“Homeschooling is a BAD idea!” by Mimi Rothschild
A person who did not agree enough with his/her own post to put his/her name, wrote on a Yahoo message board:
“Homeschooling is a BAD idea! 20-Aug-99 08:48 pm
Many people believe that the type of “social development” that occurs in most schools is social abuse. In informal discussions with homeschoolers, it appears as though that the social environment in public school is one of the primary reasons they chose to homeschool. In those anecdotes, there is a consistent pattern of bullying, peer pressure towards drugs and “experimentation”, skewed value systems, foul language, and ofcourse violence.
Public School: A Reality Television Show?
Published Monday, December 10, 2007
Public schools broaden their mission
Millions of Americans each week watch the televised reality shows. The biggest reality show in the country today involves public schools, and no one can be voted off. Federal and state governments have increased funding for public education in recent years. This funding extends beyond the confines of classroom academics. The new reality in America’s public education is that schools are offering a wide range of social services to students. Student sex education, driver education, and student meals have been common features for decades.
To read the rest of this article from Tuscaloosa News, click here.
Public schools as corporate shills
ABC News.com is publishing a story about McDonald’s effort to market its food through public schools in Florida. Coroporations who worm their way into the minds and pocketbooks of our children is becoming more common in many school districts throughout the nation.
 File photo |
Corporations have always been present in public schools going all the way back to the Scholastic Book Fairs that were an annual event in my elementary school in the 1960′s and all the way up to the present. Children in public schools are easy and captive targets. Unsuspecting schoolchildren are a marketer’s dream in many respects.
As ABC reported:
According to a study on marketing unhealthy foods in public schools by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, between 26.6 and 30.3 million students are exposed, in school, to marketing by corporations that sell unhealthy foods. Incentive programs, along with fund-raising activities and exclusive agreements, make up the bulk of the campaigns.
About 67 percent of all schools nationwide allow for advertising by companies that sell “foods of minimal nutritional value and food high in fat and sugar conduct the majority of the marketing that is found in schools,” the study found.
The practice of allowing advertisers into the classroom has been condoned under the auspices that they are fundraisers. However, this may be a ruse.
…According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study most schools do not receive significant funds as a result of allowing corporate advertising.
“Some 73 percent of schools that have marketing by corporations that sell unhealthy foods reported receiving no income in the previous year. Some 86 percent of schools with food marketing reported that no programs or activities would be cut back if such marketing were prohibited,” the study found.
What is of concern to me is that the powers that be in our nation’s school districts appear to be co-conspirators by offering their children as captive audiences to the information and messages that for profiteers dream up.
As Loren Steffy wrote in his blog about this issue (and the person who inspired this article) states: “ I’m not surprised that big food companies would want to exploit schoolchildren. What’s truly disturbing is that so many school districts are willing to help them. ”
Edited by Mimi Rothschild
Police Stations Being Built in Public Schools by Mimi Rothschild
Police Stations Being Built in Public Schools
By Mimi Rothschild
The Detroit School District announced that they will increase police presence in public schools and even go as far as setting up mini police stations. While police officers and metal detectors are nothing new in public schools, mini stations are and they are the first step towards the convergence of prison facilities and public schools.
While on one hand it is good that police officers are around to keep children safe from the daily dangers of public school, but on the other hand having a police station inside a public school speaks volumes of the violence and chaos that takes place in public schools.
Why deal with public schools anymore? What’s next for public schools? Actual prison cells inside the school? It’s pretty ridiculous. Home schooling allows students to learn in SAFE environments where parents can instill values that are important to them. Also, home school students often outperform their public school counterparts in tests and grades.
Read more about police presence in public schools here.
Read about the benefits of homeschooling here.
Homeschooling, Alive and Well in Pennsylvania
Homeschooling, Alive and Well in Pennsylvania
By Mimi Rothschild
Anndee Hochman of The Philadelphia Inquirer examines the homeschool boom in Pennsylvania in a recent article. The Keystone State counted 23,000 homeschool children for the 2004-2005 school year. Hochman hits the nail on the head when looking into why so many families are choosing to homeschool.
“Between 1999 and 2003, the number of homeschooled students in the U.S. rose from 850,000 to nearly 1.1 million, a 29 percent increase. Homeschool advocates say it’s easy to figure out why: rising dissatisfaction with public schools; a strong parental distaste for the violence, competition and consumerism of ‘kid culture’; a desire to custom-fit education to a child’s needs and a family’s values.”
I would even go further and say that virtual schools, like The MorningStar Academy, are fueling the homeschool movement and allowing frustrated parents the chance to finally pull their children out of the public school system by providing a solid alternative.
Hochman also goes on to say that “In some ways, homeschooling means freedom for more than one million U.S. children and their families…No carpool schedules to coordinate, no emergency-contact forms to fill out. No bullies, no backpacks, no bus rumbling on the corner at 7:20 a.m.”
The article also looks in great detail at a few homeschooling families in the Philadelphia area. All the families featured in the article chose to homeschool for the same reasons every homeschooling family does: academics, safety, socialization, religion, and the innumerable benefits of homeschooling.
Read Anndee Hochman’s article about homeschooling here.