Tag Archives: home schooling

Only Some Immigrants Are Really Welcome

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On September 25th, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about the Romeike family. This family fled Germany in 2008 because the German government would not allow them to home-school their children.

The article reports:

The Romeike family fled Germany in 2008 after authorities cracked down on the practice of home-schooling, and applied for asylum in the US. Initially, a judge granted their asylum request, but when the Obama administration appealed the decision, that started a long legal odyssey that may have come to an end late last week:

The family moved to the U.S. from Germany in 2008. Their application for asylum said they were fined by the German government roughly $9,000 after homeschooling their children, court documents show.

An immigration judge initially granted the family’s application for asylum. The U.S. Department of Justice appealed the decision, and the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals revoked the family’s asylum status, documents show.

The family, with the help of the U.S. Home School Defense Association, appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel unanimously ruled against the family.

“They have not shown that Germany’s enforcement of its general school-attendance law amounts to persecution against them,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the court.

Did the Biden administration find out that they might be conservative Christians?

Please follow the link to read the rest of the article.

This is ridiculous. We have an open southern border that is letting in murderers, terrorists, cartel members, gang members, etc., and the government had decided to deport a family that includes American citizens. What level of insanity is this?

Homeschoolers, Pay Attention

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On Sunday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a proposed law in Maryland.

The article reports:

If we have learned anything about left-wing cultural revolutionaries over the past few years and decades, it’s that they insist that all conform to their view of “diversity.”

All are welcome, except for those who disagree.

That’s why it’s so troubling to see government authorities rope in, and attempt to control, people attempting to maintain their independence.

Maryland Delegate Sheila Ruth, a Baltimore County Democrat, recently proposed legislation in the Maryland House of Delegates that would create a deeply worrisome “advisory council” to watch over and gather data on homeschool families.

The 16-seat council would be staffed by four political appointees, four government officials, and eight members of the homeschool community. It would “gather information on the needs of homeschool parents and homeschool umbrella schools,” and would effectively sweep homeschool parents under the wing of a government agency.

This is precisely the sort of thing many homeschool parents wanted to avoid when they chose that path for their children in the first place.

The article notes:

The advisory council—whatever its current stated intent—could easily be used to browbeat homeschool families.

“They’ll pass more restrictive rules on us and say, ‘It was suggested by homeschooling families themselves! We have a council!’ (That they chose.),” Mandel wrote.

The Home School Legal Defense Association, a legal support group for homeschoolers based in neighboring Virginia, also warned about the potential for abuse by the proposed advisory board.

“This bill would create a quasi-official source for information on homeschooling, which would, in turn, minimize the effectiveness of grassroots homeschool groups and individual advocates,” HSLDA noted in a statement.

Homeschooling has thrived for decades without government assistance. Instead of creating a new bureaucratic entity to gather information on the needs of homeschool programs, HSLDA encourages government entities and actors to respect homeschooling programs by preserving liberty and avoiding unnecessary regulation.

The legislation was so worrisome that a group of members of the Maryland General Assembly called for the bill to be withdrawn.

The article concludes:

An agency constructed to “gather information” and staffed by political appointees could quickly turn into a governmental hammer to bludgeon homeschool parents into looping their children into the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

It should be no surprise that this effort comes as parents around the country have begun to protest the curriculums and policies of public schools, both for their embrace of critical race theory—or whatever they want to call its associated ideas—and absurdly restrictive COVID-19 policies.

The left’s attitude is that they have an inherent right to indoctrinate your children. Any attempt to stop them from doing so, from within the public school system or from without, is treated as illegitimate.

That’s why what’s happening in Maryland is so concerning and a sign of things to come.

They want you and your family to comply with the cultural revolution that’s sweeping our institutions. They won’t let you go. They don’t want you to have a choice until all your choices are the same.

This is a law that needs to be buried permanently.

When Parents Had A Chance To See What Their Children Were Learning

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The past school year was a challenge in many ways. Many school districts were closed to in-classroom learning totally or had a mixture of on-line and in-classroom learning. Parents had to make arrangements to work and teach their children at the same time. It was challenging. However, there was one benefit–many parents got a good look at what their children were learning. Many parents didn’t like what they saw.

Don Surber posted an article on his blog yesterday about the consequences of the educational events of last year.

The article reports:

The Epoch Times reported, “Homeschool Applications Double In California.”

The story said, “The number of home school applications submitted to the California Department of Education soared during the 2020-2021 school year, state data indicates.

“There were 34,715 private school affidavits (PSAs) for five children or less submitted during the most recent curricular year. In California, homeschools are recognized as private schools, and homeschooling families are required to submit an affidavit to the DOE annually.

…The numbers are minuscule in a state of 40 million or so people.

However, the rest of the nation is in rebellion against public schools.

The story said, “Between spring and fall of 2020, the percentage of homeschoolers nationwide more than doubled, jumping from 5.4% to 11.1% in less than four months.”

The parents of 1 in 9 students believe public schools are so terrible that they would rather keep the kids home and teach them themselves.

The article notes a statistic that must be chilling to Democrats and Teachers’ Unions:

“In African American households, the proportion of homeschooling quintupled from 3.3% in spring 2020, to 16.1% in fall 2020.

“In Hispanic households, the number of homeschooling households doubled in the same time, from 6.2% to 12.1%.”

You can be darned sure parents aren’t teaching their kids CRT. Why, some may even be reading The Bible.

The article concludes:

PBS reported, “If schools fail to secure the trust of parents, advocates and educators worry that the public education system could see a falloff in enrollment, particularly among families of color. Some advocates also fear that schools faced with a larger proportion of students who are struggling or frequently absent will respond with overly punitive approaches, worsening racial inequality.”

Translation: Black parents must sacrifice their children for the sake of the community, comrade.

The covid push to homeschool is interesting. Black families are more likely to homeschool now than Hispanic families who are more likely than whites who are more likely than Asians.

That is the reverse of academic performance.

My guess is black schools are losing their best students. My guess is that those students will perform better. And my third guess is they won’t be liberal.

When I posted this article on Facebook, I got some very negative comments about children who were home schooled. I found that interesting since the children I know that are a product of home schooling have done very well–one is a Marine Corps veteran, one has a photography business, one is a successful computer programmer, one has a landscaping business, one has a power-washing business, one is a successful model, one owns a restaurant, and others have done equally well. Many of them continued their education in college and were successful in obtaining four-year degrees. I also find it interesting that many of the home-schooled children I know have started their own businesses.

 

Being Obstreperous Because You Can

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The tax bill the President signed today was a major victory for the President and those who supported it. The Democrats are looking a little unhappy about the whole thing. The real reasons the Democrats opposed the bill are most likely political, but there was one thing the Democrats changed in the bill that they need to be held accountable for.

Townhall posted an article about the tax bill today explaining how parents of children with disabilities and parents who homeschool were denied a benefit by Democrats.

The article reports:

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), one of the Senate’s most outspoken advocates for school choice, introduced an addition to the tax bill called the Student Opportunity Amendment. The amendment would expand 529 college savings plans to also include K-12 education, allowing parents and grandparents to use these tax-advantaged plans to save up to $10,000 per child per year for private schools, religious schools, or even homeschooling.

…However, Democrats weren’t about to let a beneficial piece of legislation pass without a fight. Party leaders ran to the Senate Parliamentarian to complain that the entire amendment ran afoul of the Byrd rule — another one of those arcane Senate rules that no one understands. But while the Parliamentarian disagreed with the Democrats’ argument about the majority of the provisions in the amendment, she unfortunately found their argument compelling when applied to homeschooling and struck the language from the bill.

In response, Senator Cruz rushed to the floor and pushed a Motion to Waive the Parliamentarian’s changes, which solely affected the homeschooling provision. This motion would require a 60-vote majority to succeed.

This is what happened next:

Nevertheless, not a single Democrat voted for Senator Cruz’s motion. Not one. The Democrats knowingly and proudly discriminated against homeschooled kids and kids with disabilities, in many cases destroying their access to quality education. Even by the Democrats’ woefully low standards, it was a shameful display.

Next time Democrats attempt to take the moral high ground on some issue related to education or welfare, Americans should remember exactly what they did here. When given the choice to help children with disabilities, they chose partisanship. When given the opportunity to make life better for millions of children, they chose to RESIST.

The actions of the Democrats in the Senate are truly despicable.