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Part III Pitfalls
for homeschoolers with Cyber Community Schools: 1. Control ALWAYS follows the money! Parental choice is advocated by these schools, but the parents want the autonomy to choose a different method or school and still have the state money fund it. Parents must recognize that state control ALWAYS follows state money (this is only reality since the taxpayers are footing the bill and the State needs to be held accountable to them). “For those who believe strongly in religious schooling and fear that government influence will come with public funding, reason exists for their concern. This process does not even seem to be the result of deliberate efforts…but rather of the difficulty, for a private school playing by public rules, to maintain its distance form the common assumption and habits of the predominant system.” Charles Glenn “Substantial regulations usually accompany large subsidies. These regulations are similar to those applied to public schools…government controls over private schools are found even without subsidies. However, heavy controls invariably accompany subsidies.” Estelle James Control of What? Curriculum The Master Teacher will oversee the Personalized
Education Plan (PEP). The Master
Teacher will contact the parents at least once a week and ensure completion of
lesson logs and that the student is following the curriculum. Curriculum utilized by ANY
community school MUST align all of their learning activities with the mandated
State Standards. Clarify that NO religious curriculum could be bought with
state funds or taught by the program teachers…Homeschoolers would have to
ensure that their curriculum is aligned to state standards… The parents will agree that during the 920 hours of
learning opportunities presented to the student that no religious instruction
of any kind will take place. No instructional time which is considered as part of the
charter school program may be spent teaching religious doctrine, and no credits
or attendance time may be awarded for courses which include religious doctrine. The parent must “discuss the supplemental activities
with your child’s assigned teacher initially” before they can “count”
toward the mandatory 920 hours. Supplemental activities could be anything from field trips, educational classes, etc. Talk about a loss of autonomy for the parent! In the open house I attended recently with The Ohio Virtual Academy (K12), it was clearly expressed that the “gatekeeper” for the educational process was the state-certified teacher, not the parent. The parent becomes the facilitator and assistant of the teacher. Instructional Time Parents are required to instruct for 920 hours.
This is 184 days at 5 hours/day. Parent
will maintain a timelog to verify hours taught. Recommendation that eCOT create and implement a process to
monitor the minutes recorded by the student. Parents will keep daily attendance logs which track the
number of minutes logged each day in each school subject. State Assessments Students will participate in the Ohio Proficiency Test.
Consistent with the school’s education plan the school will utilize the
appropriate Ohio Proficiency Tests. Students will take the Ohio Proficiency Tests AND the newly
developing Ohio Diagnostic Tests. Additionally,
they will take the Stanford Achievement Test, and lesson, unit, and semester
assessments. Students will master a curriculum aligned with the Ohio
Academic Content Standards…Students will participate in and demonstrate their
mastery of…the Standards…on the appropriate Ohio Proficiency Tests. The number of achievement and/or diagnostic tests is increasing. With the state-mandated tests, as well as all of the assessments/tests incorporated in the curriculum, the student will be spending a significant amount of their time taking tests. This will drastically cut into the amount of learning time for the child. Grades Grades would be determined by the certified teacher, not by the parent… By setting goals, grading assignments, giving
support and advice…teachers make sure that no child falls through the
cracks. (emphasis mine) One trend I have noticed is that each Virtual Charter School “approved” in Ohio increases its’ requirements and guidelines. A large part of this may be a result of the State Auditors report on Community Schools, his audit on eCOT and the pending lawsuit on Virtual Schools. 2. Home schoolers are losing their unique identity distinct from the State Home school families have been able to prove that home
education works. It collapses the
widespread belief that education is so expensive that we MUST have government
funding and is so difficult that we must hire professionals. Enrolling in a home-based charter school creates a little public school in your home! Home educators have always stood and proclaimed “Just
Leave Us Alone!” This was the
message home school families proclaimed in Washington at the National Lobby Day
HSLDA sponsored several years ago. We are one of the few groups, in Washington
and at the state level, that advocate only for freedom, not for money or
services. We ask for nothing and
want the autonomy to educate our children as we believe. When we begin to use state funds (from any source), to that
degree we lose our autonomy. We
become more dependent upon the State. ALSO, The media is “framing” home education to define it as
just another alternative to public school.
Akron Beacon Journal articles titled, “Group Calls Home School Program
Illegal”. This “program” was
the OHDELA Cyber School, which is a charter school, not home education! 3. Loss
of Autonomy for Parents Parents no longer control the curriculum for their child.
Yes, they can still teach them religion “on the side” and creation
(to refute the evolution being taught in the state-mandated curriculum).
However, they are NOT permitted to purchase or utilize ANY curriculum that is
religiously-based during the 920 hours. “We care what curriculum they use, but they can choose
whatever they want as long as they don’t cross church and state boundaries.” One of the reasons I like charter schools is “because
we get access to parents whose kids have never been in public school.” Qualified, experienced Ohio teachers oversee the learning
of each child in their class. Teachers
play a key role in providing social growth and development.
Parents guide children through the instructional program to help ensure
students are learning. Is your home now considered their “class”?
Teachers oversee and parents guide. Who is in charge here? How much autonomy will a parent have when the curriculum is
dictated by the state standards? If
the testing and curriculum requires a focus on evolution or on sex education,
how will the parent shield the child from this indoctrination? “Our students will spend about 20% of their time in
front of the computer. The parent
is the instructor in the home, but the teacher is monitoring them.” “It soon became apparent that the teachers were
required to talk to the children at these visits and assess them not only on
their academics, but also on their physical appearance…looking for signs of
abuse and/or neglect at their discretion. I
had gotten so used to living my own life and had forgotten just how involved the
government is in the lives of families enrolled in public schools.” In the OHVCS Contract, among other responsibilities, the role of the teacher is to:
The parent becomes nothing more than a supervisor for the
child, taking the place of a full time certified teacher in the home.
However, the authority responsible for the development of the child is
the teacher, not the parent. I believe the following program in Alaska is
representative of how many of these schools will lure home school families into
their program and slowly place more regulation on them. IDEA (in Alaska) has been around since 1997.. Many home schoolers have taken advantage of this cyber charter school. The school began with almost NO regulation. However, the past couple of years have seen increased guidelines and oversight. What restrictions have been placed upon them?
Yet home school families still enroll, in spite of the fact that Alaska has the least restrictive home school law in the country.
In Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania School Board Association developed a White Paper. What were some of their findings?
The same circumstances may occur in Ohio. Where will this lead?
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4. It
allows the state to encroach into the family.
A Washington state study has shown,
“that over time partnership programs tended to lead to full time
enrollment…the motive for school districts appeared to be fiscal – not
philosophical.”
Patricia Lines
Former Researcher
National Center for Education Statistics
The avowed purpose of the virtual charter school is to
lure families that had deserted public schools to reconnect with public
education.
Rob Reich
Testing the Boundaries of Parental Authority
It is a way to welcome dissatisfied parents back into the
public school system…we needed to find a way to keep those students (who had
left the system to begin home schooling) a part of the public education system.
David Pendleton
Basehor-Linwood School Superintendent
The discerning parent will note that there is a difference
between parental involvement and parental control.
5. What About the Financial Impact on the
State with Home Schoolers
using Cyber Schools?
“…I really think the State Legislature is going to have
to deal with this, this innovative experiment is costing the taxpayers a pile of
money.”
State Rep. Mike Sturla, Pennsylvania Rep.
* If the
figures in the White Paper on Cyber Schools (in PA) are an indication here in
Ohio, it will have a significant impact on the Budget of the General Assembly.
OHDELA projected enrollment is 5,000 students by the end of the 5th
year of it’s contract. If 50% of
these students never attended public school before (at $5,000/student from the
state), that is 12.5
million dollars
that state will have to find that they have never had to spend…at the same
time they are addressing the school funding dilemma and reduced revenue.
That is just with one school!
Home education is more than teaching your children at
home (site-varied education). Foundational
to home education is the fact that it is parent-directed education, FREE of
state entanglement! It is not only
choosing what to teach, but how to teach them, what assignments to give, what
grades to hand out, what schedule to follow, and evaluation of the child’s
progress. With home education, ALL
OF THESE are fully determined by the parent!
CHOOSE FREEDOM, NOT GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT IN YOUR
HOME!!!
Go on to Addendum Addressing the newest Online School
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