DanishDynamite
Penultimate Amazing
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Home-schooling should be outlawed as the anachronism it is.
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California Court Rules Home-Schooling Parents Have to Be "Credentialed"
- Thread starter BPSCG
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What, you and your mom decided the proper use of capital letters, commas, and apostrophes wasn't "grade level stuff"?
No wonder you finished so fast. What else got left out?
WildCat
NWO Master Conspirator
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No, they "got" to the legislature back when the law requiring accredited teachers was passed.
WildCat
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If you lived, say, here in Chicago would you send your kids to a Chicago Public School?
And trust me, the curriculum is so dumbed down that even those that do graduate can barely write their own names.
DanishDynamite
Penultimate Amazing
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WildCat
NWO Master Conspirator
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And you aren't alone! When I first moved into the city over 15 years ago practically everyone I knew lived here also. Now the only ones left are those like me who don't have any children. As soon as those kids reach school age, off to the suburbs they go.
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Jimbo07
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As an aside, my wife has recently become enamoured of "text messaging." I'm such an old, stupid codger that I have great difficulty with it. I tend not to use apostrophes in text messages, because switching between text and symbol mode on my numeric keypad is time-consuming and annoying. I know how the stupid phones work, right down to the quantum mechanics of transistor action, but can I be bothered to use an apostrophe for contractions in my text messages? No.
Washington, D.C. is apparently on its second highly competent mayor in a row, after the catastrophic Marion Barry. Anthony Williams got the city on a sound financial footing again, and Adrian Fenty is showing he has little or no patience for entrenched bureaucrats and unions that serve its members at th expense of the public. Fenty's new school chancellor, Michelle Rhee, last week fired about a hundred DC school administration employees - but not a single teacher. It looks like DC's schools may finally be out of the hands of the bureaucrats and unions.
It looks like the adults are finally in charge of the DC schools.
It looks like the adults are finally in charge of the DC schools.
So the rates for "credentialedised" teachers should come down so any parent wanting to homeschooling their kids should be able to do so.
I do have to say that I think it is an obligation of a society to ensure kids are educated as well as possible regardless of the parent's wishes. However whether that means that "credentialed" people should be the only ones who can teach is of course an entirely different question.
So to try and understand whether this is a good thing or not exactly what is a "credentialed" person in the area the ruling would cover?
Typically -- I'm not sure of the exact details of CA licensure -- this would be a teaching licence, which requires formal training in both theory-of-pedgogy and the subject matter to be taught. (I.e. if you are going to be a high-school math teacher, you need to know mathematics, typically to a B.A. level or therebouts). It also requires practice teaching under the supervision of a credentialed teacher, and the passing of a test to assess these things. Some of these can be waived -- for example, with ten years of experience teaching at the college level, they might be willing to overlook the fact that I've never taken an education class in my life. I could almost certainly handlle high school algebra. But I'd be terrible as a first-grade teacher because I don't know enough developmental psych.
One of the main problems with homeschooling is that many (most) parents are teaching beyond their own expertise, and relying on "caned" products they buy off the internet to provide content. This practice is, of course, absolutely unacceptable when we're talking about professional teachers, but for some reason is to be encouraged among home schoolers?
Similarly, one of the reasons for the credentials (and coursework) is to understand how things go wrong -- e.g. how to spot an ADD child and how to devise an appropriate intervation program. This, again, is specialized training that almost all el-ed majors get to some extent (and they are all supposed to have specialists available as necessary),but few parents get.
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True, but the parents, OTOH, live with the kids 365 days a year (not 180 days), year after year (not just one year), for probably at least 12 hours a day (lot more than the 6-7 hours typical school day), and all their attention is focused on the one or two kids, (not divided up among twenty to thirty kids). Are the teacher's credentials sufficient to outweigh all that?
I'm not saying home schooling doesn't have its disadvantages, but I think this business about requiring the parents to be "credentialed" is a red herring. It reminds me of the silly laws that require hair braiders to take hundreds of hours of cosmetology courses and get cosmetology licenses when all they do is give women cornrow hairdos. In both cases, someone's losing business (teachers and beauticians) and they don't like it, so they get silly laws passed to protect their turf.
Is there any evidence that this ruling was passed because of pressure from teaching unions?
Well, let's see. Your wife lives with you 365+ days a year, year after year, and sees you for at least 12 hours a day.
Your dentist sees you for maybe two hours a year, tops.
Who would you rather have extract an impacted tooth of yours? Or even fill a cavity?
For bonus points, please explain why you want to see a surgeon instead of your wife if your appendix were to rupture.....
Beerina
Sarcastic Conqueror of Notions
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Not as far as I can tell.
The constitutional provision itself predates most of the teachers' unions and was probably created in reponse to a perceived lack of qualification of most parents. Both the lack and the perception are greatly reduced today (one benefit of the internet is that anyone can fake expertise on anything), but the law remains on the books.
Not if she can help it, she doesn't...
You're not really trying to tell me that teaching a 6-year old how to add or how to read is comparable in complexity as removing an appendix, are you?
Have you ever helped a third-grader with his science homework? Or did you feel compelled to call your local school board and have them send over a certified teacher?
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Beerina
Sarcastic Conqueror of Notions
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The alternative is that the government requires that people allow their children to be educated by the government. This smacks of indoctrination, regardless of how "anachronistic" that may be. Which, glancing around the world, clearly shows it is far from that, even in democracies.
Whoever teaches a child, be it a public school teacher, private school teacher, or homeschooling parent, should be required to possess a certain level of competency in all subjects they teach, and in teaching itself. Requiring the homeschooling parent to be (or hire) a fully credentialed teacher is perhaps overkill by a slight bit, due to the increased time they can spend with their "students". Perhaps instead a testing protocol should be introduced for both parents and children: Test the parents to make sure they're competent to teach the material, and test the children to make sure they're learning the material at a level comparable to what's expected of their peers.
I don't like the idea of parents that don't know the material they teach just using some prepackaged course - the person teaching should be competent with the material beyond the point to which they're teaching their student. If the student asks a question that goes beyond the "standard" material, the person teaching them should be able to answer it, or at least find an answer.
I don't like the idea of parents that don't know the material they teach just using some prepackaged course - the person teaching should be competent with the material beyond the point to which they're teaching their student. If the student asks a question that goes beyond the "standard" material, the person teaching them should be able to answer it, or at least find an answer.
Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
Even if there had been pressure, there wouldn't be any evidence of it.
Also, there was no pressure. Short of taking the judge's family hostage, there is very little a union can do to influence an appellate decision.
What's that "certain level of competency"?
Or to put it another way, what do you think that professional teachers should know, that parents who teach should not?
It's not like parents can pick and choose from among the curriculum -- "Oh, little Johnny won't need to know any mathematics, so I won't have to teach it to him." It's not like parents can pick and choose from among the possible medical conditions that they need to be aware of "Oh, little Johnny will never have hearing problems, so I don't need to be aware of the warning signs." I'd argue that teachers actually have it easier, since they have the array of specialists at their disposal. "Oh, Johnny will need to learn math, but Mrs. MacGillicudy is our math specialist and sees him three days a week, so I can concentrate on reading instruction."