From the LA Times as reported by the Pew Forum:
The Browning and Curto families, both of whom live in the South Bay, have embraced very different styles of education. But they now find themselves on the same side of a battle to continue teaching their children at home in the face of an appellate court ruling that home schooling in California must be conducted by credentialed instructors.
The February court decision is not being enforced pending appeals. The 2nd District Court of Appeal agreed last week to rehear the case in June, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to support new legislation allowing home schooling if the decision is not reversed. Meanwhile, the ruling has forged a rare alliance of religious and secular home schoolers.
I have a novel idea. Rather than fight the requirement to have credentials that basically license you to teach, why not just attain those credentials? It is a good thing to have training in pedagogy and learning. Why not attain the highest level of training you can to make yourself a better teacher for your children's sake? Why not become part of the community of teachers to learn from each other and have a deeper understanding of how to best help your children learn? Why not learn what the requirements are for accrediting agencies and have a better handle on what it is that colleges look for? The argument that a homeschooler should not need to have these credentials seems to reinforce mediocrity than to promote excellence in education.
The family's Christian faith was the primary reason they decided to home school.
"I felt it was something God called me to do for my children," Curto said.
She worries that in a public school, her children would be exposed to topics such as same-sex marriage or that holidays like Christmas would be marginalized…
But Curto insists that she has no interest in sheltering her children — she said she taught Caedyn about Darwinism alongside creationism.
Math comes next on the morning's agenda, with Chamberlain practicing subtraction while Caedyn does word problems.
Curto has designed most of the lessons, but the children are also in classes at Hope Chapel in Hermosa Beach: Chamberlain is taking knitting and volleyball; Caedyn is studying grammar and composition.
As they get older, the children will probably take academic classes such as high-level science through their church or a community college.
She is not sheltering her children…by sheltering them from the things to which they might be exposed in public school? This mitigates an important set of lessons that parents need to teach their children in addition to what they learn in schooling outside of the home – how to live a certain way in a world that is fundamentally different. My advice is to be excellent in your teaching. Fighting the requirement to get credentials is not practicing excellence at all but is establishing a pattern of mediocrity and selfishness with one's children.
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