Disclaimer: The following post does
not describe the majority of home school parents. I am highlighting a small sub-set of home schooling parents.
Time for some real talk from a former high school administrator. I had a driving philosophy when I was a
campus administrator, “Get Them In School. Get Them In Class. Get Them In College.”
Which meant that my personal rubric for success began with making sure
my student attended school. So my
staff and I were relentless in enforcing attendance requirements. Immediate phone calls, home visits,
court filings, and anything else we could think to do to get Little Johnny into
the building more often. In this pursuit, there was a small group of parents
that did not appreciate our efforts.
And frankly, these were the students that we knew needed the structure
of school and the benefit of an education more than their peers. These parents didn’t like me and
honestly, if they did, I wouldn’t have been doing my job.
Everything was fine until someone (not us) advised one of these
parents that if she withdrew her child and claimed it was because she was going
to home school him, she would our be rid of our focused attention and she
wouldn’t be fined for truancy. She
did this and within two-weeks, a number of other “home schooling” parents
followed suit. And this shortsighted
advice was correct; the school’s hands were tied. The fact that these children were now state sanctioned
drops-out mattered not at all.
Let me be clear, these were not good parents. Sacrificing the well being of their
children to benefit themselves.
And these parents still are out there. Ask your local High School administrator, and he/she can
identify them by name.
Now take this same group of parents and give them a check, not of
their money, but our money to subsidize their bad parenting and I can promise
you that the number of students harmed by a voucher program will far exceed the
number of those “saved.”
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
- Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
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