The utter insanity of blaming teachers only and letting parents and students off the hook.

[exboyfil]

28. I agree that I am sickened by children

who throw away an expensive education because they do not participate in the process. We are spending $250K over the K-12 for the child, and parents and students that do not appreciate that expenditure should be criticized. At the end of the day I think that is at the heart of the homeschool and charter/voucher movement. With homeschooling the garbage associated with learning in the classroom is eliminated. With charter/voucher parents are trying to select their children's peers to be ones that are engaged in the process.

Recent example. My 11th grade daughter had a study hall with her journalism teacher. She used the study hall to get additional work done for her broadcasts (such as putting shows together and editing the content of her stories). In our school's infinite wisdom they decided to go to a study hall model in which the struggling students are in smaller classroom study halls while the non-struggling students go to the cafeteria study hall. That is bad enough. My daughter cannot get any studying done in this environment because of the noise. She can't get her stories done now during the study hall time either. The cherry on top is that the person running the study hall would not even release her so that she could practice her violin. My daughter is a 4.0 student who is also a full-time preengineering student at a community college. She can't get released to practice her violin?

The same thing with my 9th grade daughter last year. She had her study hall with the life sciences teacher. He was allowing her to do extra dissections in the study hall. His class was benefitting from the specimens which I purchased for her to dissect as he could expand his presentation of the material. She gets put into the cafeteria model as well because she is not struggling.

Homeschooling is looking better and better for my younger daughter. We may decide that getting the High School diploma is not worth the additional garbage associated with retail education. I already Homeschooled her in English and Social Studies to avoid substandard instruction/curriculum. She hit the jackpot on good teachers this year so she went back to full-time. Next year? I am not so certain.