Homeschoolers in Montgomery County who choose to do their review with MCPS rather than under the auspices of a homeschooling “umbrella” organization (my choice when I homeschooled) are discovering that although they have opted out of the the county school system, budget cuts are impacting them nonetheless. Letters recently went out to homeschoolers informing them that the twice yearly reviews, previously held in MCPS field offices around the county, are now going to be conducted in the auditorium at MCPS headquarters in Rockville on one of four appointed days, with numerous reviews happening in the room at the same time.
Hmmm. According to the Maryland State Board of Education Regulations, “the review is at a time and place mutually agreeable to the representative of the local school system and the parent or guardian.” Will be interesting to see whether any parents feel that this setting is not mutually agreeable. It also potentially raises privacy and confidentiality issues…but then again if you’ve ever attended a mass parent-teacher conference in a middle school gym, with parents lined up three feet from the table, maybe this doesn’t seem so bad.
But while I’m on the topic of MCPS homeschool reviews, let me just repeat that it frosts me the way the MCPS website homeschooling FAQ misrepresents homeschooling requirements and needlessly scares/stresses out new homeschoolers. For example, MCPS says:
Do I need to set up a classroom in my home?
No, but you need to provide an area that includes a desk or work space with suitable lighting and ventilation. Resource and instructional material should be available to your child.
The COMAR says nothing about the homeschool setting.
MCPS says:
Am I obliged to follow the public school calendar?
You need to specify the hours, days, and length of your instructional year during the program review. Weekend, evening hours, and summertime also may be a part of the schedule if you desire. A minimum of 180 days (based on 5 hours of instruction per day, it would be 900 hours) per year of instruction is expected.
The COMAR merely says:
The home instruction program shall: (3) Take place on a regular basis during the school year and be of sufficient duration to implement the instruction program.
MCPS also has a series of questions related to the program of instruction.
Should I develop a planning book for instruction?
Evidence of a planning book is included as part of the program review.
Should I keep a record of attendance and evaluations/grade given to my child?
Yes.
What sample of my child’s work should be available during the program review?
Examples of the child’s writing, worksheets, workbooks, creative materials, and tests must be saved for the review. In addition, work should be dated as it is completed.
The COMAR merely says:
A parent or guardian who chooses to teach a child at home shall maintain a portfolio of materials which:(1) Demonstrates the parent or guardian is providing regular, thorough instruction during the school year in the areas specified in §C(1) and (2);
(2) Includes relevant materials, such as instructional materials, reading materials, and examples of the child’s writings, worksheets, workbooks, creative materials, and tests;
No mention of “evidence of a planning book,” or “attendance and evaluations/grade[s].” The COMAR calls for “relevant materials, such as [emphasis added]…” No specified materials which “must be saved” nor requirement for dated work. You don’t even have to demonstrate that academic progress is being made. Just that “regular, thorough instruction” is being offered.
The MCPS form letter sent to to parents in conjunction with the review is also misleading, in my opinion. It tells parents that they “should plan to bring the items listed below…. dated relevant work samples in each curricular area….Complete list of textbooks and workbooks used…weekly instructional schedule.” Again, none of these are spelled out/required in the COMAR.
Yes, don’t get me started. While I suppose our homeschooling regs in Maryland fall somewhere in the middle in terms of homeschooling nationwide, I chafe at some of the state educational establishment’s bizarre interpretations (college and other external courses have to be “supplemental” to material taught in the home by the parent?) and misconceptions about homeschooling and what actually constitutes an education.
Does MHEA ever do any advocacy work with school systems? VaHomeschoolers regularly works with school divisions who seem to be over stepping their authority and putting more “rules” than state law allows. A lot of times they are just misinformed or asking for what they would *like* to have rather than what they are allowed to have.
You are definitely right that this seems awfully intimidating…
In a word, no. Not to my knowledge. I continue to be amazed at how un-mobilized parents are in Maryland, both homeschoolers and schoolers. No calls MCPS on anything, it seems. They just accept it. Which just proves that everything is wonderful, right? And I’m just a crank
.
I wouldn’t consider a requirement for a review by district officials to be “moderate” regulation. Maybe it’s somewhat less draconian than NY, MA, or PA, but compared to most states it’s pretty darn intrusive. Here in CA, all homeschoolers have to do is fill out a simple form once per year declaring our own little private schools. Plenty of states don’t even require any government notice.
The problem, SwitchedOnMom, is that a homeschooler (like me!) who tries to fight the system is shunned like Hester Prynne, the “A” standing for Anathema, I guess.
The reason is this: Homeschoolers can totally bypass MCPS (or any other LEA) by registering with an umbrella group, which reports directly to MSDE. The umbrella group, by definition, is a very homeschooler-friendly outfit. So friendly that some even have the option of pairing homeschooling families together who review each other, then report to the head of the umbrella group that all is well, and the head of the umbrella group makes a report accordingly to MSDE. Not bad, eh? I know of one option for $175 per year.
Why, then, do homeschooling families choose county reviews? For one thing, because they’re free. Participating in two reviews a year, for 30 to now 45 minutes each, is not that cumbersome. In my case, I chose an umbrella group through 8th grade just so I wouldn’t have to deal with MCPS because I had enough of them with my daughter in special ed., but decided to switch to county reviews for the high school years. There are mainly two reasons:
1. By choosing county reviews, I fully control the college application process, the transcript, the course descriptions, etc. When I sign up my son for a class at Montgomery College or at UMD, I don’t need to waste time sending forms to a consultant or program director for their signature — I am the principal, guidance counselor, and parent all in one. Problem solved. Also, I don’t want to pay someone to whom I will have to explain what we do and how in order to have a transcript and course descriptions that — hard to please as I am — I will probably find fault with. I’d rather to it myself.
2. While the vast majority of homeschoolers I know, or know of, are people who take their responsibilities seriously, there is always the possibility that some families will “fall through the cracks” and be deemed in compliance when they are not. Should a scandal of one sort or another erupt when my son is in the middle of his college applications, if it happens to involve the umbrella group I would have selected, it would make my son look bad. With county reviews, I assume full responsibility for what we do and what I put down on paper. I can ignore whatever other people are doing. That suits me better.
And if this sounds paranoid, actually it is not — several years ago, the NCAA Clearing House put out a list of “diploma mills”. On this list was a Maine-based group that provides supervision and diplomas to homeschoolers. I knew (online) of a homeschooling mother whose very talented daughter had graduated from that program. There is no doubt in my mind that she deserved her diploma. Unfortunately, her program also awarded diplomas to a few bad apples. Who’s to say it couldn’t happen in Maryland?
Finally, I annoy (mild word!) my homeschooling community because my son just turned 16 and I don’t “need” reviews anymore. In fact, for the first time EVER, the letter MCPS sent to homeschooling families asking them to schedule a review stipulated in bold characters that Md law does not require reviews for kids 16 and over. I am positive that the person who wrote the letter meant to say — “You know who you are, lady! You don’t need to come! Stay away!” (Maybe even “Vade retro, Satana!”, for all I know.)
So what did I do? I picked up the phone and made an appointment for a review. Why? Many colleges and merit scholarship programs ask parents to demonstrate that they have homeschooled in compliance with their state law. If I stop county reviews now, in 11th grade, all it proves is that I did not do something that I did not have to do to begin with. How does it prove that I complied with the regs, though?
There are many in the homeschooling community who feel that my hostility towards the system (never mind that the system illegally attempts to restrict the courses my son can take in college) will make MSDE “take away our freedom to homeschool.”
Annual review is a moderate requirement.
There are some serious problems with the anything-goes approach to home schooling. I know one home-schooled 10-year-old who still hasn’t learned to read (she’s quite bright, but she’s never been taught to read).
I know another home schooler who never got more than a 4th grade education—she is now an adult, with 2 kids who have been taken away by child protective services, because she was not caring for them.
I’ve met some of the real success stories of home schooling also, so I’m not opposed to in in principle, but the rah-rah-homeschooling-is-the-only-way propaganda irritates me. Someone should have been monitoring those kids who were grossly undereducated by their homeschooling parents.
Kevin- do you feel that the government should monitor what parents feed their own children too, just because some parents do an atrocious job at providing a nutritious diet? Should ALL parents who wish to feed their own children themselves rather than outsourcing that job to a government-run cafeteria have to keep detailed food diaries to be reviewed by some bureaucrat, participate in annual nutritional assessments designed by the government, and so on?
It’s not Big Government’s job to be micromanaging the way parents choose to raise their own children, including homeschooling. Does that mean that some kids will not get the education they should, the way that some kids do not get proper nutrition? Unfortunately, yes. But that’s the price we pay for living in a free society.
Children can be and are taken away from parents who starve them or poison them. There should be equivalent safeguards on home-schooling—not requiring that people fit some narrow definition of education, but requiring that they not be doing obviously extremely harmful things.
CPS can and often does take children away from parents who are neglectful., and that includes educational neglect. But the examples you gave in your earlier post aren’t comparable to starving or poisoning. They are indeed troubling, but no more so than a parent who feeds his/her child nothing but junk food. I would also estimate that the number of inadequately educated homeschoolers in the U.S. is SIGNIFICANTLY less than the number of inadequately educated children who are enrolled in the country’s government-run schools.
“I would also estimate that the number of inadequately educated homeschoolers in the U.S. is SIGNIFICANTLY less than the number of inadequately educated children who are enrolled in the country’s government-run schools.”
That’s trivially true—there are so few home schoolers that all of them combined is less than the number of inadequately educated children in government-run schools.
Whether the proportion of badly trained homeschoolers is higher or lower than in the government schools is hard to determine—there are no decent statistics on home-schoolers, and the worst trained are least likely to comply with gathering such statistics.
“There should be equivalent safeguards on home-schooling—not requiring that people fit some narrow definition of education, but requiring that they not be doing obviously extremely harmful things.” (Kevin)
MSDE actually requires that homeschoolers fit “some narrow definition of education.” In a letter to me dated April 23, 2009, State Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick wrote the following: “It is the Department’s view that the regulations mean that the parent or guardian will be the primary instructor and that the instruction will take place primarily in the home.” Museums? Nature centers? Libraries? Job-shadowing? Internships? College classes? Well, yes, all of this is fine, says Grasmick. With one caveat: “This course work or activity would have to be in addition to the instruction the child receives in the home, as a supplement to it, rather than in lieu of it.”
Kevin, as someone who is in favor of some degree of supervision of homeschoolers, would you say that a student who takes a class or two at the University of Maryland (high school students under concurrent enrollment at UMD, whether homeschooled or not, are limited to 7 credits per semester), and can document the work he has done, is doing well enough that the state may rest easy? Barring a catastrophic meltdown during his finals this week, my son should (again) make A’s in his classes at UMD, this time in biology and advanced music theory. Yet this is not good enough for Nancy Grasmick because he is homeschooled. He would probably get some special recognition from his school if he were a public school student, but that’s another story! Do you see the double standard here?
Unlike many homeschoolers, I believe that the state has a legitimate interest in seeing to it that all children receive an education and I am not against some supervision by the state. The problem, at least here in Maryland as I see it, is that the state has no interest in making sure that homeschooled students are well-educated — because if it did, I could bring samples of my son’s work at UMD, graded papers, and a copy of his transcript showing his final grades; a school official could check the box for science and music; and I could go on to document work done at home in other subjects.
Instead, I’ll have to play the game and come up with the list of PBS shows we’ve watched, books we’ve read, newspaper articles we’ve discussed, etc. And can you honestly say that the science instruction my son will have received at UMD will be “a supplement”? Or would it be the other way around?
Even parents who don’t homeschool, but have kids in the public school system, should be concerned by the kind of manipulation that MSDE engages in (and that MCPS takes as a starting point!). It is not the behavior of individuals who care about kids.
That does sound like stupid regulation (or stupid interpretation of the regulations). I’m not saying that states do a good job of supervising homeshools when they do supervise them, just that there should be some minimal standards reasonably interpreted.
Most of the homeschoolers in my area actually use a school run by the school district that just provides a resource library and credentialed teachers who act as consultants to help parents plan curriculum (with monthly meetings, I believe). This provides a non-coercive form of supervision that seems to be quite popular with the parents. (The school district does it because they then get to count the students for state funds, I think, but it seems to be a more efficient use of the funds than the standard school model.)
Patricia, Kevin, Crimson Wife…Just want to let you know that I have been following your conversation with interest! A great exchange.
[...] of Schools Nancy Grasmick are verging–in my humble opinion–on the ridiculous (see comments from Patricia for background), to the point where it is becoming onerous for secular homeschooling families with gifted kids who [...]
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