Public-schooling-at-home

General: Public-schooling-at-home also known as e-schools or cyber-charters

Just as there is a difference between public and private schooling, there is a difference between homeschooling and public-schooling-at-home. To refer public-schooling-at-home as homeschooling is to confuse people who see only the surface and who aren't interested in the fine points of the subject. Any parents with their children at home 'look like' homeschoolers. The problem with this is that the accountability for the use of tax dollars for public-schooling-at-home that will surely arise, will bleed over onto homeschooling.

Some public-schooling-at-home programs do permit parents to make curricular changes to the program, or even to proceed in their own fashion. The difference between this and homeschooling is that the school is allowing the parents to make this choice, but the decision remains with the school. With homeschooling, that choice lies with the parent.

Another aspect is that by using such a program, the focus is on public-school measurements: curriculum, benchmarks, tests, and timetables. The child is viewed through a bureaucratic lens, not through a 'this is my child growing up' lens.

There are differences of opinion concerning this discussion, passionate differences, which is a good thing. If we weren't able to be passionate about our choice, would that choice be worth choosing?

Note: The Military Homeschooler web site considers 'homeschoolers' to be families who privately fund the education of their children. It is not meant to exclude, denigrate, or be 'better than' anyone. Even in the absence of real-world evidence, as presented by my daily newspaper, my view is to assume that parents have their children's best interests at heart: homeschoolers, public-schoolers, private-schoolers, and public-schoolers-at-home. This site's information is presented for anyone with an interest but it is from a homeschooling perspective.

No one is 'pure' anything even though on the surface we may project Pureness. Inside each of us there is usually at least one little 'controversial corner.' If 'controversial corners' weren't there schism within seemingly homogenous groups would not arise. History shows that one constant among humans may be schism. We group together and at some critical mass differences emerge and division occurs. I acknowledge the differences between the various groups that contribute to the Greater Home Education movement and their right to their opinions but have as my focus Homeschooling.

We Stand For Homeschooling

The Seduction of Homeschoolers written in 1998

Home Education Magazine articles, Sept/Oct 1998:
Public School Programs and Our Community - Janie Levine Hellyer
Labeling Publicly Funded Programs for Homeschoolers - Christine Webb
Problems With Putting Public E-Schools in Homes
How Will Virtual Schools Affect Homeschooling?

Ohio history: The "Choice" Charade, at the Homeschool Freedom site

Statement by Mary Nix of Homeschool Freedom:
Homeschooling for decades has been understood as an opportunity to exit the public school system, enjoy excuse from compulsory attendance and many freedoms to live and learn with our children.

Contrary to how others sometimes portray my philosophy, I do recommend many choices, along with the law or code that accompanies that educational choice so that a family understands their rights and responsibilities.

When homeschooling is purposely or mistakenly used to describe some of these new public schools at home, some have erroneously been led to beleave that they are enjoying the rights and freedoms that homeschoolers are. I do object to that. I think people should
be well informed and not misled.

Where the author, yourself and many others seem to confuse the issue, whether by choice or not, is when they portray those of us who oppose the misuse of the name homeschooling for these programs as opposing the programs or the people using them. This image has been emotionally and vehemently retouched by some and the picture they paint hides the vital truth that we don't oppose choice, but we oppose the misuse of the word homeschooling.

I do not oppose public school reform, nor do I oppose giving children and families a multitude of choices. I support and expect all parents the ease and ability to find and know their rights, responsibilities and the mandates that accompany each choice--accurately.

The new schools afford many families choices they didn't have before, but HOMESCHOOLING is not a new choice. It has been here to choose whenever one wished.

Perhaps we need to acknowledge that many of the families have not been looking for an opportunity to homeschool at all, but have been looking for a new form of public school. They want the curriculum, the testing, the other mandates and the education expertise that public school offers, but they want it outside of the public school building. I commend them for their choice, they are pioneers in public school reform.

Perhaps after a time,some will be at home and find they want to homeschool and to enjoy the rights that we do. That is another choice that remains available to them. I simply ask that others remain clear about their choice and not reform homeschooling.

Introduction
The “Choice” Charade

PART 1: William Bennett’s Cyber Charter Express
This New “Choice” Entity
Following the Money Trail
K12 and Michael Milken
Techno-Future Cyber Charters

PART 2: “Choice” Reform: Dollars, Disasters and Databanking
Reform Drives Profits
Breaking the Mold
The Intentional Design Flaw
Waivers for Favors
Tests Drive the Reform Engine
Databanking Devices

Use 'Em or Lose 'Em: Maintaining Reasonable Homeschooling Laws
"When dealing with school officials, it helps to remember they are acting on behalf of the public school system, not homeschoolers. They rely on public schools for jobs, income, and prestige. They seldom understand homeschooling or have any basis for evaluating homeschools or helping us improve. Some school officials are eager to get private school students, including homeschoolers, into public schools so they can increase their enrollments, budgets, and power."

The wild and free pigs of the Okefenokee Swamp
Allegory from SepSchool

Just Who Is Accountable for My Child's Education?
Newsletter from Harvest Home Educators, Georgia

Related topic of public-school-at-home serving families whose homeschooling may not be up to par.
Problems with Legislation to Prevent "Unqualified" Families From Homeschooling, a Home Education Magazine column by the Kasemans
Educational Neglect, by Ann Zeise of A to Z, Home's Cool

The Double-Edged Sword of Marginal Per-Pupil Spending from the Education Intelligence Agency, 10 Nov 03:
"So far, so good for the unions. They make a clear and defensible point about the difference between fixed and marginal costs of education. But they fail to consider the reverse corollary. All public schools are funded in reference to average per-pupil expenditures. If a school system’s marginal costs are low (as the unions are claiming), each new student who enrolls in a regular public school brings with him or her revenue in excess of costs, or, as economists like to call it, profit."

The Search for Funding
"We're certainly not trying to interfere [in] those home programs," says Harry Gamble of the state's department of education. "The Alaska legislature has spoken on that one and has said that that's a valid option for parents, and we believe that. But once they step across and enroll in a public school, whether that's a brick-and-mortar or one of these correspondence programs, then they are subject to the [same] kinds of rules and regulations that public school students are subject to, including testing.

Crossing the Public School-Homeschool Divide
The idea behind IDEA was to entice homeschoolers with a package that included computer equipment, access to instructional resources, assistance from certificated teachers, and guidance from a network of field representatives who are also homeschool parents.

...

Growing concern over potential—and real—abuses by distance learning programs prompted Alaska to tighten regulations and funding guidelines in 2004.

...

The rules specify that the total amount spent on tutoring or lessons in art, music, and physical education can't exceed 15 percent of the student's allocation, and all expenditures must be tied to the individual learning plan. In addition, a correspondent student must take at least half of his or her coursework in core subjects.

...

Harry Gamble, the public information officer for Alaska's education department, explains the rules were prompted by "letter-writing by concerned Alaskans, the legislature asking questions, and us taking a look around." Gamble says there were stories of abuses, including private school students enrolling full time in correspondence programs and using their allotments for things like scuba lessons, trips to Disneyland, family gym memberships, and horseback riding.

February 2006

Alfie Kohn: Test Today, Privatize Tomorrow

August 2005

Politics trumps teachers on science materials
PHILADELPHIA — When Philadelphia teachers return on the first day of school, they will be surprised. The new science curriculum some had tested in their classrooms using kits from Science and Technology for Children (STC) or Full Option Science Systems (FOSS) has been replaced with materials from K12 Inc.

...

In 2003 and 2004 a panel of top district science teachers and administrators developed a new science curriculum and examined a vast selection of materials that might fit the “hands on” science lessons for each grade level. The panel decided on materials from STC and FOSS, considered high quality by a peer-review process funded by the National Science Foundation.

When David L. Smith, director of professional development at the DaVinci Discovery Center, reviewed K12 Inc. materials, he found shallow factual content and numerous errors of fact.

January 2005

December 2004

November 2004

Home Education Magazine articles,
Sept/Oct 1998:
Public School Programs and Our Community - Janie Levine Hellyer
Labeling Publicly Funded Programs for Homeschoolers - Christine Webb

Three Years Later How I Almost Joined An Umbrella School - Theresa Willingham

So What About That Free Lunch? How Can We Trust the State - Peggy Daly-Masternak

Your Homeschooling Decisions Affect My Homeschooling Freedoms
How William Bennett's Public E-Schools Affect Homeschooling
- Larry and Susan Kaseman

August 2004

History of Homeschooling: A Large Dose of Reality
Recentralizing Decentralization
Sovereign Parental Instruction of Children
from NHELD

July 2004

Truth in Advertising: Cyber-charter websites that co-opt the concept of homeschooling

White Hat Management's Pennsylvania virtual school PDELA
"FREE Home Schooling Seminar
Learn how to educate your children in the comfort and safety of your home at our Informational Seminar!"

Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School
(scroll down) "What kinds of students will this virtual school serve?
. . .
"Children who are home schooling but might sign up for a public charter school if offered the support of a quality curriculum, adaptive lessons, and qualified teachers."

(the implication is that the virtual school provides a 'quality curriculum' and 'qualified teachers' which would mean that the homeschooling curriculum and teacher is . . .?)

White Hat Management's Ohio virtual school OHDELA
"OHDELA Home Schooling
"Ohio Distance & Electronic Learning Academy's objective is to provide parents and students with the full range of options that define their family's educational choices. While more and more parents in Ohio are considering home schooling as one possibility, it is normal for some to have questions about whether education in the home will be of the same quality as that offered in public schools."

Frontier Charter School in Alaska
"Frontier Charter School was approved by the State of Alaska Board of Education in March of 2003 and has become the newest publicly-funded program for homeschoolers in Anchorage."

IDEA of Alaska
"IDEA is the home schooling support program of Galena City School District, serving the needs of students throughout Alaska since 1997."

Arizona Distance Learning
"Home Schooling
Arizona Distance Learning provides a great resource for home schoolers."

K-12®
"K12® Virtual Academies combine the best elements of homeschooling—flexibility and individual instruction—with the support and accountability of a public or private school. Families in many states are successfully educating their children in home-based virtual academies using K12's curriculum."
Participating schools
Arizona Virtual Academy
Arkansas Virtual School
California Virtual Academy at Kern
California Virtual Academy at Kings
California Virtual Academy at San Diego
California Virtual Academy at Jamestown
California Virtual Academy at Sonoma
Colorado Virtual Academy
Florida Virtual Academy
James Madison K12 Academy (Florida)
Idaho Virtual Academy
Iowa Virtual School Program
Minnesota Virtual Academy
Ohio Virtual Academy
Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School
Washington, DC's Community Academy Public Charter School
Wisconsin Virtual Academy
Texas (from 2003): Capitol Chronicle
"Lesson No. 1 -- Crime Doesn't Pay ... Yet: Bill Bennett Loses Again at the State Board of Education

"When it comes to self-promotion, William Bennett, the former U.S. Secretary of Education and legendary lousy gambler, does not take no for an answer. However profligate he may be in pissing away millions at Vegas casinos, he knows a good bet when it comes to working the government gravy train. Having lost his shirt to the House several times during the 78th Legislature, Bennett and his K12 Inc. online "Virtual Academy" were scheduled to be back in town this week for what looked like a sure thing: selling the con game known as "virtual charter schools" to the State Board of Education. "
Oregon: Homeschoolers must pay own way
"LOWELL -- Parents who want to homeschool their children may do so, school officials say -- but not on the state's dime.

"Faced with an increased number of release requests, the Lowell School Board decided to quit releasing students for alternative education programs -- homeschool or otherwise -- based outside the school district."
Kansas: New Principal Targets Homeschoolers: 5 Jul 04, Lawrence Journal-World, Lawrence
"Lawrence public schools received $101,709 by applying for a grant to open a charter school. The grant money will go toward startup costs such as equipment and salaries. But the district also will receive $3,863 in state aid for every student enrolled in the virtual school, the same amount the district receives for each student enrolled in the district."

So, even though there is no 'physical plant' (what we all used to call the school-house), and probably fewer teachers, it costs virtually the same amount to run an online school as it does the brick & mortar kind?
NEA opinion on charter schools
(end of article) "New concerns are being raised by the recent proliferation in California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and elsewhere of non classroom-based charter schools, or "home-study schools." These include online schools and distance-learning schools — an abuse of the charter school concept that NEA adamantly opposes."
Cyber and Home School Charter Schools: How States are Defining New Forms of Public Schooling : November 2003

Abstract

Cyber and homeschooling charter schools have suddenly become a prominent part of the charter school movement. Such schools differ from conventional schools by delivering much of their curriculum and instruction through the use of the internet and minimizing the use of personnel and physical facilities. This paper examines how these alternative charter school models are emerging within the larger public school and charter school communities with particular attention to recent developments in California and Pennsylvania. In these two states public scrutiny of cyber and homeschooling charter schools has led to considerable debate and demands for public accountability. Of particular concern is the need to modify the regulatory framework to accommodate cyber and homeschooling charter schools as well as consideration of the differing financial allocations that are appropriate for schools that operate with reduced personnel and facilities and the division of financial responsibility between state and local educational agencies.

Editorial: Cyber school is home school
On target concerning confusion of public-school-at-home with homeschooling; offbase concerning socialization.
The Military Homeschooler Op/ed
PowerSchool 2004
No, it's not the latest and greatest in schooling for kids. It's the latest and greatest in tracking them. PowerSchool is an integrated system that is, ". . .reaching a level of granularity that is unprecedented, with up-to-the-minute
information about a student's progress, tracked for reporting and
automatically streamlined with multiple data systems."

Read the full opinion at the Op/ed link above.

June 2004

NHEN Controversial Issues - Point/Counterpoint
Another article showing the slow change in the meaning of the word 'homeschooling' from that of a purely private family endeavor, to public-schooling-at-home.
Homeschoolers advance
"Parents who are interested in enrolling their children in the homeschool program should go to the district office and sign up like they would for any student into the school system, said Assistant Superintendent Claudette Beaty.

“Parents are required to fill out a registration packet,” Beaty said. “We then notify the teacher and she meets with the parents and talks with them to find out what they want to accomplish and tells them how the program works.”

. . .

"Morgan Hill’s homeschooling program is funded through state Average Daily Attendance (ADA) money. ADA is money paid by the state based on student attendance. But Dzek says the district won’t see the money until the end of this month."
Truancy problems can’t be solved by schools alone
I'm assuming that in the following excerpt from the above-linked article in the online Palm Springs newspaper, The Desert Sun, that the 'home schooling' referred to is enrollment in a California ISP. California state law has no provision for homeschooling but by filing an R-4 Private School affidavit, parents establish their home as a private school. According to the official site for California legislative information, the attendance record need only show the days the child is absent (48222). The idea of absence from homeschooling requires some mental gymnastics, and even more so to imagine fines and bench warrants issued for such absences.

"Fines of $170 and $270 or more have been instituted with the intention of modifying parents’ behavior to actively involve them in truancy diversion. Bench warrants are being issued for parents’ court appearances. Bails are being set at $1,000.

. . .

"It’s the law. Minors must attend school -- be it traditional schooling, home schooling or alternative education. The law says minors must be making academic progress. Parents, in partnership with the schools, have the responsibility to enforce it."

April 2004

Public Cyber Charter School – Is it Homeschooling? (scroll down for Current Article)
Knowledge Universe and Virtual Schools:
Educational Breakthrough or Digital Raid on the Public Treasury? by Greald Bracey of George Mason University (site has pop-up security screen; just click "open" if you wish to read the report)
"Whether or not virtual schools are 'The New Paradigm' or merely the latest in a series of technological innovations to come and go remains to be seen. It is already evident, however, that schools, universities, educational organizations, and entrepreneurs are rushing to adopt the new technology without adequate data to advise them of a wise course of action. The various advocates and entrepreneurs are using information technology in a variety of ways. This report considers one little-known—but large and influential—technology enterprise, Knowledge Universe, and examines the operations of its school-related division, K12, Inc."
The K12 Virtual Primary School History Curriculum: A Participant’s-eye View by Susan Ohanian (site has pop-up security screen; just click "open" if you wish to read the report)
"Yet the above lesson was not from a progressive classroom but from a “back-to-basics curriculum” marketed to home-schooling families by K12 Inc., a company headed by former US Education Secretary William J. Bennett. There is an irony here: while families who choose to home school their children do so out of diverse motives, a significant percentage are driven by the desire to inject a more openly religious and values-based education into the curriculum. Bennett himself has, since leaving office in 1992, championed a return to “virtue” and “values” in the education of American children. To the extent that religiously conservative homeschoolers choose Bennett’s K12 curriculum (and no data are available to show the ideological makeup of the curriculum’s users), however, this group would appear to be disregarding the fact that it introduces the occult, superstition, and magic. That is the least of the curriculum’s problems, however. As we will see, it includes much sex and gore."
More confusion between homeschooling and public-schooling-at-home. The mention of K-12 doesn't concern the private purchase of the curriculum by families using their own money but rather the use of the curriculum by states with cyber-charters purchasing the program with tax money.
Bill Moyers NOW, on March 26th (scroll about halfway down the screen to the conversation between Bill Moyers and Michele Mitchell)
Lead in: "During his first three years in office, President Bush has funneled tens of millions of dollars to churches to use for social services. Congress refused to approve the President's Faith-Based Initiative, as he calls it, but he acted anyway — by Executive Order, on his own, despite criticism that he was going around both Congress and the Constitution."
Follow-up
"But remember, this money is going to promote private alternatives to public education. And look at who's getting that taxpayer funding. Groups like K-12, a profit-making company run by Bill Bennett. Who's he? Bill Bennett: Ronald Reagan's former secretary of education, who has spent decades railing against public education. Here's his company's Web site. According to the department's own numbers, Bennett's group got 14 million taxpayer dollars to promote "virtual" home schooling.
. . .
"And that same group started the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, billed as a conservative alternative to teacher certification. Now, Home schoolers can become teachers by taking an Internet exam. This new program got $35 million."
Conclusion: "But the real challenge is to follow the money flowing through these bureaucratic backchannels. This is public money for private schools. Money neither Congress nor voters have ever approved. And now, these tens of millions of taxpayer's dollars are being used to market a radical approach to education at the expense of traditional public schools."

March 2004

ARIZONA, CALIFORNIA, COLORADO, FLORIDA, OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA, WISCONSIN
Connections Academy (CA)
Is the CA program homeschooling?
NO. CA schools are public schools. Homeschooling is a legal right provided by law in most states that permit parents to provide for their child’s education without intervention from state or local authorities. The parent is typically able to make all curriculum decisions and operates as the child’s only teacher, delivering content, evaluating performance and making decisions concerning the child’s grade level promotion. All CA schools provide a defined set of curriculum materials that have been specifically aligned to local required standards and use certified teachers to evaluate student performance, including decisions concerning the child’s grade level promotion. All CA students are required to take state standardized tests and the schools are accountable for the students’ performance to regulatory authorities.
FLORIDA (this link is a new page; the quotation below was taken from a former edition of the web page documented by the WaybackMachine.org web archive): Why are homeschoolers excluded from participation in this program? The program was launched in a limited form in its initial year to limit the cost to the state and to help reduce class size in other public schools
OHIO (this link is a new page; the quotation below was taken from a former edition of the web page documented by the WaybackMachine.org web archive) : Students who have been excused from the compulsory attendance law for the purpose of home education as defined by the Administrative Code shall no longer be excused for that purpose upon their enrollment in a community school.
Eclectic Homeschool Online: Letter From Bev- Defining Homeschooling
"Public school homeschool programs all have one thing in common, non-parental oversight. Someone other than the parent is determining what will be covered, when it will be covered, and what is acceptable work. The grave possibility is that as homeschooling becomes linked to notions of outside oversight, those in the public education sphere (think the National Education Association), will use such programs to push for oversight of all homeschoolers."
Christian Liberty position paper on government subsidies for home education
Wired News, 15 Mar 04: Sketchy Grades for Cyber Schools
"It's a complete disaster," said Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, when asked about the performance of Ohio's cyber charter schools. "There should be consequences," he added. Mooney likes the idea of cyber schools, but is uncomfortable with for-profit companies running public charter schools, as is the case the OHDELA, run by White Hat Management, and ECOT, run by Altair Learning Management.
WASHINGTON: 13 Mar 04, HeraldNet, Homeschooling put at risk
"Alternative schools do have their benefits -- they provide camaraderie, free enrichment classes, sometimes-necessary instruction if a parent of a home-schooler is weak in a particular area, and encouragement and guidance when parents are struggling. However, a big concern is that the more home-school students enroll in alternative schooling programs, the more "dependence" the home-school movement is falsely showing on the public school system. In time, many of us fear the home-schooling movement will be weakened and our independence blurred. Hence, legislators may make stricter laws regulating home-schooling."
Funding for Private Schools in England and the Netherlands: Can the Piper Call the Tune?
This paper concerns schools in Europe but there is a concern on the part of some American homeschoolers that there will be a similar bleeding-over of regulations binding public-school-at-home programs in the US into homeschooling.
Abstract: This increase in state regulation and control is such that there are now some religious schools in both countries which do not seek state funding but refer (sic) to remain dependent upon fees. The benefits of state funding are seen as being outweighed by the decrease in autonomy that the schools would undergo. A final twist, however, is that private schools not in receipt of state funding have also experienced increased state regulation at both the country and European levels. Furthermore, all schools have also been influenced by the growing public rhetoric of 'standards' and 'league tables'
which has brought with it a growing pressure to conform to a narrow version of schooling. Diversity is being replaced by conformity.
page 38, "However, it has also been shown that, in Europe at least, the state has instituted increased regulation and control of all schools - whether or not they receive state funding. Fully private schools are not immune from control over what they do. Some aspects of European law may now even override national law on some education-related issues in the same way that Federal law challenges State law in the USA."
Alliance for the Separation of School and State
Cyberschools - the rest of the story (from a Catholic viewpoint)
"The Catholic Church teaches that parents bear primary responsibility for their children's education. This makes the government schools' "Parents as Partners" mantra a demotion in parental status. . . . But students who participate in cyberschooling, in which they are supplied money, materials and/or curriculum by the government agency administering the cyberschool (in Washington state, usually the local school district), are classified under state law as public school students, not as homeschoolers. They are public school students doing public school work at home, and their activities are covered by the laws relating to public schools, not to home schools."

February 2004

1 Mar 04 ALASKA Correspondence schools warned
State: Stop reimbursing parents for questionable expenses or face an audit.
28 Dec 03 Parents find numerous advantages to homeschooling, the confusion of homeschooling with public-school-at-home continues.
"Like other parents and students who have chosen the Palm Springs district’s 5-year-old home-schooling option, the Howards are working closely with teachers on various facets of Robin’s schooling, from curriculum to field trips to writing labs."
Then there is the tie to NCLB which does not apply to homeschoolers although it does apply to children who are publicly schooled at home, "Along with district mandates, the federal No Child Left Behind law requires schools to test 95 percent of students in different groups, including special-education students, which includes home-schooled kids."
Illinois: 8 Feb 04 School eye for the homeschool guy: Ryan crosses traditional GOP lines
"It was soon after Ryan began teaching that he joined the board of K12 Inc., a private, for-profit education company in Virginia founded by William Bennett, secretary of education in the Reagan administration. Founded to provide curricula for home-schooled children, K12 has branched out to work with taxpayer-funded charter schools in several states."
16 Oct 03: from the Illinois Leader,
IL: Am I to assume that you are comfortable with homeschoolers educating their children without any federal requirements?
RYAN: I’m not only comfortable, I’ve put a lot of money into a curriculum that all they do is provide curriculum for home schoolers. I’m not just saying the words of support, I have put a lot of effort in developing a curriculum that home schoolers can use to make their lives easier.
IL: Most home schoolers would like to have lower taxes, not necessarily government funds to pay for their home schooling. . .
RYAN: Well, if they don’t want the curriculum, they can use other options, which is the glory of choice at the parental level. . .
IL: You’re on the board of (former U.S. Secretary of Education) Bill Bennett’s program “K-12.com,” right?
RYAN: Right. Parents can reject the curriculum if they don’t want it, that’s okay. But that’s another choice for parents to make.
Ohio: 19 Feb 2004 ToledoBlade.com, Leaders plan push for digital academy Continued efforts in Ohio to sell e-schooling to homeschoolers. 2003 accounts of the e-school push in Ohio can be read about in HomeSchoolFreedom's article, K-12 (Again!) (pdf file)
Washington: 20 Feb 04 HeraldNet.com, New tools to learn Home-school help, a continued blurring of the lines between homeschooling and public schooling. Do private school students skip back and forth between schools and receive stipends for piano lessons? "Each student usually gets a stipend of several hundred dollars year to use for school supplies or activities such as piano lessons. The money comes from what the state gives the school district, about $4,000 per student. State law specifies that the district has to put at least 70 percent of the money directly into home-school programs."
Arkansas Times: originally billed on the front page as, School or Scam?
13 Feb 04: Home is where the school is --
But should the public pay for it? And how much is too much?

"Arkansas legislators last week challenged that amount, as well as the notion of using state money to pay for homeschooling - a phrase that's close to fighting words for the families in the Virtual School, despite its apparent truth.

"Supporters of the Virtual School insist that there is a difference between "public schooling in the home" and homeschooling: namely, that homeschoolers choose any curriculum they want and aren't accountable to the state for what their children learn."
New buzzword from Connecticut: "telecommuting-schoolers"
Utah House Rebukes Bush With Its Vote on School Law
States are figuring out that if you take money from other people you are accountable to them. Something to keep in mind concerning public-schooling-at-home.
Confusion between homeschooling and public-schooling-at-home
Alaska: Schools' spending criticized
Arkansas: Panel pulls plug on home schooling program
Florida: Further Denigration of Public Education--Funding Homeschooling

Oct 2000

DODDS-Pacific helping parents with home schooling
It seems almost Grinchish to take issue with such a popular program but the roots of IDEA International are planted in the IDEA program out of the Galena, Alaska school district. The program provided by IDEA International is a correspondence program funded through the DoD (see page 7). Public money = public education, not homeschooling. All this isn't to say that families don't find the program useful or a good fit, the popularity of the program shows that these statements wouldn't be true. Families do what they have to do for their children and that is fine. But it is public-school-at-home, not homeschooling.

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