'Tebow’ bill to let home-schoolers play high school sports passes Va. House

[jhasp]

177. Okay....

We use a curriculum that is used in many private schools and is considered to be rigorous. It's a curriculum that I used in private school and when I went to public school (6th grade) I was a few years ahead in language arts, reading, and math. My 5 year old daughter writes in print and cursive (legibly), can add and subtract double digits (I watched her do it yesterday), can count back change, and can read and spell at least at a second grade level. She's about finished with the 1st grade curriculum. My son, who just turned seven, can do all of that and he is a little ahead of her on math a lot ahead on reading (he's at the third or fourth grade level). She's still better at handwriting.

I have a PhD and am a professor at a public university and my wife has degrees in biology and chemistry and a background in public health. Your sample is likely biased because homeschooled students that are doing well continue to be homeschooled and ones that aren't doing well leave and go to public or private schools (I'm assuming that you are a teacher). Homeschooling isn't for everyone. I know homeschooling families that do it for indoctrination purposes and their kids are not prepared for the world. We homeschool for several reasons. Chief among them, the ability to give our children the best education possible. I grew up poor and in an abusive home and education was my ticket out of that life. We also like the flexibility of homeschooling. At 7 am when the school buses are driving by to drop kids off at the school two blocks away, my kids are still in bed. When I'm out of school in mid-January, we get to take great vacations. Some days the kids are very focused and get through two days of lessons. Some days they aren't and they just do some reading and a little seat work. All in all, it works well for us.