Sweden Moves to Ban Homeschooling

This post is being edited because I misread the article I linked to. Sweden is using the European Convention for Human Rights to ban homeschooling. I misread that as being the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child.

Despite misreading which Convention was being discussed. My concerns remain.

Back in June, I posted about my concerns (which are shared by many) about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Just one part of my concern is how this could be used to affect, even outlaw, homeschooling if it becomes ratified here in the US. Many people feel that having these concerns is silly. The purpose of the Convention is to protect children from abuse and slavery, not affect our parenting and schooling rights.

The European Convention is similar to the UN Convention in that they both were supposedly designed to protect human rights. The European one covers human rights in general, where the UN one is specific to children. They both cover things like the right to an education, the right to religious thought, the right to freedom from slavery, etc. Yet, they both pose a risk of limiting rights.

The European Convention is now being used to ban homeschooling in Sweden even though the clause below appears, to me anyway, to be one that would protect the right to homeschool:

Protocol 1, Article 2 - education

Article 2 provides for the right not to be denied an education and the right for parents to have their children educated in accordance with their religious and other views. It does not however guarantee any particular level of education of any particular quality.

If the European Convention provides for the right of parents to have their children educated in accordance with the religious and other views, how can this same Convention be used to remove the right to homeschool for religious and philosophical views? It seems contradictory, doesn't it? Yet, that's what they are doing.

Of course, the protocol portions of the convention are not required to be adopted by every state party that adopts the convention. Only the articles need be followed. However, it is understood that state parties should be party adopt as many protocols as possible. Perhaps Sweden decided against this protocol.

It doesn't matter, though, because Article 9 provides for freedom of thought, conscious, and religion, including the right to manifest that religion in worship, teaching, practice, and observance. You could include homeschooling in that article easily. Many homeschool in order to manifest their religious beliefs in teaching, practice, and observance. Still Sweden is removing that option for homeschoolers there.

Swedish families are, of course, not happy about this development. To make matters worse, the Swedish school system apparently leaves much to be desired.

See this article for more information.

So, I ask this:

If one human rights convention can be used against homeschoolers despite it containing language that would provide for homeschooling in a variety of ways, what's to stop another human rights convention being used against homeschoolers. They are both similar documents with similar purposes. Yet, instead of protecting the rights of those under them, they are use to remove the rights of those under them.

Do we really want to give the UN, and the socialist governments in them, that much power over OUR rights?

Response to "A Case Against Homeschooling"

A recent blog post written by Jesse Scaccia at Teacher Revised is getting a lot of attention from all over the internet. In his post, this self-proclaimed education expert gives ten reasons why he believes parents are wrong to home school their children. His reasons are intolerant (to use a favorite word of those with a liberal agenda), arrogant, and obvious uninformed. Since there is just too much to respond to, I decided to bring my response here rather than the comments section of Teacher Revised. The italicized text are his words, followed by my personal opinions and thoughts.

10. “You were totally home schooled” is an insult college kids use when mocking the geeky kid in the dorm (whether or not the offender was home schooled or not). And… say what you will… but it doesn’t feel nice to be considered an outsider, a natural outcropping of being homeschooled.

I do not understand the thought behind this argument. Should the education of children be based on how public schooled young adults bully other kids? Perhaps, rather than using this argument to try to convince parents to enroll their children into public school, we should teach those who are already in public school proper manners and tolerance.

9. Call me old-fashioned, but a students’ classroom shouldn’t also be where they eat Fruit Loops and meat loaf (not at the same time I hope). It also shouldn’t be where the family gathers to watch American Idol or to play Wii. Students–from little ones to teens–deserve a learning-focused place to study. In modern society, we call them schools.

If this is true, then why do schools send children home with copious amounts of homework to be completed where the students eat Fruit Loops and meal loaf? Shouldn't those same schools be focused on getting that teaching and learning done in that very same "learning-focused place of study?"

It comes down to whether or not children are able to learn adequately at home, and study after study has proven that they can. Not only can home schooled students learn adequately where they eat their Fruit Loops and meatloaf, but they are excelling and surpassing their counterparts who are spending 6 1/2 hours in a learning-focused place of study. Thus, your argument has no merit whatsoever.

8. Homeschooling is selfish. According to this article in USA Today, students who get homeschooled are increasingly from wealthy and well-educated families. To take these (I’m assuming) high achieving students out of our schools is a disservice to our less fortunate public school kids. Poorer students with less literate parents are more reliant on peer support and motivation, and they greatly benefit from the focus and commitment of their richer and higher achieving classmates.

Unfortunately, the author of the USA Today article which you link to has learned, too well, the lesson of how to lie with statistics. Voddie Baucham provides a brief argument against the USA Today article, complete with proper citations. Here are some of his arguments in brief:

What USA Today called "higher-income" actually matches the median income, and is well-below the mean income, according to the census bureau.

The story also fails to mention that the median income in 1999 was substantially lower than the median income now, which means everyone has a higher income now, not just home schoolers.

According to the Hoover Institute, 25% of higher income families choose government-run schools where only 22% of families in that same income bracket choose home schooling.

The USA Today article also states that home schoolers are increasingly white. Yes, the percentage of white families who home school have increased from 2% to 4%. However, the article ignores the fact that minority families who home school have increased by 20%.

When looking at statistics, one must look at all of the statistics. By looking at the rest of the story, it is easy to see that the author of that article was obvious using statistics to lie about home schooling trends and is, thus, not a good source of information.

7. God hates homeschooling. The study, done by the National Center for Education Statistics, notes that the most common reason parents gave as the most important was a desire to provide religious or moral instruction. To the homeschooling Believers out there, didn’t God say “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”? Didn’t he command, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me”? From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord to the common people. (Personally I’m agnostic, but I’m just saying…)

Since you admit to being agnostic, I suggest you consider actually reading the Bible before attempting to state what it says. The Bible has much to say on the raising of children. Many Scriptures tell us that children belong to God and are given to parents, not the public school system, to raise. Further, it tells us to bring up our children in nurture and admonishment of the Lord, something that public schools are not allowed to do because of separation of church and state. It tells us to teach [the Lord's commands] diligently to our children while we sit in our house, while we walk by the way, while we lie, and while we rise up. It certainly sounds like we are to spend our day, our entire day, teaching our children. We can't do that if they spend a majority of their waking time away from us.

To respond directly to your argument about being witnesses, I say that it does not apply to children because they are not yet equipped to be witnesses to the world. To send out a child before they are adequately prepared, means we'd be sending our children out to be influenced rather than to be an influence. That is why we must first teach them diligently while we sit, while we walk, while we lie, and while we rise. If we do a good job teaching them, they will grow to become the witnesses that God has called them to become.

6. Homeschooling parent/teachers are arrogant to the point of lunacy. For real! My qualifications to teach English include a double major in English and education, two master’s degrees (education and journalism), a student teaching semester and multiple internship terms, real world experience as a writer, and years in the classroom dealing with different learning styles. So, first of all, homeschooling parent, you think you can teach English as well as me? Well, maybe you can. I’ll give you that. But there’s no way that you can teach English as well as me, and biology as well as a trained professional, and history… and Spanish… and art… and counsel for college as well as a school’s guidance counselor… and… and…

Honestly, it sounds as if you are the one that suffers from arrogance with the way you spout off your supposed credentials. In my experience, qualifications don't make a person a good teacher. Plenty of people may be "experts" in their field, yet still be unable to teach adequately. The best teacher isn't one who has the most knowledge in a certain field, but rather the one who cares the most about the student. It is the latter who will alter her teaching style to fit the student's individual needs, seek out the best teachers/mentors/tutors to fill in the gaps she cannot teach, spend hours locating the curriculum and books that will best help her student, etc. To be my child's best teacher, I don't need to know English, biology, history, Spanish, or art. I need to be willing and able to find the best curriculum, books, classes, and mentors who will help me teach these subjects to my children.

Again, the evidence to this is already available. If public school is the best educational choice for all children, the proof would be in the results. The results, however, show the opposite it usually true. Home school students consistently out perform public school students...on annual assessment tests, on college admission tests, in competitions

5. As a teacher, homeschooling kind of pisses me off. (That’s good enough for #5.)

Well, that is pretty obvious from the tone of your article. I suspect that this reason alone means that you cannot be persuaded to take an objective look at home schooling.

4. Homeschooling could breed intolerance, and maybe even racism. Unless the student is being homeschooled at the MTV Real World house, there’s probably only one race/sexuality/background in the room. How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesn’t live among them?

I will agree that homeschooling could breed intolerance and racism; however, those families that teach that are a very small minority of home schoolers. The majority of home schoolers, however, are better able to appreciate other cultures because we are out interacting with a diverse world in a respectful manner rather than being sequestered in classrooms limited to same-age peers, in schools that are often segregated by socioeconomic class. Public school students learn and live with bullying based on gender, race, intelligence, cliques, etc., as evidenced by your own admission in reason number ten.

3. And don’t give me this “they still participate in activities with public school kids” garbage. Socialization in our grand multi-cultural experiment we call America is a process that takes more than an hour a day, a few times a week. Homeschooling, undoubtedly, leaves the child unprepared socially.

Again, there is evidence to the contrary. Studies show that home school children often have better socialization skills and are more mature than their public school counterparts. Further, research shows that home school graduates fair better than public school graduates in many areas of social success. Home school graduates hold a wide variety of jobs, are more active and involved in their communities, are more civically active, and are more content with their lives than their public schooled counterparts.

2. Homeschooling parents are arrogant, Part 2. According to Henry Cate, who runs the Why Homeschool blog, many highly educated, high-income parents are “probably people who are a little bit more comfortable in taking risks” in choosing a college or line of work. “The attributes that facilitate that might also facilitate them being more comfortable with home-schooling.”

More comfortable taking risks with their child’s education? Gamble on, I don’t know, the Superbowl, not your child’s future.

I take this statement to mean that they are more willing to do what is best for their children rather than doing what the rest of society is doing. We are willing to look at our options and evaluate which is best for each of our children, rather than blindly throw them to the wolves. If all the arguments and evidence is for home schooling, it is not an unreasonable risk to take. Further, I can reevaluate my choice as we go, and if it is not working out to my child's best interest, I can take another route.

1. And finally… have you met someone homeschooled? Not to hate, but they do tend to be pretty geeky***.

*** Please see the comments for thoughts on the word ‘geeky.’ But, in general, to be geeky connotes a certain inability to integrate and communicate in diverse social situations. Which, I would argue, is a likely result of being educated in an environment without peers. It’s hard to get by in such a diverse world as ours! And the more people you can hang out with the more likely you are to succeed, both in work life and real life.

Most home schooled children, in my experience, do not meet your definition of "geeky". Further, there are plenty of "geeky" children in public school. Is it the school that caused them to become this way? Of course not! Children come in a wide variety of personalities, with a wide variety of interests. Unfortunately, some less educated folk would consider those who are interested in academics to be geeky while those who are most interested in sports or "fitting in" to be not geeky.

Your last statement is actually a pro homeschooling argument. Rather than hanging out with the same 20-30 children day in and day out for 180 days of the year, home school children are interacting with more people who come from more diverse backgrounds than that found in the typical grade x classroom. Contrary to your belief, home school children are not being educated in an environment devoid of peers...their peers are just more diverse than those found in public school. Further, research shows that home school graduates are more likely to succeed, both in work and in life.

There is one point that I will agree with you on, and that is that public school is the better choice for some children. However, I will not concede that public school is the best choice for all, or even most, children.

I challenge you, Mr. Scaccia, to do some research on the subject. Perhaps, you will find that your uneducated opinions on home schooling are wrong.

Aggrevating, I Am

I have this rather fun, for me, habit of annoying my daughter when giving her spelling tests.

You know how the teacher usually says the word and then uses it in a sentence. Well, I like to use the words in a sentence, too. However, I like to have even more fun with it and use as many of the previous words in that list in the sentence as well. The sentences get quite goofy and become run-ons after a while. The goofier they get, the more she rolls her eyes at me. And I love it when she rolls her eyes at me; it just makes me want to do it more.

It goes something like this:

squirrels - Mika likes feeding the squirrels.

temperature - Mika enjoys feeding the squirrels outside unless the temperature is too cold.

suddenly - Mika was feeding the squirrels outside until the temperature suddenly became cold.

finally - Mika was finally able to feed the squirrels because the temperature suddenly become warmer.

really - Mika was really happy that she was finally able to feed the squirrels now that the temperature was suddenly warm enough.

...and so on.

Which Kind of Ground Beef is a better value?

Have you ever wondered if the higher fat ground beef is really cheaper? I mean, it cost so much less per pound but after you have browned it there seems to be so much grease and so little meat left. Could it be that all that savings is being thrown away as grease?

Well I have, so I decided to find out...and I made it a science experiment for the kids (with help, of course). We followed the scientific method, wrote down our data and observations, and are now sharing our results and conclusions with you.

This experiment is assuming that we care ONLY about the price. I am assuming we don't care about the fat content or possible health affects of eating higher fat meat.

We measured out exactly 1 pound 0 ounces of each kind of ground beef. We had 7%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 27%. I didn't notice at the store, but the 10% was ground sirloin instead of ground beef. With each one, we browned it. Once it was completely cooked, I strained it pressing the meat against the strainer until it was as thoroughly strained as I could get it. Then we weighed the beef again to see how much we had left. Here's what we found:

7% yielded 10.75oz
10% yielded 11.875oz
15% yielded 9.75oz
20% yielded 10.5oz
27% yielded 9.375oz

I was surprised at how close they all were.

This is how much raw ground beef you would have to buy if you wanted a pound of cooked meat.
7% -1.49 lbs
10% - 1.35 lbs
15% - 1.64 lbs
20% - 1.52 lbs
27% - 1.69 lbs

To find out which package of meat gives you the better value, multiple the corresponding number above by the price per pound for each package you are comparing. Buy the package that gives you the lowest answer.

In our experiment, which compared full retail price at our local Safeway, the 27% fat was the best value by far.

This was our adjusted costs:
7% was $7.43 for one pound of cooked meat.
10% was $6.72 for one pound of cooked meat
15% was $6.55 for one pound of cooked meat
20% was $5.32 for one pound of cooked meat
27% was $4.27 for one pound of cooked meat

I tell you, this problem has bugged me off and on for years. Now I know.

Do you think I'm a total geek now? LOL

A Royal Breakfast

Saturday night we were reading The BFG for our usual bedtime read aloud when we came to a chapter called "The Royal Breakfast". The kids didn't want to stop reading but it was 10pm and I had already been reading for an hour. So, I made this deal with the kids:

I would make a royal breakfast of our own the next morning, serving the same foods that the BFG and Sophie would be eating with the Queen of England, and read the chapter while we ate.

They agreed. The next morning we enjoyed fried eggs, fried potatoes, bacon, sausage, and toast with jam. I substituted orange juice for the coffee. In between bites, I read the chapter, which we enjoyed immensely.


Here we are enjoying our royal breakfast. Hubby joined us. BTW, he was sticking his tongue out until he realized I'd probably post the photo anyway, so he thought better of it.

We've now finished the book. We enjoyed it very much. We're reading Danny The Champion of the World by the same author next because it has a whole chapter with the BFG in it. Sounded like fun.

National History Day Winner

I didn't even know that there was a National History Day or that there was a contest associated with it that came with a full college scholarship(to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH) for the winner until just a few minutes ago. I opened my email and found the news release from the Washington State Historical Society, which is the coordinating agency for the state of Washington.

The contest is for students in grades 6 through 12. A theme is selected and students must research and present their topic within the theme. They can chose how they present their material: paper, documentary, website, performance, or exhibit.

Why am I posting about this here? A few reasons it is appropriate for this blog come to mind. The contest is education related. It is open to all students, including homeschoolers. And, the most exciting reason for me is that a homeschooler won. Good job Amy, Audrey, and mom! I'm just tickled for your whole family.

Subway Update

It was interesting to see that Subway's contest website has corrected the spelling errors that we (as in homeschoolers) noticed so quickly. There are no more bastkets and Untied States now.

On a more serious note...

Apparently, Scholastic (who is also a sponsor of this contest) has posted a public apology on several homeschool forums. While they include Subway in their apology, it is not apparent that Subway has, themselves, apologized. American Thinker covers the full story of the contest, the backlash, the apology, and a previous blunder made by Subway with a similar backlash.

Another thing homeschoolers can do...

I printed the contest page and highlighted the home school exclusion clause and took it to them. The woman I spoke with agreed that it was unfair to exclude homeschooled kids. She wants to let her regional manager and owner know about the contest and its exclusion, the response to it in in the homeschool community, and how it could hurt their business. Perhaps if Subway corporate received pressure from their franchise owners they'll change their practices.

So, it might be a good idea to visit your local Subways and let them know what's going on.

Boycott Subway

Sprittibee just posted about this on her website. Here's what I have to say about it.

Until today, we frequently ate at Subway. Twice a week, we are at the YMCA, which has a Subway in it. Often we have lunch there or even just a snack. Sometimes, we'll eat there as a family when we are out and about on one of our many field trips. Not anymore.

Subway is hosting a story-writing contest . Here's how you enter. Parents have their kids write a story that has a beginning, middle, and an end using one of their rather cheesy story starters or the parent and child can write the story together. If possible, they would like your story to include details describing random acts of fitness. The grand prize is athletic equipment for your child's school ($5000 value), scholastic gift basket for your home, a $100 Subway card, and your story published on their website and in Parent & Child magazine. Six runners up will receive a scholastic gift basket and $50 Subway card. Every entry submitted with a Subway receive will receive a free Scholastic book. Sounds good. There's a problem, though. Here is an excerpt from their contest details page (emphasis mine):

2. ELIGIBILITY. Contest is open only to legal residents of the United States who are currently over the age of 18 and have children who attend elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted.

Well, that's interesting. How very discriminatory of them!

Perhaps the problem is that the grand prize includes $5000 of athletic equiptment, clearly enough for a large group. However, they could have just as easily offered homeschoolers enough equipment for the family and donated the rest to the family's organization of choice. Family's could have chosen a homeschool organization or co-op, a church, a Boys and Girls Club, or even the local school. I'm sure homeschoolers would be more than willing to bless their public school friends with some of their winnings. There's no valid reason to exclude them.

I sent off a note to them using their customer service letting them know how I feel and that they'll be losing our business unless they change the contest rules or offer a comparable contest for homeschoolers only and publish a public apology for the discrimination. If this discriminatory practice bothers you, tell them about it and then spread the word.

Update: Sign the pettition! With over 360 832 signatures already, Subway will get the message. Thanks Tammy for letting me know about it.

Positive News

Recent video about homeschooling on cbs.com.

I enjoyed this one because it fits everything I agree with.