I read this article by Michelle Malkin (I like the way she writes). As someone who has been involved in the educational community for nearly a lifetime, I can attest to the confusing “educracy” of the California school system. All I’ve got to say is: if parents want to homeschool their children, then let them. Homeschooling is not as evil as it sounds. In fact, I think it’s great. Parents can give their child the one-on-one attention that I can barely give in a class of thirty-five. It relieves overpopulation in schools, and parents can take control of what their child learns. For me, it’s one less parent and student to deal with. There’s nothing more irritating than a parent who tells me that I’m not teaching their children to their standards. Of course I don’t teach to their standards; I am a public educator who is obligated to teach to the California standards of literature, not the personal morals and ethics of every single parent and child.

Parents shouldn’t be criminalized for educating their own children, unless they’re somehow endangering their children’s mental well-being (i.e. paranoid parents whose idea of science is the history of Roswell, or KKK parents who teach their children to kill and hate minorities). The government shouldn’t worry about losing money because home-schooled students aren’t attending a public school facility; they need to think about the students who should be in school but are cutting class anyway. For every kid who is home-schooled and in the care of their parent(s), there are more than a dozen others who are truant without parental or school consent. Those are the kids who are losing money for the schools.

Untrained or unqualified teachers are another story. But, if you’re curious, I am a qualified English teacher. And I am teaching English literature, not math, history, or underwater basketweaving.