Highlights from the Texas Legislature

Here is some news that came out of the Texas Legislature. I'm not a big Perry fan but he does support us homeschoolers. The veteran stuff I'm not too sure about. It might mean an influx of people coming into the state solely for the purpose of going to school. That would mean that more jobs and housing would be needed. On one hand that would be good because the housing market would benefit but the job market isn't so great right now and I don't expect it to get too much better in the coming months (years). Will have to watch this and see how it pans out.

HOMESCHOOL RALLY

Republican Gov. Rick Perry revved up a crowd of home school families at a rally outside the Capitol on Tuesday, telling the group that government regulation needs to stop at their front door.

Perry said he is committed to improving public schools, but said, "I really do understand that public school education may not be the best choice for every family." He said home-schooled children are "some of the most gifted students in our state."

The governor and others speaking to the crowd urged them to support a bill by Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, that they said protects parental rights when grandparents are seeking custody of children.

VETERAN TUITION

Out-of-state veterans could get a major break for higher education in Texas under a bill that got initial approval from the House on Tuesday.

The proposal would allow veterans and their families to pay in-state tuition regardless of how long they have lived in Texas

"This is a very good benefit for our veterans for the service they have given to our country," said Rep. Frank Corte, a San Antonio Republican and the bill's author in the House.

But some lawmakers object to an amendment that would allow children of soldiers paying in-state tuition to be fully exempt while their parents are serving in combat zones.

Opponents of the amendment said the loss of funds could crush some schools, particularly community colleges near military bases.

But Rep. Marc Veasey, the Fort Worth Democrat pushing the amendment, said the provision is limited enough that it will not be too hard on the schools. He estimated that fewer than 1,000 students would be affected because the majority of soldiers serving in combat zones are not old enough to have college-aged children.

As approved, the proposal would require the state to pay colleges back for losses under the amendment.

The bill still has to be called up for a final vote on third reading. It passed the Senate without the House amendments last month.

He said this?

I was looking around and came across this and couldn't believe that our wonderful governor who insisted that every teenage girl get vaccinated with Gardasil actually said this:

"Every child is entitled to a public education, but public education is not entitled to every child" - Texas Governor Rick Perry (Jan. 26, 2005)

Just because he supports homeschooling, doesn't mean I'm gonna vote for him in the next election!

HOME-SCHOOLING: Teens challenged to do hard things

I was sent a link to an interesting article in the Washington Times that talks about a book written by two homeschooled twins. Their book called "Do Hard Things," attempts to explode the myth about adolescence. When did the term "teenager" come about? Why did we start classifying them as teenagers instead of just children? It must have all come about after WWII when we had kids 16 and 17 years of age lying to enlist in the military. There must have been some outrage when people found out that there were soldiers that young fighting (although it had happened all through history). After all, they were just children. But they weren't "just children" because they were older and could make decisions (albeit not always the wisest decisions) so let's make up a new category to stick them in. It's funny though that even though a person at the age of 18 can register to vote and enlist in the military, they are still considered a teenager. In fact, they are a teenager until they turn 20. BUT, they are still not an adult. That doesn't happen until they turn 21. Then suddenly at 21 we expect them to act like adults. Why aren't they acting like adults when they are 18? Why aren't we as parents preparing them to be adults when they are old enough to start making decisions for themselves? We should be preparing them to be responsible adults when they are little children. After all, isn't that why we send them to school, so they can learn how to cope in the real world? I like the part in the article that says:

"The Harris twins are giving direction to the teens to become productive. By first exploding the teen myth, they inform teens they are capable of much more than is usually expected of them and that adults have completely underestimated their talents and abilities."

That's true. We don't expect them to be productive people until they become "adults". I am guilty of this. I expected my children to suddenly become mature, responsible adults as soon as they turned 18. I thought I had taught my child how to be that person but I didn't do anything out of the ordinary to train them for life as an adult. It was just a gimme because my parents had done the same thing. I guess I was sheltered from a lot of that responsibility and so I did the same thing. And I'm still doing the same thing. I plan on reading this book and I will have my two children read it also. Maybe it will help all of us to understand why our teens are not living up to their potential.

Here is the article in it's entirety:

HOME-SCHOOLING: Teens challenged to do hard things

Michael Smith

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "teenager"? For many, it is not positive.

Teenage rebellion has become commonplace, and our culture has responded by expecting less and less of teenagers. But is teenage rebellion inevitable, or are there new ways of thinking that could address the problem? Responsibility for teenage rebellion and underperformance must fall primarily at the feet of parents and other adults. This is because our current expectations for teenagers provide very little challenge.

Alex and Brett Harris, 19-year-old home-schooled twins, are trying to give adults and teens a wake-up call. In their book, "Do Hard Things," they attempt to explode the myth of adolescence. They show that prior to the early 20th century, people were either children or adults. Family and work were the primary occupations of the group we now call "teenagers." Teens, though it was often driven by economic necessity, were given real-world responsibility. Today, few teens are expected to imitate responsible adults, but are rather immersed in a frivolous peer culture.

The Harris twins are not the only writers to question the conventional wisdom about teenagers. Robert Epstein, a longtime researcher in psychology who received his doctorate from Harvard, has exposed the myth of the teen brain in his book, "The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen." He argues against the common belief held in the scientific community that an incompletely developed brain accounts for the emotional problems and irresponsible behavior of many teenagers.

Mr. Epstein shows the differences in the teen brain are the result of social influences, rather than the cause of teen turmoil. He concludes that a careful review of the research shows the teen brain we read about in the headlines — the immature brain that is supposedly the cause of teen problems — is nothing less than a myth.

For example, if the teen brain was really fundamentally different from an adult brain, then we would see similar patterns of teenage rebellion throughout history. We do not. Teens in other cultures, and our own until the early 20th century, held responsible positions and were expected to imitate adults rather than children.

Mr. Epstein says teens are extraordinarily competent, even if they do not normally express that competence. Also, long-standing studies of intelligence, perceptual abilities and memory function show that teens are in many instances far superior to adults.

Mr. Epstein concludes that the peer culture of teens, where they learn virtually everything they know from one another, rather than from people they are about to become, is the cause of the problems we see today. Almost all teens are isolated from adults and wrongly treated like children.

What is the solution? When teens are treated like adults, they almost immediately rise to the challenge. Parents must trust their teens by giving them more and more responsibility, accompanied with the proper mentoring. This is a strong admonition to parents and adults to challenge our teens to act more like adults rather than traditional teens.

The Harris twins are giving direction to the teens to become productive. By first exploding the teen myth, they inform teens they are capable of much more than is usually expected of them and that adults have completely underestimated their talents and abilities. They challenge teens to join the "rebelution," which is a revolution against rebellion, and spell out five steps to responsibility for teens.

First, teens should "do hard things" that take them out of their comfort zone. Second, teens should go beyond what is expected or required of them. Third, teens should attempt tasks that are too big to be done alone to learn teamwork and collaboration. Fourth, teens should do things that don't pay off immediately. These are the unexciting things that may seem like an endless round of chores that go without recognition. These chores, however, build character. Finally, teens should stand up for their beliefs even if the majority opposes them.

"Do Hard Things" is a book for teens and their parents. I firmly believe this book, if taken seriously by the current generation of teens and their parents, could prove to be one of the most life-changing and culture-changing books of this generation.

Michael Smith is the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association. He may be contacted at 540/338-5600; or send e-mail to media@hslda.org.

Unschoolers, transcripts and books

A new friend of mine is an unschooler. Now I'm not real sure what exactly an unschooler is and apparently unschoolers have different opinions of what it means too. The way I perceive it is that they have no set of curriculum, no schedules, no real structure and they just kind of learn as they go. Now I'm no unschooler, but I'm not as regimental as some homeschoolers I know. I do like some structure, a plan and most times a curriculum. I like having most things laid out for me. BUT I'm not stuck with a schedule. I do plan a schedule for him to follow as to what he is suppose to do each day but if we have other plans for that day, then he just does those lessons the next day or whenever he can. My son also likes knowing what he is suppose to be studying that day. I think it helps him to stay on track. I'm not set on any one type of curriculum. I do use textbooks, workbooks, computer courses, and worksheets but I also use videos, movies, websites, field trips, outside classes, etc. as a supplement for those courses. I'm always looking for something that will help my son to better understand what he is suppose to be learning.

A few of us homeschoolers got together a while back and we asked this unschooler about grades and doing a transcript. When we met up with her yesterday, she gave us each a copy of the transcript she made up for her daughter. It was very simply done but it had all of the information that a college really needs, that she met the requirements for a high school education and what subjects were taught. There were no grades listed, just a statement saying "We do not 'label' or 'grade' students. Subjects are studied until material is integrated and mastered." This is exactly what I have been trying to get through to some other homeschoolers I've talked to. You don't need grades for a transcript, and colleges could care less if you made straight A's in high school. They only care if you get them in college! I loved the way this transcript was done. It's similar to the one I have written up for my son except mine has a description of the courses. I think I'll go back and redo his transcript. I realized that I don't need to put the description down for the courses unless they are so off the wall that they need further explanation. After all, colleges teach English, Math, History and Science too. I think they know what those are.

Another homeschooler made a very good point when it comes to English and History. The student is taught the same thing over and over all through school. In elementary school we were taught about grammar and sentence structure and that continued all the way through high school. The same thing with history. We learned about the presidents, constitution, Civil War, all the way through the present time, and that continued through high school. The only thing that changed with them was the reading level of the books. We didn't learn anything new about how to conjugate a sentence or how the Civil War ended, it was all just a repeat of what we had learned earlier in our education. Math is a little different only because we go from the basic math skills to Algebra and Trigonometry. The public schools even touch on Algebra in elementary grades! But nothing changes with math. The only subject that changes is science. New concepts and discoveries are happening all around us, so the child leans something new every time they turn around. If a child reads and is able to comprehend what they are reading, then they will be able to learn anything they need to know about any subject they want. So why must we constantly teach them English and History each and every year? If a child does not read well, then they cannot learn. So why don't the public schools focus more on teaching a child to read and less on spelling tests (the child would learn how to spell correctly if they could read the words)? My own son has missed out on so much because he was not a good reader when he was in public school. It wasn't until we took him out of public school and started homeschooling him that his reading got better. He's still not big on reading but he's a lot better than he would be if he was still in public school! I wish I had made my kids read more when they were younger and not just fiction either. They could have been learning so much more. So I have decided that with these last two remaining years that I have to teach my son, we will focus more on reading all sorts of books and a little less on busy work. Hopefully it will open up a whole new world for him.

Homeschooling a Return to Normalcy

by jesset
"Your child needs to be in school, he needs to know how the real world works", so says my mother-in-law, I couldn't have asked for a better platform to argue my point from.

"You think school is a reflection of the real world?", well, a very distorted view of the real world, I give her that much. Where else do you have an atmosphere where every emotion is amplified, where the raging hormones of teenagers will dictate the hierarchy of popularity and social acceptability in said school. Adults control school administration, children control the social strata in a school. What's the saying?, place a child with thirty fools and you'll soon have thirty one fools.

As a teacher you would like to be accorded the respect that your position entitles you to, as many have found out, respect cannot be demanded, rather, it has to be cajoled out of students, you have to hit the campaign trail to up your "likeability" rating so you can have a better rapport with your students. Gone are the days of unquestioning obedience and ernest study, because the students know that their falling grades reflect poorly on the teachers performance not their own - still wondering how someone can get through 12 grades and not know how to read?

Numerous school shootings that have occurred around the country is the other argument I raise, the response is, "That couldn't happen here, the odds are too great". As far as I'm concerned the "odds" are not a consideration, it happened more than once and even one time is too many. The safety of my son is paramount, so survival shouldn't be part of the curriculum.

Homeschooled children interact with children of similar age, older sibilings/cousins, adults and are exposed to a wide range of maturity and as they say the early years in a child's life are the formative ones, where they soak up everything like a sponge, why would you want to stunt their emotional growth? Studies have shown these children are more self confident, mature and better able to adjust to unfamiliar situations (sounds like real life to me). Whereas if they were only with children their own age emotional growth would stagnate and be at the whim or, more accurately, mercy of adolescent vagaries.

"Thank goodness it's the start of the school year, I needed a break from the kids", I ask them if they're glad to have their state approved babysitter back - I get alot of odd looks when I ask that question. They ask, "What babysitter", I say, "You know the one you pay school taxes for, the one that watches your kids 6 1/2 to 7 hours a day, the one that feeds them and plays with them - dodgeball remember?". "You know the place where we picked up all of our bad habits and, where soon, your kids will be picking up those same habits".

That was the argument that finally cracked the fragile shell of fantasy land; I could make all kinds of arguements for homeschooling and against public schools and be met with a brick wall of denial, but, mentioning the memories of public school and letting those unbidden images come to mind was enough to get grudging acknowledgement that I could possibly, maybe, have a point - I bet that must have hurt to say.

A well adjusted, self-confident child or a child adjusted by peer pressure and popularity, the former you'll have complete control over the latter left up to fate. I don't like leaving things up to fate - of course, I am the naive one.

About the Author

Husband and father, one time itinerate merchant and story gatherer, that has settled down to live the simple life and recount some of the experiences that have led me here. Author and Admin. at homestead articles
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Article Source: Content for Reprint

Students Taught by Mom Achieve at High Levels

Here is the second part to the other post. You will notice it includes not only the section about homeschoolers outperforming traditional schools, but there is also sections on working from the office and home while homeschooling your child; socializing your child (a huge misconception to the non-homeschoolers); the child's choice of schooling and then the cost of homeschooling. Both of these articles from Park Cities helps others to know that we homeschoolers are not weird, that we are normal people just like them. :-P

Issue Date: May 4, 2007, Posted On: 5/4/2007

Students Taught by Mom Achieve at High Levels
Study claims children educated at home outperform those in traditional schools

By Karen Eubank
Special Contributor

Staff photo: Allison Slomowitz
Vanessa Trevino made the transition from being educated at home to classes at SMU.
The most recent and comprehensive study of American homeschooling, done by Dr. Lawrence Rudner of the University of Maryland in 1999, concluded, “In every subject and every grade level of the tests, homeschooled students scored significantly higher than their public and private school counterparts.

“Overall, test scores for homeschoolers fell between the 75th and 85th percentiles. Public school students scored at the 50th percentile, and private school students scores ranged from the 65th to the 75th percentile,” it said Universities around the country, including Harvard, New York University, Purdue, and the University of Texas are welcoming homeschooled students.

Southern Methodist University even has a dedicated admissions counselor in place for homeschoolers, Sarah Spooner.

Spooner urges homeschooled students, as well as those from traditional educational backgrounds, to get in touch with colleges they are interested in during their junior year of high school.

“Get to know your admissions counselor; they are your advocate. Don’t wait until the last minute,” she advised.

SMU typically receives 20 to 30 applications a year from homeschooled students.

Vanessa Trevino is in her first year as a dance major at SMU. She was homeschooled her entire life and said she had no trouble being admitted.

“I just sent in my application and had my dance auditions,” she said. Transitioning into a classroom environment was not a problem, and she loves living on campus.

“Homeschoolers are very bright students and are doing really well,” Spooner said. “I don’t know of one school that would not want a homeschooler.”

HOMESCHOOL AT THE OFFICE
Families have found clever ways of educating kids at home without giving up their jobs.

There have been cases where employers allow older children to come to work with Mom or Dad and “office” down the hall.

The parent checks on progress during coffee breaks and is able to have lunch with their child. Parents have worked out flexible schedules, changed shifts, and hired tutors and nannies to work with kids to enable them to fulfill work obligations and school at home.

Cecile Evans works full time as an analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas. She also manages to educate her son at home.

“We rise at 6 a.m., study until 10, then I go to work from 10:30 to 7:30 [p.m.]. My son works on the lessons and projects that we covered that morning,” she said.

Evans’ son was struggling in ninth grade at a private school. Last October, she found out he was reading at a fifth-grade level. Evans took him out of school, had him tested, found out his learning style, and went to work.

Within four months, she said, he was reading at an eighth-grade level. While she focused on reading, her husband worked on math.

SOCIALIZING YOUR HOMESCHOOLER
The comment that seems to elicit the biggest laugh from homeschooling parents is asking them about the “socialization issue.”

The Fraser Institute, a Canadian independent research and educational organization, reports “The average homeschooled student is regularly involved in 5.2 social activities outside the home.”

David McCullough, a professional artist with a show at the MAC, made a lifestyle choice to homeschool his four sons.

“They all played sports and played with neighborhood kids. If anything, they were more socialized, and in a more sensitive way to the different socioeconomic levels in our neighborhood,” he said.

THE CHILD’S CHOICE
Homeschooled children head back to public and private schools for many reasons. High school is often a time when they want to try out the traditional experience.

Vela Tomba has three daughters. Her oldest is now a sophomore at NYU.

“She had a very successful homeschool career and was offered scholarships to several universities,” Tomba said.

Her youngest daughter ended her homeschooling in eighth grade.

“She did not miss a beat transitioning into a traditional school setting,” Tomba said.

COST OF HOMESCHOOL
You can homeschool with a library card. There are homeschool stores that carry both new and used curriculum, most of which can also be ordered from the Internet. Most families spend an average of $200 per child in the elementary years, and that can double in the high school years.

Some Parents Opt for School in the Kitchen

The following came from my state associations e-newsletter. Since it was about some "local" families, I wanted to post it to my homeschool blog instead of my educational issues blog. The next week’s article will examine the issue of the proper socialiation of homeschooled children, as well as their prospects for higher education, according to their website. BTW, Park Cities is over in the Dallas area.

Issue Date: April 27, 2007, Posted On: 4/27/2007

Some Parents Opt for School in the Kitchen
Locals bypass private, public choices to educate their children at home
This is the first in a two-part series examining the experiences of local residents with homeschooling.

By Karen Eubank
Special Contributor

What do a plastic surgeon, a talk show host, a veterinarian, an artist, and the maitre d’ at The French Room have in common? They have all chosen to homeschool their children.

The face of homeschooling has changed dramatically in the past 10 years.

According to the National Home Education Research Institute, in 2002 almost 2 million students of all ages were being homeschooled. This is a 500 percent increase from the 1990-91 school year.

Tim Lambert of The Texas Home School Coalition reports that about 300,000 children are educated at home in Texas and cites research from NHERI showing a national growth rate of 15-20 percent per year.

Why are the homeschooling ranks growing at such a rapid pace?

The Fraser Institute, a Canadian independent research and educational organization, has published some of the most recent information on homeschooling. In the report “Home Schooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream” by Patrick Basham, findings indicate, “the principal stimulus [for homeschooling] is dissatisfaction with public education.”

WHO’S DOING IT?
Park Cities resident Amy Pruitt and her husband, Bryan, a plastic surgeon, are in their ninth year of educating their five children at home. They had three main reasons for homeschooling: academic excellence, instilling their own spiritual values, and efficiency.

“We can accomplish more at home, in less time, and we feel we can offer academic excellence that will surpass what a private school can offer,” Pruitt said.

She customizes a curriculum for each child and in doing so maximizes their individual potential.

“No one loves our kids more than we do, and I felt I had the dedication, commitment, and discipline to educate them at home,” she said.

Homeschooling has allowed the Pruitt family the flexibility to travel and educate along the way. They have had American history lessons brought to life on trips to Washington, D.C., and Boston, and the family headed to France for the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

New York, Philadelphia, Rome, and Florence are on the agenda this year.

BECOMING A QUALIFIED TEACHER/PARENT
Even parents who long to teach their children at home often doubt their ability. Parents don’t have to be teachers, college graduates, or even high school graduates to homeschool their children.

The Fraser Institute’s research shows, “having at least one parent who is a certified teacher has no significant effect on the achievement levels of homeschooled students.”

The children of parents who never completed high school still scored 55 percentile points higher than public school students from families with similar educational backgrounds.

Parents don’t have to take on calculus, either. There are tutors, co-op classes, online courses — something to fit every need and level. Most families take advantage of co-op classes at some point in the homeschooling years.

“Co-op classes are not designed to take the place of parents educating the children at home, but to provide enhancement opportunities in the overall education of the student,” according to the Richardson Home School Teaching Co-op registration packet.

The class descriptions read like a syllabus from the best private school. Latin, Government and Justice, Introductory Logic, and Multimedia Art are included in the extensive catalog.

Most of the teachers hold degrees in their fields, and the classes are run in an organized manner, meeting one or two times a week. Students get to select one class or several and experience a classroom situation.

“Before children are school-age, most parents have taught them to walk, talk, and count. They’ve already ‘homeschooled’ their children. It doesn’t take someone with a teaching background to be a homeschool parent. It just takes someone who is willing to work at it, learn along the way, and who loves their children,” said Cindy Eckhoff, a mother of four who has homeschooled for 14 years.

Texas Driver License Requirements

There is a new bill in the Texas House concerning stricter requirements for kids to get their license. The new bill would require students to be in class a certain amount of days. Normally something like this would not affect homeschoolers but in this case the writer of the bill, State Representative Ryan Guillen has added that homeschoolers must also be in attendance for 80 days. If they aren't in class for that amount of time, then the parent or guardian is suppose to report this information not to the DPS (who the public and traditional private schools report to) but to the local public school superintendent. Now if I don't normally have any contact with my local school district, why should I want to start now by reporting that my child hasn't attended class? If my child has not attended his/her homeschool classes, then that's my fault. My state homeschool association has this posted on their website:

http://www.thsc.org/hb1091.asp

HB 1091 by State Representative Ryan Guillen would change the law to make it stricter for students to get and keep a Texas driver license. It treats home schools differently from private schools – requiring the current number of days (80) rather than 90% of the classes offered, as is required for private and public schools. 90% of classes would be 153 days for public school or traditional private school attendance. The bill requires automatic revocation of driver licenses for students who fall below attendance of 90% or 80 days for home school students. While public school and traditional private school officials are required to report this to the DPS, home school parents would report to the local public school superintendent rather than DPS as other school officials. This is a major issue for us. Finally, if a high school student over age 15 withdraws from public or private school to home school, it appears that they would be required to wait at least 80 days before they could obtain a license.

THSC representatives have visited with Representative Guillen’s staff and expressed our concerns and opposition to the bill. They were completely uninformed about home schooling and said it was inconceivable that parents should have this kind of freedom from state control. We made clear that we intend to keep it that way. We will continue to monitor this bill and let you know if and when action is needed.

Representative Guillen evidently doesn't like homeschoolers since he states that us parents should be more controlled by the state as far as schooling our children goes. Where does he get off? He doesn't represent me. And I resent the fact that he wants to force me to have contact with a school district who I normally have nothing to do with! You can check out his website at: http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist31/guillen.htm
There you can see exactly which area of Texas he resprents and then maybe you'll understand why he wants to get something like this passed.

I really hope that this bill gets shot down. This is an unfair bill not only for public and traditional private schools but also for homeschoolers because according to the TEA are private schools. Just because they crossed out the word "homeschooler" in parts of the bill, does not mean that we are exempt from that section. To me it only confuses me more. Is my child subjected to the 90% of the day classes are offered or the 80 days preceeding the date of the application? Which is it? Am I a private school or just a homeschool?

You can check out the bill yourself at: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/80R/billtext/pdf/HB01091I.pdf

I'm so mad about this bill that I couldn't even think straight enough to write a proper blog. Plus the fact that my internet is messed up or something weird is going on with it.

Links to interesting posts

Here are some interesting posts that I have found. I am including the link and a snippet from the post.

Superstition Ain't the Way

The central issue, for me, is the same as with speculative evolution:What is real and what is fictitious?

Public education is presented as the only "natural" and "observable" form of education, the obvious common sense choice for any rational person. Homeschooling is presented as the choice of irrational kooks, manipulative hypocrites, vicious child abusers, and illiterate hill jacks.

More parents choosing to homeschool their children

Homeschooling is growing in popularity as an alternative to public or private school.

Susie Smith, who began the North Greenwood Home Educators group, said homeschool parents "want the best education they feel that they can get their children."

Smith's main reason for choosing homeschool, however, was the desire for her daughter Morgan, 10, to have a Christian education.

Public schools' bonds with homeschoolers grow

SEATTLE -- Students at the tiny, nondescript public school building in North Seattle have no playground, no formal cafeteria, no sports teams, no bells signaling the end of class.

They come and go as they please, and the nearly 250 who pass through the halls don't even consider themselves public school students.

They're among the more than 20,000 children statewide who are thought to opt out of public schools each year. They and their parents are drawn instead to the flexibility and freedom of homeschooling.

Families homeschool for a variety of reasons

Their school day starts at 10 a.m. and ends at noon.

Mom is the teacher and field trips include visits to the grocery store, Amish Country and the family's organic food store where they learn the basics of running a business.

Six-year-old Samantha will complete the first grade by the end of the month and her brother, 5-year-old Tommy, is in kindergarten.

Valerie Mozena of Roseville made the decision to homeschool her children for many reasons, and it's a decision she and her husband made together.

Sex assaults by teachers on students an 'epidemic'

By Bob Unruh

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

An estimated 5 million students in United States schools have been assaulted sexually by teachers, according to a congressional report. But no one is calling for investigations or law enforcement crackdowns, there have been no campaigns to ban the offenders from schools, and in many states there aren't even any requirements such predator attacks be reported to education licensing agencies.

Astronomers say Pluto is not a planet

(Note: This story came from the AP over at Yahoo. Unfortunately the link no longer works so I took it out 1/4/07)

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn't — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell — a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings — urged those who might be "quite disappointed" to look on the bright side.

"It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called 'planet' under which the dwarf planets exist," she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.

The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.

For now, membership will be restricted to the eight "classical" planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Much-maligned Pluto doesn't make the grade under the new rules for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.

Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what long have been termed "minor planets." The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun — "small solar system bodies," a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.

It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.

The decision at a conference of 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries was a dramatic shift from just a week ago, when the group's leaders floated a proposal that would have reaffirmed Pluto's planetary status and made planets of its largest moon and two other objects.

That plan proved highly unpopular, splitting astronomers into factions and triggering days of sometimes combative debate that led to Pluto's undoing.

Now, two of the objects that at one point were cruising toward possible full-fledged planethood will join Pluto as dwarfs: the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it got demoted, and 2003 UB313, an icy object slightly larger than Pluto whose discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena has nicknamed Xena.

Charon, the largest of Pluto's three moons, is no longer under consideration for any special designation.

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My question is, how will this affect the education of our children? Every piece of information I have in my home library states that Pluto is a planet. Should I just throw out all my books that make reference to that statement? I don't know that I'm willing to give up my belief about Pluto. Pluto being a planet has been ingrained in me for too many years to speak of here. I'm sure the publishers of educational materials are rushing to their presses to start printing out new books with the new information in them. Will the schools stop using their current books? The information is now incorrect in them so they shouldn't be using them, right? Let's spend more of my hard earned money and buy all new books with the new information in them. I think I will just tell my child that some crazy scientists are now convinced that Pluto is not a planet. Instead of calling them planets, why not just call them "heavenly bodies" and leave it at that. Next thing you know, they'll start calling our moon a planet. I refuse to throw away my model of the planets. Am I being ignorant? No, just stubborn. I happen to like having Pluto as a planet. It means that something is still the same as it was when I was a kid. After all so many things have changed since I was a child and some of those things aren't so good. I say let's start a petition to keep Pluto a planet. What say you?

Some interesting quotes about education

Today’s HOME Spun Wisdom

Never stop learning! Here are some quotes about education from some of history’s brightest.

RISMEDIA, June 20, 2006—It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.
- Alec Bourne

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.
- Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

Education is the best provision for old age.
- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
- B. F. Skinner (1904 - 1990), New Scientist, May 21, 1964

The strength of the United States is not the gold at Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction that we have, but the sum total of the education and the character of our people.
- Claiborne Pell (1918 - )

Everyone has a right to a university degree in America, even if it's in Hamburger Technology.
- Clive James

The number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.
- Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784)

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.
- Diogenes Laertius

Education begins a gentleman, conversation completes him.
- Dr. Thomas Fuller (1654 - 1734), Gnomologia, 1732

Only the educated are free.
- Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD), Discourses

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
- Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)

Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.
- G. M. Trevelyan (1876 - 1962), English Social History (1942)

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
- Gail Godwin

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
- H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946), Outline of History (1920)

College isn't the place to go for ideas.
- Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.
- Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903)

Cool link

A friend from one of the homeschool groups I belong to sent out this link:

Homeschool.com's Top 100 Educational Web Sites of 2005

I thought y'all might be interested in it.