Student’s home-schooling highlights debate over Va. religious exemption law

[SecularMotion]

Josh Powell wanted to go to school so badly that he pleaded with local officials to let him enroll. He didn’t know exactly what students were learning at Buckingham County High School, in rural central Virginia, but he had the sense that he was missing something fundamental.

By the time he was 16, he had never written an essay. He didn’t know South Africa was a country. He couldn’t solve basic algebra problems.

“There were all these things that are part of this common collective of knowledge that 99 percent of people have that I didn’t have,” Powell said.

Powell was taught at home, his parents using a religious exemption that allows families to entirely opt out of public education, a Virginia law that is unlike any other in the country. That means that not only are their children excused from attending school — as those educated under the state’s home-school statute are — but they also are exempt from all government oversight.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-28/local/40859230_1_josh-powell-virginia-law-education

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

1. I'm a high school teacher in Virginia.

We have, from time to time, students enter the class who have been home-schooled. The social deprivation lags further behind than the academic deprivation. They are essentially unprepared to enter the work force when they grow older. This is frightening for its long term consequences.

[YarnAddict]

6. I have a lot of friends

who home-schooled their children. Nearly all of them made it a point to get their kids involved in social activities, through their churches, with other home-schoolers, in various other ways. For the most part, the kids were happy, polite, well-educated, and much better able than most to relate to people of all different ages.

The only real exception was one friend who was a home-schooling tyrant who pretty much wanted her kids to stay away from the influences of others. Her older daughter has many problems, but the 2nd daughter is very well-adjusted, and has no problems in the work force.

I don't think you should generalize.

[Lordquinton]

8. I think I'll take the word of someone who is a teacher in the state

over someone's second hand anecdotal evidence.

[YarnAddict]

10. Someone who is a public school teacher

doesn't exactly have an unbiased opinion.

Just. sayin'.

[Lordquinton]

11. Teachers have the students best interests at heart

And are under constant assault on all fronts and often ignored when they themselves are the professionals that should be consulted.

Home schoolers aren't impartial either, you know.

Also helps to not make sweeping generalizations when telling others to not make sweeping generalizations.

[YarnAddict]

12. Parents also have their children's best interests at heart

And probably more than any teacher. Probably for every abusive homeschooling situation you can name, I could find links to at least one abusive teacher.

[Humanist_Activist]

13. Not all parents or all teachers have children's best interested at heart...

hence the need for oversight, of both. After all, parents and teachers are human, make mistakes, can be selfish and abusive, even to kids in their care.

That's why exemptions shouldn't be in place. We wouldn't find it acceptable to have teachers run classrooms with absolutely no oversight, no supervision or checkups, and no means of doing any of those things, no higher ups to report to. Why should we treat parent's differently?

Homeschooling is fine, as long as some type of academic and social standards are put in place, with no exemptions.

[Lordquinton]

15. Teachers are actually well educated in what children need

Parents mostly want their children taken care of, and think they know what's right for them, with no education required.

[YarnAddict]

16. What's ironic about this

is that the friend I mentioned in my first reply, the "home-schooling tyrant" is actually a certified teacher.

[Lordquinton]

17. Actually it makes it a wash

as you said her first home schooled child is the typical messed up, unready for the world type.

[YarnAddict]

18. Yup, but

she's also one of those you said is "well-educated" on what children need.

[2ndAmForComputers]

14. Those damn libruls. They are not Fair and Balanced.

[cbayer]

9. I've seen that as well, but it's not always the case.

Some parents make great efforts to include their kids in social and sport activities, while some are clearly trying to guard their kids against the "evils" of the world.

Much of my exposure has been to kids raised in the cruising community. They get a lot of social exposure, including immersion into other cultures.

There are definitely upsides and downsides to this.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. The father's view of who was 'advanced academically' is a tad unusual for 2013.

“The young woman was doing homemaking, sewing, learning to cook, and the boy was doing farming,” able at 13 to raise and sell a bull calf, he said.

[longship]

3. The kid would make a perfect Congressman.

I'll be here all week.

[trotsky]

4. But hey, for 1913, he would be absolutely right.

Of course the difference being that in 1913, that would have been enough education and training to have a self-supporting career in the United States.

Ain't so anymore!

[cbayer]

5. This is the first I've read about the conflict being between the parents and the child.

Homeschooling should be an option, imo, but it needs to meet some defined standards. And kids should have the option of going into the school system at some defined age.

I have met many families who are homeschooling their kids because they are cruising. None of these are doing it for religious reasons.

Whether the reasons are religious or not, the same issues are going to arise.

[trotsky]

7. The key point of this article is that there exists a special RELIGIOUS exemption.

“I think it’s important that parents have a role in instilling in their children a world view that does not exclude God,” said Powell’s father, Clarence Powell. “It’s a sacred honor to be able to home-educate your children and instill in them values in a way that’s consistent with your faith.”

So your notes about other kinds of homeschooling are irrelevant to this story, I'm afraid.

The exemption is a natural progression from the idea that religious beliefs are special and deserve different treatment than other opinions - a concept you yourself have confirmed previously, cbayer.

[Neoma]

19. This is true...

Educationally I was affected by this kind of law in Tennessee. Though I'm straight inbetween what people talk about. Religious education and non-religious. Social butterfly, and then isolated to a certain degree... I've been introduced to both worlds as a kid. It really just depends on what year we talk about in my life.

I'm not going into what I'm behind in or what I'm ahead in, since I'm kind of cleaning all that up in college. My education was simply unique. Especially when you add the autodidact part in. I'm also kind of an outgoing introverted person. It depends on what kind of mood I'm in.

Although there's a lot of crap I wish I didn't go through because of this umbrella type law... I gained a lot from it nevertheless.

If you can become the type of person you want to be in the end, then nothing was truly lost. This kind of case though, I've never quite seen before.