Educational Decisions and School Options
Thanks to Covid19, people are being forced to look at the benefits and drawbacks of the public-school systems and compare them to the relative safety of the homeschool options. The school systems have been waffling over their ability to provide a safe environment. My fear is that parents in New York State will soon be limited to just making choices. The following is provided as just something to consider when making your decisions concerning your child’s education.
Most of the public and private school systems have already scheduled the use of some homeschool technology. Usingtermslike’remote schooling’, or ‘remote classes to refer to their offerings avoid the implication that schools are abandoning their current supervisory ‘oversight’ control of your children.
Providing oversight and parental guidance is not the same as homeschooling. Most parents ‘homeschooling’experience ends with asking their children if they did their homework and making sure they complete it. Parents who have been helping children with their homework are actually told these days to not instruct their children how to solve problems. Schools only want children to learn the Common Core way.
PART ONE: Convenience, Cost, Capability
There are three concerns you should ponder first concerning homeschooling before making a decision. One or more of these considerations will limit your options, control your education decisions, and determine the educational structures that will work best for your children.
Convenience
Providing for ‘oversight’ of your child is the first consideration. Oversight is the presence of an authority figure that will prevent older children from becoming disorderly. Oversight is not intended to help a child focus on the subject matter, and will not benefit a child when the child becomes frustrated, upset, or angry. Only parental guidance can do that. Oversight will enforce rules of conduct. Oversight will prevent a disturbed child from harming other children or disrupting the group, keeping order in the classroom by enforcing the rules conduct. Public-schools have resorted to hiring police officers and security forces to provide the oversight, referred to as “Resource Officers” or “Resource Personnel”.
For the younger children, today’s public school system offers“babysitting” (a“before” and “after”) service. They are termed “pre-kindergarten” and the “classes” are for“students” as young as 3 years old, called Head Start. In the 139thAssembly District, Head Start offices can be found in Batavia(Genesee County), and in Albion and Medina(Orleans County). The closest Head Start in Monroe County is located in Rochester.
“Babysitting” and “oversight” are poor substitutes for “parental guidance”. Public schools do not offer ‘parental guidance’.
If oversight or babysitting is the limiting factor for parents, they should consider the public or private school option. Homeschooling is dependent upon the parents to provide ‘parental guidance’–the guidance needed to guide the child through the rough times, especially when their child becomes frustrated, upset, or angry. At that point, the child will stop learning and begin to pay attention to other distractions in the room or become the distraction to the other children present. The lack of parental guidance makes oversight essential. Homeschooling depends upon parental guidance and the elimination of the need for oversight.
Today, with two-parent incomes often being a necessity, parents will find the ‘parental guidance’ requirement of homeschool structures to be not just inconvenient, it will be a barrier. And if it is, they may not be able to successfully implement a homeschool structure for their child. At a minimum, they will need to consider a traditional educational structure that will at least provide oversight. Many single parents have successfully and effectively homeschooled their children, so requiring time to bring in an income and having time to homeschool should not be an insurmountable barrier.
Other ‘convenience’ aspects to consider: Children are not all the same and have different needs. There are some who need nothing special for a learning environment; a quiet room with adequate resources –books and access to the internet will suffice. For all children, their quiet time may not actually be ‘quiet’, but rather the time with an environment with few distractions present in the form of other people talking or playing, or just being physically present creating a distraction when they move. Some children will want the noise to block out those distractions so they can focus on their studies. This situation, especially as it relates to older children, will frustrate most parents.
There may be a need to spend different amounts of time guiding each child, Children with special needs, bouts of anxiety, an inability to focus, and smaller children may need attention during quiet times. This can present a distraction to other children. You may have to provide for physical separation. Parents will be challenged if there are several children and each requires a different educational environment.
Homeschooling currently has a heavy dependency on the internet. Children will be expected to participate in the video, or ZOOM, classes. If the connection speeds are not adequate, or not enough computers, the children will not be able to participate.
If convenience factors appear to be limiting, don’t abandon the homeschooling option immediately. There are many resources that can be tapped to alleviate the difficulties. But, if the convenience factors cannot be overcome, one of the traditional school structures cited below should be considered(With Covid19still rampant, many schools may not offer5 day a week in-school services)
Cost
The expense varies between options. This year, because public schools need to restructure and will be incorporating remote classes, they will be using services designed for homeschooling. As a consequence, some school districts are contemplating picking up all of the common costs of all public and homeschool students. Should that not happen, and the parent chooses to homeschool, all of the schooling expenses will be an additional burden on the parents. One of those costs will most probably be an increase in the internet access speeds and more computers in the home, one for each child.
It is recommended parents do some research and look closely at the minimum expense involved in each homeschool option they consider. Those expenses will need to be incurred in addition to the real estate school taxes they will already be paying.
Capability
. When it comes to homeschooling, many parents fear that while they are able to homeschool their children, they are not capable, or have enough education themselves to homeschool their own kids. Capability and ability are different. This is where various homeschool structures now available come into
play. Some of the homeschool groups support each other by purchasing, as a group, outside professional support. Some parents are willing to share their talents with other homeschool groups. And, much online support is available. For any homeschool structure you choose, resources can probably be found to make it work. If convenience or cost are not barriers, resources will provide most parents with the capability to homeschool their children; yet they may not have the ability to do so (see ‘Convenience’ section)
Part Two: Two Schooling Options
Traditional School
There are four very similarly structured traditional (i.e., non-homeschool) education options from which to choose. Each option is capable of providing a sound education. And, they have in common the ability to provide both babysitting and oversight services for your child should your lifestyle need that service: You just drop your kids off in the morning and picked them up at night(or they take the bus).
Cost is the main variable between these groups. Quality of the education received is a variable that is not strictly dependent upon the category the school falls in, but varies within each category. The quality of education can vary significantly.
Public Schools
This includes the government-run school districts that cover pre-K through 12thyeareducation. These are referred to as “free public school” because the expenses are paid for by taxes collected, not by the parents. The services are definitely not ‘free’.Free public school is probably the most expensive option as far as the average cost per student is concerned.
Genesee County has eight (8) school districts, Monroe County has twenty (20) school districts, four (4) of which are in (or partially in) the 139th Assembly District, and Orleans County has five (5) school districts. (See Appendix i)
Charter Schools
This option will provide have the feel of an elaborate extension of the public-school system. The students allowed to participate have stricter oversight rules. Charter schools are part of the free public school system. They are independently-operated, funded mostly by the school district taxes. Their benefit is that have more freedom to design classes to meet students’ needs, provide more educational options, and present parents with options to take a more active role in their child’s education. Statistically, charter schools are
much less expensive than public schools per child, which is a big plus for the taxpayer.
In the 139thAssembly District, there are no charter schools yet established. A website that might provide some background and be a starting point to investigate these types of educational systems is https://www.racschool.com/.
Private school
This option is more expensive for the parent because you will incur tuition expenses of thousands of dollars-with no reduction in your public-school real estate tax bill.This may not be an option for parents in this district since the only school located that could be considered non-schooldistrict dependent, that did not have a religious foundation, was BOCES. (Appendix ii)
Religious school
Religious schools have the ability to provide courses dealing with religious beliefs. Otherwise religious schools are similar to private schools in the way they function. A list of the religious schools in the district can be found in Appendix iii.
Caution: The Corvid19 crisis is throwing a cog into the primary benefit of public-schooling. With the implementation of alternate school days and remote classes, parents are going to be responsible for the oversight responsibilities regardless of the decisions they make. This removes the benefit for parents struggling with the ‘convenience’ issue.
Homeschool
Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states. There are many internet sites I can recommend if you are just beginning your investigations into homeschooling. Two recommended sites you should first visit are:
https://www.publicschoolreview.com/
The first site, the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, provides much information and support for homeschoolers. The second site, the “Public School Review”, has a video worth watching, especially if you believe your child or children are considered to be problem kids at school, need extra help, have difficulty learning, or are advanced learners being held back.
Athirdsite worth perusing to gain some facts about the homeschooling is actually a video:
It provides much valuable information and advice for parents looking at the homeschool alternative educational system. Here is a citation from that site: “Parents are required to choose or create an educational curriculum that meets certain educational standards set forth by the state. As long as those standards are met, however, parents have more educational liberty with homeschooling than with public schools. Students may have more opportunities to choose what they learn with homeschooling, and they can learn at their own pace without having to keep up with more advanced students. Homeschool gives parents the opportunity to incorporate religion into their child’s education and it may promote a closer family atmosphere as well.”
To see how innovative homeschooling sites can be, check out this site and see how different, interesting, and effective online learning can be:
https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/What-is-an-Enigma
There is much interaction between homeschool organizations: curriculum swaps, parents with special skills willing to share their talents,…. The potential for variety is enormous because homeschooling is different. It is not the public-school day structure. The educational process will become challenging and rewarding for both the child and the parent. The freedom of homeschooling, when, where, etc., are limitless. The flexibility of the system has made homeschooling possible for many single working parents. The advice that seems to be universal from the homeschooling parents is, “Talk to other homeschoolers in your area.”They will be able to provide you with information about what is locally available for support. They also point out that with homeschooling the parent can make the educational and medical decisions for their children, not the government, and not the teacher. If parents desire, they can incorporate coursework that is not included in public schools, such as religious education or in-depth studies on specific topics of interest to the child.
This is a shortlist of the different homeschool educational structure options that already exist. Keep in mind, all require more participation on the part of the parent than the public-school options listed above.
– Family Grouping, taking turns teaching each other’s kids
– Hiring a Tutor
– Homeschooling (government certified type)
– Homeschooling (individualized)
– Traditional Community Schoolhouse(multi-age group class structure)
– Hybridinstructions
– Online classes
– Professional educational services
The structures vary dramatically in expense, but they all have an expectation that the parent(s)will participate. One of the benefits of the homeschool structure is that families can change the structure to meet the needs of the parent and student and to do so fairly quickly.
Homeschooling has many online resources available. In most communities, there are many physical services available to support parents who choose to homeschool their kids.
Homeschooling Online Resources
The American Education Institute (AEI) website is the fifth listed in Appendix iv, below. It makes available many physical school supplies and fixtures, along with educational tools and other offerings. Othersiteslistedoffer other types of support. Some sites offer free services, some claim government certification for their programs, and some even claim to offer government payment of the expenses. This list does not even scratch the surface of what is available to support homeschool.
There are many websites that specialize in courses dedicated to just one technology or science. The two sites listed at the end of Appendix iv specialize in piano tuning and HTML computer programing.
Concluding Comments
Our governments have created a massive, expensive, and ineffective educational system. Students are not receiving the education needed for today’s technological society. Many are not even receiving the basic education needed to be functional in normal business. The inability of the system to produce a better well-rounded product has led to some school districts resorting to bragging about incremental, and potentially temporary, increases in graduation rates: One district broadcast that, last year,40 out of 100 students did not graduate(a 60% graduation rate–up from a 50+% the year before). But, this year, proudly broadcasted that only 35 students out of 100 students will not be graduating(an increase to 65% graduation rate). Our tax dollars are being used to produce a pathetic outcome.
If the educational system pursued and achieved the business quality standard for education, a quality standard of Sigma6, they would be bragging that only 1 person out of the last 100,000 students to pass through the school system did not graduate with functional high school education. In business terms, Sigma six refers to one (1)deficient, or defective item in 100,000items produced. In business terms, schools are producing an educational product with a quality rating of Sigma 1.6, where sigma 1 is equivalent to every item being defective, and Sigma 2 is one item out of every ten being defective and non-functional. The school system falls between these two levels of quality, which, as I said, I view as pathetic. Schools should be striving for an educational quality standard greater six sigma. Homeschooling can achieve this goal and will be commonplace in our society in the future out of necessity.
Political Comments
Our governments have created a massive, expensive, and ineffective educational system. Students not obtaining the education needed for today’s technological society. Many are not even receiving the basic education needed to survive without a massive welfare system to support them through life.
We need to promote efficiencies in education. Schools should be working to aggressively use and adopt the educational technologies and opportunities that private enterprise has developed and now offer. They need to stop consuming resources on old practices that have proven to be ineffective at producing a sigma six quality educational product. The effectiveness and efficiencies of homeschooling will make the practice commonplace in the future.
When elected to office, I will work
– to remove the barriers to homeschooling,
– to eliminate funding inequalities between homeschool and public school,
– to create a functional educational environment that addresses our technological needs,
– to support efficiencies in education, and
– toward the goal of ensuring taxes collected for education are used wisely.
My ultimate objective is to eliminate the real-estate based school tax
Mark Glogowski, Ph.D.
Libertarian Candidate, 139thElection District.
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Appendix i
|
Public School listings in Assembly District 139District name |
City |
County name |
Pre-school |
Elementary School |
Middle school |
Charter School |
High School |
Total Schools |
|
Alexander Central School District |
Alexander |
Genesee |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Batavia City School District |
Batavia |
Genesee |
1 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
4 |
|
Byron-Bergen Central School District |
Bergen |
Genesee |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Elba Central School District |
Elba |
Genesee |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Le Roy Central School District |
Le Roy |
Genesee |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Oakfield-Alabama Central School District |
Oakfield |
Genesee |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Pavilion Central School District |
Pavilion |
Genesee |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Pembroke Central School District |
Corfu |
Genesee |
0 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
|
Brockport Central School District |
Brockport |
Monroe |
1 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
5 |
|
Churchville-Chili Central School District |
Churchville |
Monroe |
0 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
5 |
|
Hilton Central School District |
Hilton |
Monroe |
2 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
5 |
|
Spencerport Central School District |
Spencerport |
Monroe |
0 |
4 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
6 |
|
Albion Central School District |
Albion |
Orleans |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
|
Holley Central School District |
Holley |
Orleans |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Kendall Central School District |
Kendall |
Orleans |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Lyndonville Central School District |
Lyndonville |
Orleans |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
Medina Central School District |
Medina |
Orleans |
1 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
3 |