Do you support educational vouchers in schools?

"Nan" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 30 May 2005 03:48:50 GMT, "P. Tierney"
wrote:


"toto" wrote in message
. ..
On Sun, 29 May 2005 22:03:19 GMT, "Don"
wrote:

You find it odd that my real name is on each of my posts, just like
yours?
Why?

I find it odd that you refuse to give us this website that is *doing
so well* or that you refuse to give us the name of your wife's book,
not that you say your name is Don.

He gave a book link elsewhere. The site link appears to be:
www.everythinghomeschooling.com $15.95 as stated. Looks
like a good site for those who have the need.

Or they can obtain all the same type of information for free at the
public library.

Which is what we did back in the early 90's before the internet was chockful
of the info it is today.
My wife has done extensive research over a 10 year period and has
assimilated it into the book, to shave immense amounts of time for the
person(s) interested in Homeschooling their kids. Incidently, I believe the
book is only $10.something at Amazon.

"P. Tierney" wrote
There has to be some sort of a cost to quality homeschooling.
I'm not sure what it is, though I would guess that it has been
researched.

The costs have dropped drastically since the early 90's when we spent
roughly $800 per year for one kid.
We purchased textbooks from the library and elsewhere and other school
materials as we could find them. For birthdays and Christmas, etc., our son
would recieve microscopes, telescopes, chemistry sets, that sort of thing,
for gifts. After our son *graduated* we then sold or gave all the stuff
away. We never looked at it as *schooling* just something that we did all
the time, mornings and nights, weekdays and weekends.

"Donna Metler" wrote in message
...

"Nan" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 30 May 2005 17:52:04 GMT, "P. Tierney"
wrote:


"Nan" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 30 May 2005 17:13:08 GMT, "P. Tierney"
wrote:


"Nan" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 30 May 2005 10:42:09 -0500, toto
wrote:

My favorite homeschooling book is
The Unschooling Handbook: How to Ue the Whole World as Your
Child's Classroom by Mary Griffin

It can be found at amazon and bookstores, or as Nan says, you can
use
the public library.

Also, if you google homeschooling, you can find many websites that
don't charge fees and imo, you don't need to buy any canned
curriculum
from anyone to homeschool.

Exactly. All the information one needs is out there at no cost.
Our
library even carries materials aimed at homeschooling for no cost.

Were it me, I'd probably buy that above book so that I could
have it with me for longer than three weeks. If it's an ongoing
resource, I'd certainly want it at home all the time.

Most libraries allow you to renew, so you'd have it longer than 3
weeks. You can also take what is necessary for your situation and
keep that information indefinitely.
My point is, nobody *needs* to spend money on homeschooling.

There has to be some sort of a cost to quality homeschooling.
I'm not sure what it is, though I would guess that it has been
researched.

Sure, if one wants to buy all the materials, worksheets, workbooks,
supplies that some proponents of homeschooling like to convey are
necessary.
People with limited resources *can* homeschool their children very
effectively without having to buy into all that. I'd say the cost
would be more time and effort for them, instead of monetary.

Not only that, but you should include a figure for the parent who is
homeschooling's income if they were working. Or, if both parents are
working, there's probably a childcare figure in there, because even though
you can homeschool outside of working hours, until your children are out
of
elementary, someone needs to be there with them. Each year I stay home
with
Alli costs us about 30K in income and retirement after expenses and taxes.
Even with a good private school costing about 10K a year, it would still
cost more to homeschool. I think a lot of parents leave that figure out,
but
you have to consider it, just as you do when a parent decides to SAH
instead
of work when you have a child who isn't school aged yet.

For the *average* working mother, it costs more to have a job and a kid in
the public school, than it does to homeschool him.
People tend to overlook the incidentals like lunches, employee gifts (we're
taking up a collection for Aimee's baby shower), and then there's day care,
after school care, gas, tolls, work clothing, etc. It adds up.

"Bob LeChevalier" wrote
"Don" wrote:
The facts are out there,

Nope.

Welp, there ya go.
What do you say to a little angry man with strong socialist tendencies on
usenet that refuses to believe facts exist?
Nothing.
L8R Blob.

In article .net,
"Don" wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...


Don wrote:
"toto" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 27 May 2005 04:33:10 GMT, "Don"
wrote:

"toto" wrote
"Don" wrote:
I never said I paved all the roads leading to my house. Only the one
in
front of my house, it is 800' feet long, and I did pave it, as the
original
paving was done in the early 60's and was very deteriorated. The city
wouldn't pave it so I took it on myself.

But, you wanted the city to do it so you wanted our tax money (if we
lived in your city) to pave your street.

Well, it cost $600 to pave the road myself, and I paid over $3k in
taxes,
so
I think I have some change coming back.
Now, what was that you were saying about me wanting you to pay for it?

Your taxes go to pay for police protection, fire protection, etc. not
*just* roads.

Like I said, I paid ADDITIONAL to pave the road. They own me a refund.
Or is the math too complicated for you?

Ah. I think I get it.
You're arguing that the City owed you good paved road in front of your
house, and because they refused to do it, you got it done. So they owe
you the $600 back.

Rather as if you were a tenant in an apartment, and you had some
essential repairs made because the landlord wasn't making them? Then
the landlord would owe you the cost of the repairs?

Is that what you meant?

Sort of, but not exactly.
It's more like this:
I moved into an apartment and the landlord told me he'd have new carpet
installed for $3800.00, so I paid him the $3800.00. Then after living there
for 2 years the landlord still had not installed the carpet. So I purchased
a lessor quality carpet for $600.00 and installed it myself. Does the
landlord owe me any money and if so how much?



Why is it you think the city "owes" you a paved road in front of your
house?

And where is the limit to that? There is only so much $$ to spend on
roads -- if the $$ was needed more elsewhere, then that's where it was
needed.

Under YOUR system, I could decide that the trees in front of my house
need to be removed (they are buckling the sidewalk), pay to have them
removed, then bill the city for the expense.

Or the guy down the street could decide that his curb was too crumbled,
pay to have it rebuilt, and bill the city for the expense.

Someone has to make decisions about how the limited $$ gets spent; it
makes more sense to me that the people we elect makes these decisions --
not individuals.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

In article 8pIme.20290$PS3.15532@attbi_s22,
"P. Tierney" wrote:


There has to be some sort of a cost to quality homeschooling.
I'm not sure what it is, though I would guess that it has been
researched.


P. Tierney

Some of it is resources (books, paper, etc.) -- but some is opportunity
costs, since someone has to take the time to actually DO the work
involved.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Don wrote:
"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article et, Don
says...

"Banty" wrote
Don says...
"Banty" wrote
Ah - then you have cites. Please let us know where you may have any
underpinnings to your rantings here.

What books have you published?

Google is your friend, use it.
Start with the word: homeschooling

If you think you can handle it, Google: John Gatto

Are you "John Gatto"? Yes or no.

No.
Did you google him?



You said you had written books and your wife had homeschooling websites.
I asked for cites.
You said "John Gatto"
I asked if you were him.
You said "no".

So we're back to those books supposedly you (no, not John Gatto) have
written.

Cites to your book, please.

I never said I wrote a book and I'm wondering why you are claiming I did.

"During this period my wife and I have educated thousands of other
parents
worldwide on the procedures for homeschooling their own kids, we have
published numerous books on homeschooling and hold several websites on
homeschooling with monthly curriculum subscriptions."

From one of your earlier posts. If you didn't write book, what books
did you "publish"?

In article ,
toto wrote:
On Mon, 30 May 2005 06:49:28 -0400, Bob LeChevalier
wrote:

You have been convinced, Bob, by the mass media that Homeschooling is BAD

No. Homeschooling is good for some, indifferent for some, not worth
the hassle for many, and impossible for many.

Here is the crux of the matter. What these folks don't seem to
understand is that as a society, we are attempting to educate all
of our children.

Attempting to educate all of our children is a good idea.

What is not a good idea is attempting to educate them in
the same way. I do not know where Bush got the idea of
NCLB, but it was put in the Chicago public schools when
I was there.

I've had experience with many homeschoolers. There are some that do a
very good job, but in general once the student is past elementary
school, they don't homeschool themselves, they hire tutors or send the
student to classes at local colleges or have them take distance
learning classes. Those options do work well.

It is hard to see why they do not work well.

But parents who don't
have the resources to pay for those options don't do as well at
teaching their children through the academic high school classes

What "academic high school classes"? The mathematics and
science classes are abysmally low, except for some of the
honors courses.

unless they themselves have a college education and good grasp of
the subject matter above the high school level.

I disagree. If my parents had any idea of how little I
was going to learn in school, and the opportunity was
available, they would probably have found out what books
I had to read, and tried to get me tested. I would have
learned considerably more. THEY would not have been able
to educate me, but would have tried to see that it was
made available. At that time, home schooling was almost
nonexistent.

This would not have worked with many. But with modern
technology, I believe we will have the electronic classes
needed to provide children with the opportunity to learn
from competent teachers. I would be surprised if the West
Lafayette schools were not in the top 10%, or better, but
few of the high school teachers did that good a job.

..................

Do you really think a parent who is a crack addict or
alcoholic can homeschool her child?

Your opinion of addicts is lower than it should be. I see
no reason why one could not; addiction is not the problem
in most cases, but what society thinks of it. One of the
rather good mathematicians at Purdue was alcoholic (he
later quit) and was still a good teacher and father.

Right now, few of the high school teachers of mathematics
and science understand enough of their subjects, and the
moderately good books of a half century ago in mathematics
have been replaced by what can be taught to those who no
longer have the ability to understand abstract concepts, or
never had it. Any attempt to teach all the same, at any
level, is unsound.

I have no quarrel at all with people who choose to homeschool as long
as they manage to teach to a minimum standard of academics. I do
think though that children need to have some empathy for those who
have less than they do and whose parents are not able to provide the
same things that their parents can provide.

The answer is to provide education for those willing and
able to do it, as well and as fast as they can, and to
assess those who deny them the opportunity, and this is
primarily schoolteachers and administrators, massive fines
and the costs of trying to make up for the deficits.

Those who are capable of doing a good job in learning the
sciences at a college level should be already doing that
by their early teens, instead of being held back to what
the educationists consider appropriate for their age.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

TAKE THE WOODWORKING NEWSGROUP OUT OF YOUR SUBJECT TITLE! UNLESS U WANT TO
TALK ABOUT OUR HOBBY.



"Herman Rubin" wrote in message
...
In article ,
toto wrote:
On Mon, 30 May 2005 06:49:28 -0400, Bob LeChevalier
wrote:

You have been convinced, Bob, by the mass media that Homeschooling is
BAD

No. Homeschooling is good for some, indifferent for some, not worth
the hassle for many, and impossible for many.

Here is the crux of the matter. What these folks don't seem to
understand is that as a society, we are attempting to educate all
of our children.

Attempting to educate all of our children is a good idea.

What is not a good idea is attempting to educate them in
the same way. I do not know where Bush got the idea of
NCLB, but it was put in the Chicago public schools when
I was there.

I've had experience with many homeschoolers. There are some that do a
very good job, but in general once the student is past elementary
school, they don't homeschool themselves, they hire tutors or send the
student to classes at local colleges or have them take distance
learning classes. Those options do work well.

It is hard to see why they do not work well.

But parents who don't
have the resources to pay for those options don't do as well at
teaching their children through the academic high school classes

What "academic high school classes"? The mathematics and
science classes are abysmally low, except for some of the
honors courses.

unless they themselves have a college education and good grasp of
the subject matter above the high school level.

I disagree. If my parents had any idea of how little I
was going to learn in school, and the opportunity was
available, they would probably have found out what books
I had to read, and tried to get me tested. I would have
learned considerably more. THEY would not have been able
to educate me, but would have tried to see that it was
made available. At that time, home schooling was almost
nonexistent.

This would not have worked with many. But with modern
technology, I believe we will have the electronic classes
needed to provide children with the opportunity to learn
from competent teachers. I would be surprised if the West
Lafayette schools were not in the top 10%, or better, but
few of the high school teachers did that good a job.

..................

Do you really think a parent who is a crack addict or
alcoholic can homeschool her child?

Your opinion of addicts is lower than it should be. I see
no reason why one could not; addiction is not the problem
in most cases, but what society thinks of it. One of the
rather good mathematicians at Purdue was alcoholic (he
later quit) and was still a good teacher and father.

Right now, few of the high school teachers of mathematics
and science understand enough of their subjects, and the
moderately good books of a half century ago in mathematics
have been replaced by what can be taught to those who no
longer have the ability to understand abstract concepts, or
never had it. Any attempt to teach all the same, at any
level, is unsound.

I have no quarrel at all with people who choose to homeschool as long
as they manage to teach to a minimum standard of academics. I do
think though that children need to have some empathy for those who
have less than they do and whose parents are not able to provide the
same things that their parents can provide.

The answer is to provide education for those willing and
able to do it, as well and as fast as they can, and to
assess those who deny them the opportunity, and this is
primarily schoolteachers and administrators, massive fines
and the costs of trying to make up for the deficits.

Those who are capable of doing a good job in learning the
sciences at a college level should be already doing that
by their early teens, instead of being held back to what
the educationists consider appropriate for their age.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

Bob LeChevalier wrote:

MK. Discussion deleted...

I have previously posted numerous refutations of Gatto's shoddy,
false, and undocumented assertions about the schools.

MK. In 2004, in a misc.education thread with subject "How children
really react to control", there occurred...

..=2E..........
MK. Discussion deleted (Gatto's scholarship)...

(BOB) I have read Gatto, in online excerpts. I haven't read any =
of his books. I have found errors in everything of Gatto's that =
I have read online

MK. Likely, considering that LeChevalier regards the assertion that
Food Stamps are vouchers (it's ordinary usage) an error. Could we =
have some examples?

MK. Discussion deleted (Dewey and rote learning)...

Rote learning was the standard long before Dewey, and indeed long
before there was a Prussian system.

MK. So how does any of that demonstrate an error of Gatto? Where's a
mistaken Gatto assertion in all that verbiage?

My comment, that led to the current discussion, is that his statement
sounded like a loonytunian claim that I had repeatedly refuted. It
was then clarified, that Gatto was the person who makes most such
claims. I'm not going to dig through his books (which I don't own) to
find where he (or one of his cronies) made the claim. It has been oft
repeated in the newsgroups and so-attributed.

MK. So you say --Gatto-- is error prone, when your evidence is that
someone made an incorrect assertion about Dewey's theories. Doesn't
that seem strange to you?

- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -

http://www.spinninglobe.net/ag=ADainstschool.htm
The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again
and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it
many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of
Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly
denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s.
Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State
Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of
Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here.
That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising,
given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian
served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many
German-speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress
considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws.
But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the
very worst aspects of Prussian cultu an educational system
deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring
the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and
to ensure docile and incomplete citizens 11 in order to render the
populace "manageable."

seems to be one such quote.

MK. So what is in error? It seems to me that there are degrees of
influence.

..=2E............................................. ..

MK. So LeChevalier criticizes when he admits that he has not read
Gatto's books and cannot identify --one-- instance of shoddy
scholarship.

MK. I have read Gatto's __Dumbing Us Down__ and have read about 2/3 of
his __Underground History of American Education__ , as well as several
essays by Gatto in various periodicals. Gatto makes errors (as do we
all), like the assertion, in __Underground History...__ that before the
Greeks nobody used writing for anything other than bookkeeping
(Gilgamesh? Read __History begins with Sumer__), and he makes some
surprising assertions which need explanation, like his assertion that
US economic success --required-- wretched education (cogs in the
machine), while observing (in __Liberty Magazine__,"The Nine Myths of
School") that the Swiss succeed economically with a system that is
voluntary beyong elementary school (apprenticeship after 6th grade),
and which educates most children well. These assertions are not
mutually exclusive but Gatto does not explain why economic success
requies dumbed down education in the US but not in Switzerland.
The __Underground History...___ really needed an editor. Some
passages appear to have been written while the author was groggy (grog,
mmmm) or half-asleep. Elsewhere Gatto makes inflamatory charges, which
I will believe but for which a cite would be nice. It is possible to
criticize Gatto's scholarship, but LeChevalier's criticisms are without
content. Then LeChevalier cites his (empty) previous criticism.

MK. Gatto is far more right than wrong. LeChevalier is far more left
than correct.

MK. PS. (BOB) Food Stamps are vouchers. See the Brookings study
__Vouchers and the Provision of Public Services__. This book is useful
material in the school voucher discussion, with articles on economics
and politics of vouchers generally and several articles on school
vouchers in particular.

Take care. Homeschool if you can.