Well to start off this random topic spot, I will introduce the subject of homeschooling and distance learning.
My husband and I homeschool all five of our children.
Homeschooling was not an educational choice that we had ever really planned for our children. Given the situation that we found ourselves presented with, we simply saw it as our only viable option.
Our school district is not alone in the US policy of educational sub-standards. It seems that whenever a good idea for improving this current situation is proposed, "the powers that be" step in and make it worse. Our elementary school is only 2 years old, and is so overcrowded that they are forced to increase the class sizes beyond the teachers ability to effectively teach, let alone control. Our nation's teachers are grossly under-paid, and ridiculously over-stretched. They have been reduced to nothing more than baby-sitters who would enjoy an opportunity to educate our children, although we as parents have rendered them virtually incapable of controlling our obnoxiously spoiled, weapon toting children. The attitude and behavior of most of the students that I have come into contact with is akin to something that you would find straight off the pages of"Lord of the Flies". Could we collectively stop blaming the teachers and the administrators and start looking towards our own responsibility in the situation?
On the bright side, our local high school gives a proficiency test to graduating seniors to be sure that they are ready to graduate. The down side is that this proficiency exam at a 7th grade level. If a high school senior must pass a 7th grade proficiency exam in order to graduate, what was the point of the additional 5 years of schooling? Could we not have simply tested them in the 7th grade? I am unclear.
Our decision was to leave the utterly ruined public education system behind.
Our first homeschooling student was going into 8th grade before we brought her home to learn. We then pulled our two 6th graders a year later, and finally our 5th grader and 2nd grader.
We enjoy a much more peaceful home and family now. We enjoy parenting a great deal more than we ever thought possible. Our children will have a richer educational experience than most public schools can afford them, and we like the freedom that we are now allowed to have. They will more than likely go to college at a standard campus, but the opportunity to educate them up to that point is amazing. I can't begin to list all of the benefits of learning in an environment that caters specifically to each student's strengths and weaknesses. I only wish that we had started sooner.