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August 2004

• USDA/Army Youth Development Project

 

July 2004

• Declaration of Educational Independence

 

June 2004

• I'm sure the National Education Association didn't mean to be ironic, but there is a certain oddness about the inclusion on the NEA website of the poem, Hurry, Hurry!
• Military Exchange Unification: The Strategic Case for Change

April 2004

• Flat Stanley came to visit The Military Homeschooler from Morgan and Audrey who are homeschooling sisters in Kansas City Kansas.  Stan didn't have too far to travel because The Military Homeschooler is produced just south of Kansas City.  Still, he got to have an adventure. 
  
  (see April 2004 photos at The Military Homeschooler update site, subscription needed to log into the site)

  The first part of the adventure was seeing one of Kansas City's numerous fountains at Barney Allis Plaza.  The city's fountains have had their water tinted blue in honor of the opening game of the Kansas City Royals.  Yes, that's me with Stan. 

  After enjoying the fountains we crossed the street to The Folly theater shown in the 2nd photo.  The Folly has a hundred-year history in Kansas City and the period decor inside was interesting.  In the 3rd photo you can see a 'Stan's Eye View' from the next-to-the-last row in the balcony.

  In the bottom photo you can probably see that Stan is dressed oddly and is carrying what is supposed to be a trombone.  That's because Stan went to see Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado and he's dressed as Nanki-poo the son of the Mikado who has run away to avoid marrying Katisha the old maid.  He's disguised himself as a trombone player.

  The organization producing the operetta was The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players.  We enjoyed the production very much and I tried to keep from singing along out loud, although I did 'direct' discreetly.  Stan will be heading back across the state line soon and The Military Homeschooler is happy to have been part of Stan's travels and Morgan's and Audrey's project.

 

March 2004

• MASSACHUSETTS:  Boston.com, Schoolhouse Rocked
  " They wanted to create a place where students could be excited about learning, and Danford sees that happening regularly among home-schoolers. "If you ask most 14-year-olds about school, they mumble something and then wish for a snow day," he says. "If you ask a home-schooler, they go on for 45 minutes."

• 4th Annual Homeschooling Spring Science Club from About.com.  Deadline is a postmark by June 20, 2004
  Additional information at the website:
  How To Use the Scientific Method
  Science Resources
  Experiments & Explorations

• VIRGINIA: 8 Mar 08, NY Times, College for the Home-Schooled Is Shaping Leaders for the Right (required log-in, registration is free) "Patrick Henry College is the centerpiece of an effort to extend the home-schooling movement's influence beyond education to a broad range of conservative Christian issues like opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and obscenity in the media. The legal defense association, located on the Patrick Henry campus, established the college as a forward base camp in the culture war, with the stated goal of training home-schooled Christian men and women "who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values."
  Discussion concerning the impression left by the article is at NHEN message boards ("Page Down" 11 times).

• OKLAHOMA: 8 Mar 04, Tulsa World Wireless Site, Juvenile truancy court puts burden on parents, "Later in the docket, the mood changes. A woman's announcement that she will home-school her daughter for medical reasons riles the judge, who questions the validity of the excuse. "I'm very concerned that this is just an easy way out," Post says. ". . . You're either part of the problem or part of the solution."
  This is the only homeschool mention in the article and no documentation other than another quote that is difficult to read, "Most people are astonished that it's against the law not to take your kids to school, just shocked," Post said. "We have entire families where none of the kids go to school."

 

February 2004

• Tampa teen charged with FCAT felony  (FCAT = Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test)  "Law enforcement officers normally don't make felony arrests when students are caught cheating on school exams. But the significance of the FCAT test makes this incident a state crime, investigators said."  Five pages of discussion of testing is at the NHEN message boards.

• Homeschooling Fathers by Gary Wyatt, article from Home Education Magazine

• Freedom in Education February Newsletter  Homeschooling with a British accent
  Instead of being guided by whether or not children are leading fulfilled lives, adults have allowed themselves to be deluded into believing that it is acceptable to put children through a certain amount of trauma in the present, if, in the future, it might mean that they can get a qualification or a job.

• Vintage 1996 publication:   Frequently Asked Questions about Homeschooling in Europe and One Homeschooler's Answers available for browsing at The Military Homeschooler email update website.  Subscribe at the website and then click on Files, then Vintage Publications.  The download takes a minute or so because of the size of the file.

• Not Homeschooling:  18 Feb 04 Critical Decision on Text of Constitutional Amendment Protecting Marriage "Protecting" marriage has nothing to do with homeschooling and asking homeschoolers to be homeschooling-activists in "support" of marriage only dilutes the effectiveness of homeschooling advocacy.  If you have an opinion on either side of the debate by all means inform your legislators of that opinion if you feel it is necessary, but do it as a concerned citizen.  Save your homeschooling advocacy for homeschooling concerns.

• Updates of The Military Homeschooler are now available by email.  Homeschoolers interested in keeping up with the latest now don't have to remember to check the website itself, the update can come to you in the privacy of your own inbox.  No need to trudge all the way up to Favorites or scootch your mouse all over the mousepad, just subscribe and sit back and relax.  Current information of interest to Military Homeschoolers is delivered automatically without chat or spam.
  And if you're feeling in need of some light entertainment, the Unschooling In A Word archives are posted in the Photo Albums section of the group website.

• Burnout:  Avoiding Homeschool Burnout by Isabel Shaw

• Grown homeschooled kids:
  Apricot Pie website:  "a gathering of homeschooling students and homeschool graduates"
  Justine McDonald and her brother Eric
  Grown Without Schooling

• 18 March 2004 is the deadline for Grace Llewellyn's teen Not Back To School Camp which will be held in Oregon and West Virginia in October.
  Grace is the author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit
  School and Get a Real Life and Education

• Parenting in Jesus' Footsteps, A Resource for Gentle Christian Parents and Other Caring Adults

• A to Z Home's Cool link to Homeschooling Bargains on E-Bay

• Illinois:  The 7th In-Home* Conference has been scheduled for March 26-27, 2004

• Oxford University Press 2004 Book Sale
  These books aren't inexpensive but they are quality.

• New page on this site (Public-schooling-at-home)

• 1984 A Place Called School: Promise for the Future

• Read Across America a state-by-state booklist
  "A popular activity is to "travel" across a map of the U.S. by reading a book that takes place in each of the states. (A variation is to read a book whose author lives in a particular state, or a book about a particular state.) If your class is participating in this activity and you are a book or two short, or your students are eager for more, try these titles."

 

January 2004

• Grown Without Schooling  "Accompany 10 grown homeschoolers from around the country, ranging in age from 19 to 31, as they explore and candidly discuss the lasting influence home education has had on their lives. Produced and edited for the homeschooling community by a lifelong homeschooler, this 107 minute documentary is a frank and often illuminating portrait of the triumphs and struggles homeschoolers face as children, teens and adults."

• New Jersey:  In response to the Jackson family case a bill has been introduced into the NJ Legislature to require testing and medical examination of homeschooled children. NJ homeschoolers oppose this bill.  Discussion is at the NHEN Legislative Forum.

• Tennessee:  legislation pending to require all non-public students, to include 'home schoolers', to pass a exit test for high school.

• Scholastic Book Fairs:  Customer Appreciation Inventory Blowout
  search the web site to see if sales will be held in your state (no overseas sale points listed)

• Latest Internet Scam:  Phishing "Phishing, also called "carding," is a high-tech scam that uses spam to deceive consumers into disclosing their credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information.
  "According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the emails pretend to be from businesses the potential victims deal with - for example, their Internet service provider (ISP), online payment service or bank. The fraudsters tell recipients that they need to "update" or "validate" their billing information to keep their accounts active, and direct them to a "look-alike" Web site of the legitimate business, further tricking consumers into thinking they are responding to a bona fide request. Unknowingly, consumers submit their financial information - not to the businesses - but the scammers, who use it to order goods and services and obtain credit."Do play chess? Now geographically-separated families can play together even though Dad's away. With an online connection you can set up accounts and move when you can: once a day, twice, . . . One or two-line messages can be sent with each move. See Online Chess

• California: AB56 Proposal for mandatory kindergarten (taking the age for mandatory school attendance down from six years old to five) "(1) Existing law, commonly referred to as the Compulsory Education Law, subjects pupils between the ages of 6 and 18 to compulsory full-time education. This bill would, instead, at an unspecified future date, subject pupils between the ages of 5 and 18 to compulsory full-time education, and would make conforming changes, including changes relating to the full day of instruction."
  Information received via the California Homeschool Network:
  1. AB 56 seeks to lower compulsory school age by making all day kindergarten mandatory rather than optional, as it is now. This bill affects all families with young children.
  2. California parents already have the choice to enroll their 5-year-olds in school. According to a June 2000 Senate Appropriations Committee analysis, 90% of all children of kindergarten age already attend public or private kindergarten. This might make one question why this bill is needed.
  3. No valid evidence exists that mandating attendance at age 5 rather than 6 is better for the educational, physical or social development of the child. There is evidence that early-institutionalized care increases academic failure, the risk of infectious diseases and attention deficit/hyperactivity.
  4. Mandatory kindergarten will force parents who are planning to send their children to private schools to pay for an extra year of schooling.
  5. Some opponents have expressed concern that this bill undermines parental autonomy and is a dangerous step toward diminishing the role of parents in order to replace the family with state programs intended to prepare children for adulthood. Current studies indicate children fare better when parents are involved in their child's life.
  6. Public schools are currently experiencing teacher shortages, with many teaching under emergency credentials. Forcing younger children (who may not be mature enough it sit all day in a classroom) into an already over burdened school system is not the answer.
  7. This bill would further require parents to seek a waiver from their local school board should they wish an exemption from the compulsory education requirement; creating yet another hoop parents must jump through. If you believe that a mandatory kindergarten law is not needed, and that parents should continue to decide when their child is ready for school, you may make your position known by calling, or writing a letter to the members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

• New Jersey update from New Jersey Homeschool Association

• 9 Jan 04 Chicago Sun-Times: Schools pressured to dump bad students, critics say
  New Jersey:  Homeschoolers vs. Big Brother by Michelle Malkin
  See discussion of New Jersey situation at AHA Political Action beginning with message 7159, 13 Jan 2004.
  Background information on homeschooling in New Jersey

• American Library Association (ALA) pages for the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott Medal books for children.  The Newbery Medal is awarded to the distinguished contribution in American children's literature for the year  and the Caldecott Medal is awarded to the distinguished American picture book of the year for children.
  Borders bookstore newsletter's list of the books considered to be in the running for the 2004 awards are:  Newbery: The River Between Us by Richard Peck, Granny Torrelli Makes Soup by Sharon Creech, The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers, Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli, The Silent Boy  by Lois Lowry, Spitting Image by Shutta Crum,
  Caldecott: Brundibar by Maurice Sendak and Tony Kushner, The Day the Babies Crawled Away by Peggy Rathmann, Dragonology by Ernest Drake

• Home Education  Magazine News and Commentary: 6 Jan 04:
  Advocates for Home Education in Massachusetts (AHEM):  Homeschooling and Child Abuse: A Response to Recent Media Reports

• Against School, by John Taylor Gatto

• Homeschooling in the News: Boston University Winter Alumni Quarterly: Homeschooled Students Make the Grade at BU

 

2003 information is archived in The Military Homeschooler's update-list files.