MorningStar’s Home Education News

To the editor,

Public schools have monopolized the education process for primary schools. The schools have forced people to pay into a system that educates students to “their” standard without asking the public how they want it done. The public schools of Minnesota have had a shrinking pupil rate, and yet they ask for more money and give fewer results. The schools, meaning the superintendent, his office, and the school board, need to be fiscally responsible with how they use the taxpayers money, and not just in Farmington, but in all school districts.

Throughout grammar school, I went to a private school that cost $2,100 a year. It cost $6,293.50 to send my brother, my sister, and I there per year. When I got into the public system, I was nearly a year and a half ahead of the most accelerated classes that Farmington’s middle school had to offer. In Minnesota, on average, school districts spend about $10,000 per pupil per school year, which is over four times as much, and yet they were behind the private school. Everyone who owns property pays the public school system, which is forcing many low income families to use their ineffective and inefficient system.

On Nov. 6 many Minnesota school districts had a referendum, and about 65 percent of the school districts came out victorious. The government is the only place where you can vote yourself a raise! Now how about that; if you work for the public schools you can give yourself a raise and not be expected to do a better job. In the public sector of society you would be scoffed at for requesting such a thing.

Friedman said, “Education in the United States should be guided by a clear conception of the meaning of democracy and choice - this ideal demands a high level of efficiency in our schools.” There is no democracy or choice in the American school system.

Public schools tell people that by giving them more money they can be more efficient. The definition of efficient is accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure; if the schools were truly being more efficient then they would be teaching more students with less teachers and technology, but the opposite is true, the public school wants smaller classes which is less efficient. An effective way to describe the public school system would be to call it a monopoly, which, once again, is only legal for the government. Now they can raise their own salaries and force people to get a lower education than what most parents would want for their children.

Basically the public school needs to show some fiscal responsibility

Tom Fischer,

Farmington

 Homeschooling High School Students Excel Using Online Academies

By Mimi Rothschild

If you’re a parent who has thought about homeschooling your high school student then you should consider enrolling them in an online academy.  There are different approaches to homeschooling and one of the best approaches to homeschooling high school students is to enroll them in an homeschooling online academy.

Some parents may be concerned about using a foreign curriculum, but there are online academies, like The MorningStar Academy, that are tailored specifically for Christian homeschooling families.  Homeschooling students in high school can take advantage of all the resources an online academy offers, like teacher help through instant messaging or message boards.  Homeschooling families involved with an online academy can still enjoy the traditional benefits of homeschooling too.

Homeschooling high school students enrolled in an online academy surge ahead of their public school counterparts because they can learn in a flexible environment that is free of distractions, but can still seek help from teachers and have access to hundreds of invaluable resources.  Homeschooling students have already proven to be better students than public school students, online academies only strengthen a high school homeschoolers education.

Online academies take some of the stress of being a full-time teacher off parents by providing curriculums, teacher help, books, worksheets, and access to hundreds of excellent resources.  Homeschooling parents can focus on guiding their high school homeschoolers and instilling good values into them.

When it comes to homeschooling high school students, online academies are one of the best options.  Homeschooling students can receive world-class educations and still receive the benefits of traditional homeschooling.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary in 2005. I found it on the Epilepsy Foundation website today.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her “How could God let something like this Happen?” (regarding Katrina)

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.

She said, “I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are,
but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get
out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the
gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect
God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us
alone?”

In light of recent events…terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you  better not read the Bible in school . The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbour as yourself. And we
said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our  children when they misbehave because their little personalities would  be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with “WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.”

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many
on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what
they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than
what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it… no
one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t
sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards . honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

————————-
Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his
benefits - who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and
compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your
youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

In a groundbreaking ruling, the Wisconsin courts have determined that the Wisconsin Virtual School, run by K12, Inc. is operating illegally. The Judge ordered funding to cease effective immediately. According to the Wisonsin judge,  it is illegal for school districts to pay for virtual schools for a number of reasons. One reason cited is that the parents act as the student’s primary teacher and the teachers at the K12, Inc. ’s Wisconson Virtual School are not licensed or certified by the state.

 A public virtual charter school, like the ones built by K12, Inc., is funded by taxpayers and available free of charge to students who live in the state where it is located. Most virtual charter schools recieve similar amounts in funding to their brick and mortar counterparts. The big difference is that in virtual charter schools, the students are primarily taught by their parent.

What is wrong with this picture? The for profit company usually recieves an amount of money similar to the amount that the neighborhood school reieves; however the virtual school does not have to pay the parent who is the primary teacher and supervisor of the child’s education.

Fri, Dec 07, 2007
Ruling puts state’s virtual schools at risk
Appeals court says Wisconsin Virtual Academy violates state law
From eSchool News staff and wire service reports
  Primary Topic Channel:  Virtual schooling / Distance Learning
 
Parents of virtual-school students in Wisconsin fear a court ruling puts online instruction in jeopardy.Online education programs for thousands of Wisconsin students could be in jeopardy after a court ordered the state on Dec. 5 to stop funding a virtual charter school, an advocacy group has warned.

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The ruling could result in other districts having to close their own online charter schools and distance learning programs as well, the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families said.

The warning came hours after the District 2 Court of Appeals ruled the Wisconsin Virtual Academy was violating state law by allowing parents to assume the duties of state-licensed teachers.

The court said the school also has been violating a law requiring charter schools to be located in the district that operates them. It ordered the state Department of Public Instruction to stop shifting payments to the school from the home districts of open-enrollment students, who make up the majority of its more than 600 students.

Attorney Mike Dean, who represents students and families at the school, said the ruling “effectively shuts down the school” and puts many others at risk.

“It’s a huge deal for thousands of parents and students across the state,” he said. “If, in fact, children enrolled from outside the district are enrolled illegally, that will affect most, if not all, of the virtual schools in Wisconsin.”

Dean said he was considering an appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Supporters of virtual schools say they are more effective for some students and far less expensive than traditional public schools. Critics dispute that.

The Northern Ozaukee School District hired K12 Inc., a Virginia-based company that provides curriculum to schools, to create the Wisconsin Virtual Academy in 2003.

Students in kindergarten through eighth grade learn from their homes over the internet under the direction of their parents, who must devote at least four hours a day to their child’s education. Certified teachers who work for the district help monitor student progress.

The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teacher’s union, filed suit in 2004 claiming the school violates the open-enrollment, charter school, and teacher licensing laws. The Department of Public Instruction, although named as a defendant, switched sides and agreed the school was violating its licensing requirements.

A judge threw out the lawsuit last year. Months later, the district announced plans to expand its online offerings by creating a new statewide virtual high school.

But the appeals court on Dec. 5 reversed the judge’s decision, siding with the teacher’s union on all three claims.

Writing for the court, Judge Richard Brown said the school may be a “godsend for children who would not succeed in more traditional public schools, as well as a welcome new option for parents who want their children to receive a home-based education.

“But it is also a public school operated with state funds, and its operation violates the statutes as they now stand,” he wrote.

Brown said parents are teaching without the state license required of all public school teachers. Even though they are not paid or employed by a school district, they are acting as teachers under state law, he wrote.

“The problem is not that the unlicensed WIVA parents teach their children, but that they ‘teach in a public school,’” Brown wrote.

He also said Northern Ozaukee is violating a law that prohibits school districts from operating charter schools outside of their boundaries. The school’s administrative office is in the district, but the majority of its teachers and students are not, he wrote.

Northern Ozaukee also illegally received open-enrollment money for students even though they are not attending school in the district as required, he wrote. The money pays for the operation of the school, and the district keeps an “oversight fee.”

Lee Allinger, superintendent of the Appleton Area School District, said he was studying the ruling’s impact on its virtual school, the Wisconsin Connections Academy. The 390-pupil school also takes open-enrollment students from around the state, he said.

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   

The basic necessities of a child’s education
include BOTH academics (i.e. reading, writing and
arithmetic) AND social development. Adequate social
development can occur ONLY if a child is allowed to interact
on an everyday basis with people outside of home,
including children of his/her age
group.<br><br>Homeschooling may provide the academics of education (i.e.
reading, writing and arithmetic), but it fails to address
the child’s social development. In other words,
homeschooling DEPRIVES the child of a very NECESSARY part of
his/her education. Parents who homeschool their children
are doing them a SERIOUS DISSERVICE!  

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.

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

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

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.