Home Schooling...Yes, I like it as TWO WORDS!!!

OK, so I got an e-mail asking me to call my PA Senator & ask him to support some bill that would relax the legislation for keeping home schooling accountable.

I give a resounding NO.

The problem in PA with home schooling is NOT the amount of work we, as home schoolers, do to show ourselves worthy to be separate from the public schools. It is the amount of hostility shown toward home schoolers by the leaders and authorities in the public school system. Granted, our act of home schooling may hurt their pride, since we are, in essence, rejecting their system. However, we cannot reject their authority.

After moving from Ohio (which has minimal requirements of home schoolers) to PA (which has much more requirements for home schoolers than most states), I grumbled about the list of requirements that home schoolers had to complete. However, as I grew older and more experienced, I realized that these requirements, though annoying and burdensome, provide home schoolers with a lot of security in their accreditation. I, as a graduate of home schooling in PA, have a high school diploma that shows my hard work and is accredited by the state of PA. It will take me anywhere I need a high school diploma. However, my friends in Ohio often resorted to taking the GED at the end of their home school education because Ohio does not have such a rigorous system in place.

What kind of legislation would I like to see in the Congress of PA? (Besides, of course, an annulment of that ridiculous legislation allowing lawmakers to raise their own pay.) I would like to see PA require of school districts to not discriminate home schoolers in sports teams or field trips or the occasional class on a public school campus. My own school district was amazingly friendly toward home schoolers, and as a result I could combine the best of their high school and the best of home schooling, thus making them look good and giving me the education I wanted. They also granted me a high school diploma from that district, since I had fulfilled all their requirements for graduation. Though I had a diploma, this was a nice acknowledgement from them. Some home schoolers have abused this treatment from districts like mine, it is true, but if the state regulated what districts could do about home schooling and what home schoolers could do in the public school, then we would have much less abuse of the system on either side of education.

And then there are the home schoolers who have done fantastically without the aid of their school districts. Congratulations!