Locally, homeschooling popped up all over the place this past week.
The Washington Post kicked things off with an article on the front page of the Sunday Opinions section no less, followed by a remarkably civil online chat on Monday. However the article’s comment section , as well as the midweek On Parenting blog, predictably drew the regular cast of yahoos declaring that homeschooled children are sheltered, mal-adapted freaks.
On Wednesday WAMU’s Diane Rehm devoted an entire one hour segment to the topic, with the emphasis on the recent California homeschooling ruling. As usual, a representative from HSLDA participated and he was joined by an associate professor of political science and ethics in society from Stanford University and a Maryland homeschooling parent. C. and I were listening in the car on the drive home from UMBC, with C. trying frantically to call in, to no avail. I thought it was funny that the token mildly critical person in the group was from a university that runs a distance education program, EPGY, which caters largely to homeschoolers. As for the homeschool parent, I think she did a good job, but certainly didn’t feel she was representative of the homeschoolers I know, as she is a devotee of the school-in-a-box Calvert curriculum.
[Side note: Geez, do they always have to select someone with six kids to "represent"?]
Finally, observant regular readers will note that I’ve added a resource in my Homeschooling – Area Resources sidebar section. A DC homeschooling organization has formed in response to preliminary steps to look at homeschooling regulation in the District.
[...] to provide the reviewer with copies of materials. (Perhaps in bureacratic response to the incident in DC last year?) This parent refused–because it is not legally required–but asked the listserv if [...]