Lifestyles of Rich and Famous Homeschoolers
By Mimi Rothschild
How would you educate if money was not an issue? Would you send your children to the most prestigious school in your city?
According to a recent Bloomberg article, many of Manhattan’s movers and shakers are no longer relying on outsourcing the education of their children. Whether they hire expensive private tutors for homeschooling or allow their children to educate themselves in an “unschooling” format, these upper-crust families are realizing that their children are too important to leave their education in anyone’s hands but their own.
“The growth of home schooling in Manhattan is part of a national trend. From 1999 to 2003, the number of kids being taught at home soared 29 percent to 1.1 million, according to the most recent survey by the U.S. Education Department. The city requires parents to create a teaching plan and to have students’ academic progress evaluated under state regulations.”
I think this is a fascinating development. For one thing, it blows the popular perception of homeschoolers being a bunch of rural hillbillies trying to escape from society. These are some of the most influential people in the city. They are choosing to homeschool, not for religious escapist reasons, but because they strongly feel it is the best academic environment for their children. Although they can afford to send their children to $30,000 private schools, they are forsaking this luxury.
“Leon Potgieter, who runs the 300-employee New York City office of Stamford, Connecticut-based consulting firm Towers Perrin, said he and his wife, Barbara, can afford any school for 9-year-old twins Luke and Sarah and 6-year-old Hannah. They chose home schooling because they decided that Barbara, 41, a physicist and computer scientist, could do a better job. Potgieter, 44, teaches the history lessons when he gets home from work.”
Again, these are not the uneducated right-wingers at which the mainstream media would point the finger. These are well-educated, urbane parents. Many of these homeschoolers have gone the “unschooling” route.
“While their peers are in school, Caroline and Jessica have the run of the town, to join clubs, visit museums and take classes. Caroline learns English in a teen book club, history from DVD documentaries and science at the American Museum of Natural History.”
That kind of freedom is what makes homeschooling so attractive to the rich. Why put restrictions on your child’s learning when you have such amazing resources all over the city of which to take advantage?
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