece at her High School Graduation. I think this is great because I doubt most kids overcome home-school.

And am fairly ambivalent on the issue. I can see some benefit at an early age (as long as social interaction is taken care of through a local network of other homeschoolers) if the alternatives are not that great. I do wonder though how a well-rounded education can be provided through 12th grade level. In my high school, I had great teachers in trigonometry, calculus, physics, and chemistry and I wonder how one parent or some type of pre-packaged curricula/workbooks could replace that experience.

Again, I am far from closeminded on this.

daycare center for non involved parents, you might not less ambivalent and more open minded about home schooling, even to high school

I was open-minded. Also, I did mention that one criteria would be the alternatives available which included the local public school system.

I'm not sure exactly what I wrote deserved an attack back. Ambivalent is NOT a negative term.

and besides, while my grandparents loved me dearly, my grandmother needed the break from me for a time each day (and I probably needed the break from her as well.) I doubt she would have wanted to homeschool me if the option had been available.

I never have thought that school was exclusively about education. Socialization is also important: learning about how to get along with others. And yes, the lessons can be painful; little kids can really be mean to each other. My grandma did not believe in fancy private schools either, she figured they paid their taxes for schools, and I was damned well going to attend those schools. If I needed help with schoolwork, they would sit down in the evenings and work with me. My education was a family affair and was well monitored by my grandparents.

I saw this article this morning, and I knew it would get posted eventually. My partner and I have homeschooled our daughter for the last 3 years and we're a mixed-race couple. (I'm white, she's black, for what it's worth) It's been an interesting experience, for sure, but I wouldn't change a thing given the chance.

Just to the inevitable question out of the way: No, we're not religious fanatics, and we don't homeschool for moral reasons. We pulled our daughter out of the local public schools for one reason and one reason only: Our local school was (and still is) horribly broken, our daughter was falling way behind, and we couldn't get any of the local educrats to give a damn. Our alternatives were to move to a better school district, put our daughter in private school, or homeschool. We chose the latter simply because we couldn't afford the first 2 options.

We began homeschooling our daughter after the 3rd grade. When we pulled her out, she was a year behind in English and just below grade in math. After our first year of homeschooling, she was on grade in English, and above in math, and is now, in the 6th grade, well above her public-schooled peers in both.

Homeschooling is not the best option for every family. Not everyone can, and not everyone should homeschool. But, it was the best option for us, and I'm damn glad we're doing it.

kids can and do fall behind, and teachers have too many other kids to teach to even notice sometimes.. When testing time comes, it's too late to salvage the missed learning..

We need to go back to what used to work.. Small neighborhood schools..You get more community involvement when the school does not have 4K kids.

schools can be warehouses and Columbine is the result.

Do you test her? Same test her ps peers take?

Although our state only requires that standardized tests be administered every third year, we've had our daughter tested at the end of each school year. The test is administered at an independent testing center to which we were referred by the county school district's homeschooling liaison office. I can't speak as to whether it's the same test, but if they accept it, it's certainly on the same level.

Although, the tests didn't tell us anything we didn't already know - it was pretty obvious to us how she was progressing, because we could see where she was struggling and where she was not. We are likely to skip the exam this year, for this reason.

My state requires nothing of hsers. No curriculum, no testing, no oversight at all. Every time the legislators start talking about hs accountability, the hsers literally invade the capitol (with their kids) and lobby HARD against it. So far they are winning.

I don't blame you for not testing her every year if you don't have to. Sounds like you are top of her education anyway. Good for you.

There is this ever-present fear among the homeschooling families we know that tighter regulation will lead to an eventual ban on homeschooling. There are some pretty powerful lobbying interests that would like nothing more than to see homeschooling outlawed. We happen to live in a very homeschooler-friendly state (Georgia), however, so there's no real danger of that happening here any time soon.

There is a lot at stake.

Sounds like you at least have more oversight of hsing in GA than we do in my state. Here, they sign a paper saying they are going to hs. That's it.

I don't think anyone wants to ban hsing. At least I haven't heard that talk around here. They just want to make sure the kids are actually receiving an education. Frankly I don't understand the objection to that.

have you run for school board?

have you written letters to the editor?

have you done your part as a citizen of the community to fix that broken school?

No, I've not run for school board, although it's interesting that you mention it. I did consider it at one time, but then I took a look at the kind of people that get elected around here, and they're simply not like me. The people elected to public office in my area are wealthy, conservative Republican WASPs, who can usually trace their Southern roots back to the Revolutionary War. The only exception I could find was a retired high-school principal holding a seat on the school board, who is a middle-class conservative Republican WASP.

I, on the other hand, am middle-class, openly liberal, agnostic, an escaped Catholic, with an "ethnic" surname, New York City-born, in a mixed race relationship, a college dropout, and a Democrat. I also live in the reddest county in a solidly red state, Georgia. Add all that up and that makes me completely and utterly unelectable, and I don't have the time and money to play Don Quixote, tilting at windmills.

Oh, and we did our part to fix that school - we even managed to harass the county school superintendent into giving us a face-to-face meeting about that school's shortcomings. We weren't the only ones complaining, either - in fact, the principal was "encouraged to retire" last year, and I understand things may have gotten a bit better this year, with the new leadership there.

However, we realized that any beneficial change would come far too late to help our daughter, and my first responsibility was to help her - which led us to our decision to homeschool.

Homeschooling is not the best option for every family. Not everyone can, and not everyone should homeschool.

Well said.

But, it was the best option for us, and I'm damn glad we're doing it.

I'm glad you're doing it too!

Julie

I'm caucasian, and was homeschooled for my junior high years. Making me "miss out" on junior high was one of the nicest things my parents ever did for me! :) They homeschooled for somewhat religious reasons, but also because I needed the academic freedom to move at my own pace. It was the best thing for me at that time.

Now we homeschool our daughters-- the oldest is adopted from China. She's intellectually gifted, but has some learning problems as well. That's a very difficult combination to serve in the regular classroom, and we can't afford a Montessori program, which would be just about right for her. So we homeschool. It's not ideal, really, but it's the best option we have right now.

I'm glad to see more African American families joining the homeschool community. It's a good option for more than just the religious conservative crowd. I wish we had some support groups in my city that were not conservative Christian-based. I'm more of a progressive Christian, and I just can't handle listening to the fundamentalist schlock. But homeschooling is one of those things where it's really a benefit to have a strong support group. Going it alone is a tough proposition. I wish the best for these families who are going for it.

Finding homeschool groups in our city that were "religiously inclusive" has been one of the hardest parts of doing this. We've been a part of 3 different groups in 2 and a half years - one dissolved, one was taken over by fundamental cases, and one just sort of fizzled out and never really got together to do anything.

Armstrong said she wants her children — ages 12, 10 and 7 — to have a "moral Judeo-Christian foundation" that public schools can't provide.

Excuse me but utilizing a public school does not prevent a parent from instilling their values in their children. The education of children does not stop at the doorsteps of the school. It is the responsibility of all parents to continuously teach their children those values they deem important by word and action.

I agree that many schools are too big for the students to receive the education they need. That is the fault of the taxpayers because they are mainly unwilling to pay for additional schools to keep the general population at a reasonable size. I have advocated that they should be small enough so that teachers and principals know the students. When students know they are not just a face more of them will be better behaved IMO.

wonder if her family listens to all that upliftng hip hop stuff by 50 cents and sniff doggy.
now there's family values :-)

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

The group represents those who homeschool because they find "Judeo-Christian values" insufficiently represented in Public Schools. She did mention those values as her motivation. But their site is a bit too Right Wing.

www.hslda.org/

The National Black Home Educators Resource Association is also mentioned in the article. They seem like fine folks, but one of the founders is also a member of the Christian Home Educators Fellowship of Louisiana.

www.nbhera.org/index.htm
www.chefofla.org/

I KNOW that people homeschool for other reasons than to protect their children from unGodly influences. Do they have organizations that present that face of homeschooling to the public?

I understand the impulse to home school, especially if your schools are marginal. I don't think that this is something that can/should be regulated other than to make sure that the home schooled kids have the same standards. My kids go to public school and I'm really happy about that, but privacy and choice issues are important dem values.