Home School Diploma

Via LifeSiteNews.com

STOCKHOLM, March 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The government of Sweden is taking a hard line against homeschoolers, proposing a bill that will only allow home education under “extraordinary circumstances,” reports the Home School Legal Defense Association. The bill is expected to pass in the Swedish parliament, following a review by the Supreme Administrative Court, and will allow for homeschooling families to face criminal charges.

The court has asked only for the government to specify the definition of “extraordinary circumstances.”

Jonas Himmelstrand, president of the Swedish Association for Home Education (ROHUS), said the situation is changing rapidly for the worse for homeschoolers in the country. Read more…

Via chicagotribune.com

Lori Nitzsche decided to home-school her children not out of faith, but as a way to connect with them and customize their curriculum, she said.

Nitzsche, a former public school teacher, found most home-schooling support groups to be Christian or religious-affiliated, so she and a diverse group of parents formed a nonsectarian group, known as a co-op, that offers classes for home-schooled students taught by volunteer parents.

“We saw this need to create a co-op that was inclusive. We are all-inclusive in accepting all religions and also all home-schooling styles,” said Nitzsche of the Community Co-op for Near West Homeschoolers (homeschoolcommunitycoop.org) She home-schools two of her three children. Read more…

The Carnival of Homeschooling – Party Edition is hosted this week at Homeschool Bytes

Welcome to the Party Edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling
One thing we always come back to in our homeschooling house . . . is having fun together. Sure, there are difficult days homeschooling. But, when we look around at each other, we see the freedom to learn, live, and love together every day. It’s really a ‘Party’ of homeschooling every day at our house, and we love it! Read more…

…and top public-school texts dismiss creatonism, intelligent design (but that goes without sayin’). Via Chattanooga Times Free Press. This story is appearing in just about every local paper today.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn’t taken a friend’s advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old’s biology lessons.

Mule’s precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth’s excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin’s theory. Read more…

Robert Kunzman (who earlier proposed testing of homeschoolers) talks about the recent political asylum case with the German family. Kunzman spent at least 2 years studying homeschool families and their motivations for a book.
Via Beacon Broadside. (Special thanks to Jessie for alerting me to this.)

Homeschooling’s phenomenal growth in the United States has attracted the attention of policymakers and politicians in recent years. Now homeschooling threatens to cause an international scene—or at least some uncomfortable moments—between the U.S. and Germany. The news that a Tennessee immigration court granted political asylum to a homeschool family from Germany had been making the rounds in homeschool circles for several weeks, but immigration officials’ decision to appeal the ruling earned it notice in this week’s New York Times. Read more…

An editorial in The Australian seems at least open to the idea of an outright ban on homeschooling. The reason? Socialization.

According to state officials in Baden-Wurttemberg, the rationale of the policy is to foster social integration and prevent the creation of parallel societies.

This is a legitimate concern. For all of its conceivable advantages, home schooling has one fundamental drawback: it has the effect of preventing children from socialising with others, including those from different backgrounds and traditions.

If we believe that a good education should equip children with the ability to deliberate with others and live alongside those with whom they disagree, this counts as a serious failing.

Does this mean we must follow the Germans in banning home schooling? Not necessarily. Read more…

This is different depending on where you live but this kind of story keeps coming back.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Christine Rountree home schools her five children. They range in age from 5 to 15. Her oldest boy, Weston, loves football and has found a way to play on a team every year — until this year. Read more…

Via Jenny Lind Schmitt’s column in Psychology Today. It seems she has a regularly featured blog about homeschooling. Forgive me if I’m late in discovering this. Good, interesting writing.

I am exhausted. Today was Science Co-op. Science Co-op tends to wear me out, but I love it. I confess that I am an artsy-fartsy science geek posing as a suburban homeschool mom. Long ago when I was eight, I had dreams of being a lab-coated mad scientist, mixing chemicals together, exploding things and being on the cutting edge of something. Lack of a systematic temperament and intense math skills unfortunately made that hope unrealistic, but my interest remained, and now every week at Science Co-op I get to pretend, which is almost as good and probably more fun. Read more…

Via Albert Mohler at Crosswalk.com

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike may have been considered outside the norms of civil society in their native Germany, but not in Morristown, Tennessee, where they and their five children now live. The Romeikes are homeschoolers who are determined to provide the education for their children, ranging in age from two to twelve. In Morristown, that is about as controversial as bass fishing, but in Germany it is a crime. Read more…

A web letter by 13 year-old Sarah Prater via The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.

I’m 13 and have been home-schooled for eight years. I think people need to know more about home schooling because of the unfounded stereotypes that seem to label every child who is home-schooled. While some people do home school primarily because of their beliefs, special needs children or other reasons, it does not mean that all home-schoolers are religious fanatics or that they can’t cope with the stresses of public school. Many parents home-school because of the faulty public education system, possible multiple school transfers, fear of gang violence and school shootings. Read more…