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April 11, 2005

At Least They're Admitting It

Here's a story entitled, "Public schools wooing home-schooled students."

One day after jazz band practice, 14-year-old Peter Wilson's band teacher pulled him aside.

The instructor wanted to know whether Peter, who is home-schooled alongside his three brothers, liked being taught by his mother, and why he didn't come to public school full-time, instead of just for music.

The teacher seemed uncomfortable bringing it up, and the conversation was brief, Peter said. When he got home, he told his parents.

Mark and Teckla Wilson, who are raising their four sons in Mark Wilson's roomy childhood home in this former timber town, soon found out to their annoyance that the teacher's questions were part of an effort by the Myrtle Point school district to persuade home-schooling families to give the public system a shot.

Enrollment has been dropping steadily as timber jobs have dried up, and Oregon's budget cuts have left Myrtle Point facing a $675,000 gap for next year. Since Oregon bases its state school funding on enrollment, every home-schooled child Myrtle Point can woo means an extra $5,000 or so. An estimated 100 youngsters living in the district are home-schooled.

Well, at least the school district is admitting that they are trying to woo home-schooled children in order to get more money, instead of pretending like they are really so terribly worried about those poor abused un-socialized children in the hands of crazy religious nuts their parents.

Of course their honesty about their motivations apparently doesn't seem to extend to honestly attracting children to the school. What parent is going to send their child back to public school because his band teacher tried to talk him into it? It's not like home-schooled children came home from school one day and said, "Mom, Dad, could you take me out of school please?" and the parents said, "hey, why the hell not." Home-schooling parents are generally trying to do what's best for their children, whether or not their children want it.

Of course, it appears the the school finally realized that.

After Mark Wilson complained, Myrtle Point officials told teachers not to try to recruit home-schooled students directly. Instead, parents got letters inviting them to a dinner to hear about the new classes the school is adding.

Smart move, too bad they didn't get it quite right this time either.

The fate of the school has provoked plenty of discussion in the town of 2,700, and prompted a tart opinion column by school board member Dal King in the weekly Myrtle Herald.

"Families who home school or choose to send their kids to other districts, we need your full support, not just what's convenient for you," King wrote. "While you may have good reasons, please do your part by enrolling your kids full-time in the district and don't just 'cherry-pick' music or sports."

Yeah, families who home-school are doing it because it's "convenient" for them. Really they should be doing the hard work of sending their children to public schools with worse academic standards, more behavior problems, and less personal attention so that the school district can get more money. Those selfish parents. Imagine, looking out for the interest of their children rather than the interest of the school district. I mean we all know school districts always spend their money responsibly and effectively, so much more so than any parent could possibly do.

Seriously though, I simply do not buy this argument that parents should put their children into public schools no matter what for reasons of egalitarianism and fairness. Parents first and foremost are supposed to do what is best for their children, not what is best for the entire world. Besides which, there's plenty of parents who don't believe that public schools are in any child's best interest.

I particularly liked this quote from the parent.

"We do this at some cost to ourselves," Mark Wilson said of home-schooling. "If the kids were all in school, my wife could get a job. To think that by offering us a few courses, by dining us, they could get us to say, 'Oh, never mind,' is unrealistic on their part."

Posted by illuminaria at April 11, 2005 07:51 PM

Comments

The school's appeal to the parents based on collectivist ideals shows they just don't get it.
That's the last thing home schooling parents want to hear, and will just drive them further away,
It's essentially a call to sacrifice their own children on the altar of statism and collectivism, both of which they oppose.

Posted by: dweeb at April 12, 2005 11:35 AM

First they try to proselytize the kids, under the assumption that the kids in are charge in the household. Then they tell home-schooling parents not to be so selfish, and to think of how they can better do their part for the public school system.

Way to erase those public school stereotypes, guys. That kind of approach is going to create more homeschoolers, not less.

Posted by: Kimberly at April 14, 2005 04:24 PM