Public, Private, ISP, or Home Schooling

[4qtrs]

There has been an active side track in another thread about different education options. So, I thought I would start a thread for discussion just about the different options and why people choose them.

Unlike some other sports, like swimming, competiting at the National level takes all kinds of sacrifices. Travel is a big part of it and schools are sometimes not supportive of an athletes efforts.

I pulled my kids out of public schools due to the poor state of the program. We went to a state independant study program. It has it's ups and downs, but it is a tight group of kids (many of the athletes, models, movie kids) and the school understands the need to be flexable. So, travel isn't a problem for us.

How do other families deal with the problem?

Suzy

[Mo]

Suzy,
My son just jumped from home ed into Community College. My daughter wanted to take classes at the local CC but has never been home enough for her to be there for the classes.
She does classes online and has a tutor for Spanish and math. The math tutor used to live here but moved across the country so they still do the tutoring only now it is with skype and a camera. It works out pretty darned well.
If there is a will there is a way. Home ed is very flexible.
One thing to do though is to find out the requirements for the NCAA and home schooled students. That way the fencer can fulfill the requirements and follow the rules before it is too late.

The Momster

[Coldfire]

I went from a crappy Catholic school that was probably at the same level as most public schools in the kind of work done (which was very little). It was too easy for me. My dad seeing my talent made me apply for a program called Prep for Prep which takes inner city, low income, minority kids in the 5th and 6th grades, puts them through 14 months of hell to prepare them for private school (2 summers of 5 days a week work with hw and clasess during the school year 2 times aweek once on Saturday). Those that complete it get nearly full scholarships to a private school that they get into. I got through but for me it wasn't so much a choice. I was forced by my parents. Nevertheless I now go to a private school and am very happy with it. The level of teaching, the subject matter, the school facilities itself, everything is better and I couldn't be much happier. My old school had a basketball team. My current school has fencing (of course), along with the traditional football soccer basketball swimming baseball programs as well as lacrosse.

[sleepyweasle]

We are lucky to live in an excellent school district (although lately I am becoming more and more disillusioned with public education). With 2 working parents there is no option other than public school as we certainly could not afford private school. Although our school was very understanding with the 2 olympic ice skaters who "attended" (one of whom is "in" my daughter's AP Bio class although she hasn't seen her since the first week of school) they are very being fairly hard-nosed regarding my kid's fencing competitions. She is allowed the same # of absences per quarter as everyone else - if she uses them for fencing she is not allowed to be sick. If she misses an exam - she has to make it up the day she returns, same or worse with papers due (some of which have had to be submitted by email from abroad - there's nothing funnier than watching your linguistically-challanged husband negotiating for internet access in a remote Hungarian town!). She is unfortunately taking a ridiculous course load this year (which I'm not sure i should have let her - but too late now and, as I explained to her, after this year college fencing will be a BREEZE) which has unfortunately added a lot of stress to her life.

But that which doesn't kill you makes you STRONGER!!! Or so I tell her...

[sleepyweasle]

Althoug she DID give up her school's Science Research Program after we pointed out she had NO TIME to devote to doing an Intel Research Project this year.

[fencerdadsez]

We believe in public education, and besides, with a sib in college, we couldn't afford anything else anyway. Wife and I both work already. It's a strain, both financially and time wise. My kiddo has what it takes, and juggles an incredible load, but we're not (yet) doing the international thing. I can't imagine how we would manage that.

The public school here is okay, the older ones got into good colleges and did well. We get no cooperation (same drill as sleepyweasel), but it hasn't been a really serious problem yet.

[foildad]

In general, our public school administrators and teachers are supportive. They've crafted an exception to the No Child Left Behind attendance rules for nationally and internationally competitive athletes, so at least our kids don't burn all of their sick days on fencing travel.

Generally supportive, but not completely. Like the AP Chemistry teacher who told my son at the end of class, 4 hours before a flight to Europe, that he would have to take the chemistry final that day or he'd get no credit. It didn't matter that there was another day of instruction before the final for everyone else, or that the pre-arranged absence paperwork had been approved by this teacher; his position was that no student was going to get 3 extra days to study for the final, period. Fortunately his next period teacher excused him to take the chem test.

Then there was the PE teacher who told him he'd have to make up his PE class for missing a day for a NAC. Sheesh. Reminds me of the old saying (with apologies to Peach): Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym.

To the guy's credit, though, when my son showed him the results he let it go.

[4qtrs]

Originally Posted by foildad

Like the AP Chemistry teacher who told my son at the end of class, 4 hours before a flight to Europe, that he would have to take the chemistry final that day or he'd get no credit. It didn't matter that there was another day of instruction before the final for everyone else, or that the pre-arranged absence paperwork had been approved by this teacher; his position was that no student was going to get 3 extra days to study for the final, period. Fortunately his next period teacher excused him to take the chem test.

Wow, like an extra day would have given him such a great advantage. However, it was probably better than doing it when he was dog tired from jet lag.

[dcmdale]

In moving to our current location, we attempted to enroll our daughter into public high school, but were told that regardless of academic performance, if she competed in her normal run of NAC's/International competitions, she would be automatically flunked. We tried all forms of alternative proposals and appeals, but the district would not budge. We chose the homeschool route.

This year, we bit the bullet and put her into public school. She had aged out of Y14/Cadet competitions, so we had fewer competition dates. We were also concerned that AP coursework has become an important part of college admissions and homeschools are not permitted to offer AP courses. We could have put her into community college courses (allowed where we live); however, we concerned whether that would impact on NCAA eligibility.

[4qtrs]

Originally Posted by dcmdale

We were also concerned that AP coursework has become an important part of college admissions and homeschools are not permitted to offer AP courses. We could have put her into community college courses (allowed where we live); however, we concerned whether that would impact on NCAA eligibility.

A college can not judge you on AP course work if your school does not offer AP courses. My kid has gotten into (so far) three of the four schools he has applied to. Most of them were UC (University of California) schools.

As long as the grades, test scores (ACT, SAT), and essays reflect simular academic levels it doesn't seem to be a deterent to their acceptance.

As for the NCAA status, you should check with your community college because what we found is that they don't register high schoolers the same as college kids. They are shown as still being in High school and are taking classes there because they are not offered by the school (another form to fill out).

[dcmdale]

Originally Posted by 4qtrs

A college can not judge you on AP course work if your school does not offer AP courses. My kid has gotten into (so far) three of the four schools he has applied to. Most of them were UC (University of California) schools.

I think this is a little bit "yes" and "no." You are correct that they can't count it against you, but it is not as clear that good grades in AP courses don't count for you. In talking informally with people with knowledge of admissions to state universities in our area, homeschool admissions are generally done completely on test scores. See below.

Originally Posted by 4qtrs

As long as the grades, test scores (ACT, SAT), and essays reflect simular academic levels it doesn't seem to be a deterent to their acceptance.

As for the NCAA status, you should check with your community college because what we found is that they don't register high schoolers the same as college kids. They are shown as still being in High school and are taking classes there because they are not offered by the school (another form to fill out).

This could be. We really didn't explore it that much. For our child, the decision to finish out her last 2 years in public school has been the right one on several counts. The AP/Community College issue was part of the calculus, but both the decision to homeschool and the decision to stop were, I think at this point, correct.

We had homeschooled since Kindergarten. Our belief that she was getting a solid education and good social skills has borne out as she has moved into public school. (No doubt your own experience bears this out). However, there were some gotchas that we are glad we dealt with in a high school environment before sending her away.

*Our* homeschool undoubtedly reflected our educational values, part of which is that one needs to understand the material before we pass you. Repeating what the book said was a major no-no for us. In something like American History, we typically read the textbook and the major underlying source material. She shouldn't just know what the book said, but be able to critique the textbook's handling of the material. She takes AP American History and comes back saying, "The teacher gave a pre-test today and read each student's answer out loud. Every other student repeated the text book almost word-for-word. What gives with that? I asked the teacher after the class whether I should be interacting with the material or just repeating it. He told me that I should be interacting with it. But I got a lower grade because they got them all right by repeating the text, but where I missed something in my understanding, it was obvious." One of the lessons we forgot to teach was how much of survival in regular school involves being able to deal with high volumes of low quality garbage.

We didn't teach that if the teacher forgets to collect homework, you aren't supposed to remind them--at least, not if you don't want to hear about it from your classmates.

We didn't teach that it is a bad idea to correct a teacher's Greek grammar or math mistakes in front of the class. ("I had looked the phrase up the night before so I knew what it said. He was just using the standard forms, not declining or conjugating at all!")

We forgot to review ducking when people start firing guns at you. (Four days into her first public school experience.)

We didn't teach her to look for tricks in test questions. Her Latin teacher gives these tests where there is "one unacceptable translation" out of four. This means that wordings are rewordings of each other and one different. Any public school kid quickly sees that the odd-ball (usually a difference in tense) phrase is the one that needs to be chosen and moves on. My kid, however, translates the sentence and debates how acceptable some of the other translations are as well.

Because she had been homeschooled for so long, she really needed to get experience with other teaching styles, requirements, etc. While we had put her into various homeschool classes where college profs would pick up a little extra, the environment is still homeschool.

While we kind of laugh at these (at least within the HS community), they actually are things that she had to learn.

[4qtrs]

Our situation was different. The public schools in our area were good until middle and high school. Our area has one of the largest number of private schools per square feet of city land....and they all get about 1000 applicants for two openings.

So, we pulled our kids out of public at high school. (Middle school had about a lockdown a week due to being next to a bank.) It was a lot of fun, but too much for me. The school district is far to concerned about testing results and keeping kids from dropping out and order in the class rooms.

I have one graduating in June and the other a year from now. All I can say is that this countries education system is totally disfunctional.

[sleepyweasle]

Interestingly , our totally public-schooled child would agree with you . She just balled out her entire "community school" (an alternative learning environment "school within a school" situation where 10-12th graders all interact within classes and discussions regarding whatever topic at hand are the heart and soul of the educational experience) for, basically, slacking! As she put it, she applied for the community school because she believed in it's ideals - asking questions, discussing and arguing concepts to really learn more about the topics at hand. She was truly upset at how complacent (and not willing to do the work or participate in the discussions) her classmates had become. As she put it - here she was, the only one taking 5 APs and trying to maintain a competitive fencing career and she was the only one who managed to complete her work on time and always have something to contribute to the class discussions. After her tirade her teacher actually thanked her for approaching this with her fellow students. Now why the teacher couldn't yell at the kids and my kid had to ...

But as I said - she will be awesomely prepared for balancing future school/life demands with fencing... if none of her classmates stabs her in the meantime.

[dcmdale]

Originally Posted by 4qtrs

Our situation was different. The public schools in our area were good until middle and high school. Our area has one of the largest number of private schools per square feet of city land....and they all get about 1000 applicants for two openings.

So, we pulled our kids out of public at high school. (Middle school had about a lockdown a week due to being next to a bank.) It was a lot of fun, but too much for me. The school district is far to concerned about testing results and keeping kids from dropping out and order in the class rooms.

I have one graduating in June and the other a year from now. All I can say is that this countries education system is totally disfunctional.

We started HS'ing because the school that my daughter would have had to go to, while officially bi-lingual, didn't have any teachers that could speak English with any fluency. We could hear the principal over the loudspeaker butchering the language for a sentence or two, then going on for 5 minutes with the "Spanish translation." Unfortunately, the neighborhood was predominately Vietnamese speaking--only about 20% Latino. We figured we couldn't do much worse.

[Mo]

Originally Posted by dcmdale

We didn't teach her to look for tricks in test questions. Her Latin teacher gives these tests where there is "one unacceptable translation" out of four. This means that wordings are rewordings of each other and one different. Any public school kid quickly sees that the odd-ball (usually a difference in tense) phrase is the one that needs to be chosen and moves on. My kid, however, translates the sentence and debates how acceptable some of the other translations are as well.

Because she had been homeschooled for so long, she really needed to get experience with other teaching styles, requirements, etc. While we had put her into various homeschool classes where college profs would pick up a little extra, the environment is still homeschool.

While we kind of laugh at these (at least within the HS community), they actually are things that she had to learn.

The trick question issue is one my daughter is dealing with now. She never had tests or grades until the past year. Her math tutor whom she has had for four years is always working with her to help her take tests.

Math tests are fairly straight forward but the SATs were a little on the tramatic side for her.
It is pretty sad because she knows the material through and through but regurgitating it in the proper form can be difficult.
Duke has a high school program and she is taking classes from there and totally enjoying them. They are tough but she has a lot of interaction with the teachers.
Things will work out.
The Momster

[occasionalfencer]

Originally Posted by dcmdale

We forgot to review ducking when people start firing guns at you. (Four days into her first public school experience.)

I deduce, because the rest of the post sounds fairly light-hearted, that no one was killed or hurt during this? Was it terrifying? Was it terrifying to send her back to school the next day?

[dcmdale]

Originally Posted by occasionalfencer

I deduce, because the rest of the post sounds fairly light-hearted, that no one was killed or hurt during this? Was it terrifying? Was it terrifying to send her back to school the next day?

A couple of student hurt by flying glass. The shooter, who had just flunked out of Marine basic training, killed his father before coming to the school. He had it well planned out. He first shot over the students' heads to get them running (rather than ducking behind things), then chose one of the three available doors and just kept shooting at the one door as the students ran through it. Fortunately, he was a little high and outside. Missed my daughter by a few inches. His gun jammed and security got him after about 7 shots.

Yes, the next day was a little trying.

[Miglin]

I feel like home-schooling is just a tool that conservative parents use these days for the sake of extreme censorship.

At the pre-college level, public schools typically do an excellent job of providing excellent educations to students who seek them out, though many kids do seem to slip through the cracks without much of a care.

At the university level, public schools' funding seems to be too based on politics, rather than the best interests of students.

Just my two cents.

[Mo]

Originally Posted by Miglin

I feel like home-schooling is just a tool that conservative parents use these days for the sake of extreme censorship.

At the pre-college level, public schools typically do an excellent job of providing excellent educations to students who seek them out, though many kids do seem to slip through the cracks without much of a care.

At the university level, public schools' funding seems to be too based on politics, rather than the best interests of students.

Just my two cents.

Mig,
I feel that your statements are completely wrong across the board.
There are an estimated 2 million kids or more homeschooling at this present time. The minority, a growing minority are religious conservatives. Get a grip.

At a pre college level, schools mostly suck. The kids go into college barely able to read and do math skills. My father in law tutors at the State College in Casper, Wyoming. He used to think homeschooling was bad until he started tutoring. He found so many kids that had to have a calculator to multiply five times three. Once at a visit to our house he asked my then 2nd grade daughter what the square root of 9 was and she looked at him like he was nuts and said "three", He said "thank god."

Home schooled kids for the most part learn complete subjects. They don't break down English into irrelevent parts or do math that way either. They are everywhere. They are out in the community on a daily basis with kids of all ages. They learn at their own pace and usually that is a lot faster. Education is life. Try getting some.

Do some research. Prejudices are idiotic in here.

The Momster

[Smyles]

Originally Posted by Mo

<snip> Once at a visit to our house he asked my then 2nd grade daughter what the square root of 9 was and she looked at him like he was nuts and said "three", He said "thank god." <snip>
The Momster

I assume, from that statement, that your children are home schooled?

From personal experience I've only known of two families that home schooled their children, and both were of the stereotype that Miglin used. I'd imagine it's a lot different here in Ireland as our education system is widely regarded as being quite good.

I'm very curious to know how their days are scheduled? Who does the teaching? Are school holidays used as guidelines for their holidays?

This is genuine curiosity as I've never had a chance to talk to anyone who's been home schooled.

Steve