Concerned Women for America upset that cheating homeschoolers get punished for cheating

Concerned Women for America has confirmed that Math Counts, a national math competition for teams and individual students in grades 6-8, will not allow homeschoolers to form teams and compete in the 2010-2011 school year. The Math Counts board unanimously decided to exclude homeschoolers in response to a few situations in which “super teams” were formed by pulling certain gifted students from public schools and labeling them as homeschool teams.

Math Counts has provided unique opportunities for gifted students to compete and to shine. The program is comparable to the National Spelling Bee. Winners on a national level are rewarded and meet the president at the White House.

These examples of cheating obviously mar the competition, but homeschoolers as a whole should not be completely wiped from the competition.

http://www.miketidmus.com/blog/2010/08/17/when-did-cheating-become-a-christian-value/

What is this?! Rules and regulations are only meant for everyone else, not us!!!

Sure it's an Easy solution to just Ban homeschool teams. But is it fair to punish every Homeschool team because of the actions of several? Or should they be focused on dealing with the Cheaters?

It makes it possible for them to have quality time with both their father and myself while we live a distance from each other.

Even if i did not i would find this unfair. Public schools are not exempt from "cheating" in certain ways in academics or sports. People sometimes try and cheat and no system is exempt.

All kids in a home schooled system should not be punished or excluded due to the actions of a few crooked types.

and they should not be able to participate in the system selectively when it suits their whims.

Well said!

I guess I don't understand the issue. If the public school kids are so great, why are they not competing on the public school's team? Is this a recruiting issue? Are the kids being paid in some way to compete for another team? Or are the homeschoolers bringing in 8th graders to compete against public school 6th graders?

Also, how is Math a "team sport"? Is it like soccer, where teamwork matters? Or is it like a school's tennis "team", where individuals compete in singles matches and there's some score aggregation at the end?

:shrug:

I was on my school's ad-hoc "team" to compete in a Putnam Mathematical Competition among colleges/universities, but the only "team" thing we did was to share aspirin at "half-time". It was a grinding test. My school did not "win",