Happy As Kings

National Guard and HSLDA

This past week while I was looking for information for a mom asking an enlistment question on a homeschool email list, I came across a National Guard page with a link to HSLDA’s site.  Not only does the link go to the HSLDA website, but the National Guard page tells online readers that the requirements for homeschooled grads who want to apply to the National Guard for enlistment are listed at the HSLDA page.

   

  

 

 

I was surprised by this revelation because it is highly unusual for a military service to use a civilian organization to disseminate its official information.  Of course, a civilian organization might copy the information and display it, but the primary source should be the military service itself.  For the service to provide a URL to an external site, alongside the logo of the site’s business goes against Army regulations because of the appearance of endorsement.  The National Guard site has an asterisked disclaimer about endorsement, but that is outweighed by the inclusion of the HSLDA logo, and that HSLDA’s site is hosting the requirements.

Army Regulation 210–22, Private Organizations on Department of the Army Installations

 

Chapter 4

Participation in Activities of POs Operating on Army Installations

4–2. Limitations on Army personnel

a. In an official capacity, Army employees (military or civilian) will remain neutral in dealing with POs. The accommodation of one organization over another will be avoided, and there will be no preferential treatment or even the appearance of favoritism.

(1) Private organizations will receive no special treatment because they promote Army goals or support the military community.

(2) What the Army permits one organization to do, it must be ready to permit other similar types of POs to do.

(4) Army employees will not use their titles, offices, or positions in connection with their personal PO participation or to officially endorse an organization or its activities. …

(5) Giving the appearance that membership in certain organizations is officially sanctioned by the Government will be avoided. Officer professional development (ODP), noncommissioned officer professional development or other official settings will not be used as occasions for promoting any specific PO or its products.

I’m presuming that the condition of “operating on an Army installation” could be expanded to links on an Army website (since the regulation also applies to the National Guard), and that linking to an external website on which the National Guard’s requirements are listed, does give the appearance that the civilian website officially represents the National Guard.

In 2005, a U.S. Army recruiting page at goarmy.com featured a page for homeschoolers in which the URL ended with /hslda.  Many homeschoolers wrote to complain and the URL was changed to /homeschool.  The /hslda URL still redirects to the /homeschool page.   http://www.goarmy/hslda

The official sanction of HSLDA by the National Guard is further underlined by the content of the requirements.

 

National Guard Homeschool Path to Honor: Eligibility Requirements

Eligibility: To be eligible for the National Guard Homeschool Path to Honor, all applicants must be non-prior service (NPS) Army Home Study Diploma (AHSCH) (sic)  juniors, seniors, and graduates or the equivalent would include AHSCH students with a valid GED as well as currently enrolled college students with a AHSCH diploma. In addition, a qualified AHSCH graduate will possess ONE or more of the following (a., b., or c., as applicable):  …

 

c.       A homeschool diploma and transcript from the parent(s) or guardian(s) accompanied by a third party verification memorandum. Only one third party verification memorandum is necessary. The following are only examples of third party verification: …

 

2.  A memorandum from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (if the family is a member in good standing) verifying that the homeschool graduate's program was in compliance with the State's compulsory attendance law.

 

f.  Homeschool graduates include only those students who graduated at age 19 or younger. Those who received homeschool diplomas at age 20 or older must submit supporting documents for review and a determination for an exception to policy. Such an exception can be obtained from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (service available for members in good standing).

 

From start to almost finish, this document is flawed.

• Army Home Study Diploma (AHSCH)

 

How did the HSLDA writer ever determine that the letters AHSCH stand for “Army Home Study Diploma?”  If that were the case, the letters would be AHSD.  That is, they would be if any such thing as an “Army Home Study Diploma” existed, which it doesn’t.  The letters AHSCH stand for “alternate high school credential holder.”  (page 21, Commonwealth of Kentucky Department of Military Affairs,  Strategic Plan FY 2004 - 2008 )    

 

On one level, it is petty to point out that AHSCH does not stand for “Army Home Study Diploma.”  The writer did not check the meaning of the acronym, and appears to have invented a meaning.  This would not be a fatal flaw if it were not that the National Guard is using this piece of writing to advise homeschooled grads about the eligibility requirements.  That is unacceptable, especially when the organization hosting the requirements wants to set itself up as the decider of who has or has not earned a high school diploma.

 

• Third-party verification by HSLDA of a graduate’s diploma.

This language comes from the 2003 and 2005 versions of HSLDA’s proposed “Home School Non-discrimination Act”   I wrote about that at The Military Homeschooler website, and the December 2005 newsletter from the Wisconsin Parents Association, included a short examination of the question of “third-party verification” for homeschooled children.

Federal Homeschooling Legislation Raises Increasing Problems

For one thing, such a law [Home School Non-Discrimination Act of 2005] would generate business for HSLDA and increase their membership. But such certification will not work. Any organization certifying homeschoolers cannot maintain its credibility if it simply certifies anyone who requests it. But if the organization is not going to certify everyone, it will have to set some criteria for who is a bona fide homeschooler, which means they will be defining homeschooling and deciding who qualifies as a homeschooler.

• Exception to policy for graduates over the age of 20 granted by HSLDA

First off, for this exception to be granted, the recruit’s family must be HSLDA members.  Again, we have the violation of AR 210- 22.

(5) Giving the appearance that membership in certain organizations is officially sanctioned by the Government will be avoided.

No, the requirements do not say that the recruit must apply to HSLDA for the exemption, but no other organization is named.  This is not the appearance that HSLDA membership is officially sanction, this is all but a de facto requirement of HSLDA membership.

In looking around the HSLDA website, I found a page stating that HSLDA employees helped draft National Guard policy. 

National Guard opens doors to homeschoolers.  (see highlighted portion of image)

A civilian from a private organization outside the military service drafting policy for that service goes beyond unusual.  That situation would seem to break public law.  Persons who volunteer to help a military service are not to be placed in a position of making policy.

 

Title 10, Armed Forces, Subtitle A General Military Law Part I—Organization and General Military Powers, Part II Personnel, Chapter 81 Civilian employees,  § 1588. Authority to accept certain voluntary services

(b) Requirements and Limitations.
(3) With respect to a person providing voluntary services accepted under subsection
(a), the Secretary concerned may not—
(A) place the person in a policy-making position; …

The drafting of policy by non-DoD personnel is unacceptable.

The National Guard entry requirements for homeschoolers must be re-written without preference given to HSLDA, and the requirements must not be primarily hosted at an off-site page from the National Guard site.

Contact information.

Michael Jackson scared me, but not like you'd think

Michael Jackson died.  Sorry to hear that, condolences and everything, but surely the television stations didn't need to replace last night's shows for special programming.  Everywhere I looked on television, there was Michael, and even though I only surfed channels looking for something to relax with, I have enough of his music lodged in my brain so that even chance hearings of snips of songs will cause the earworm syndrome to kick in.  I avoid as much old-music-with-words as I can because for older-me the earworm thing is persistent -- we're talking days of repetition -- and last night's television programming ambushed me.  What's worse (for me) is that Michael's occasional "Wooooo!"s, or whatever they are, have enough similarity to Donna Summers's "Wooooo!"s, or whatever they are, to activate her songs as well.  Ever since last night's channel surfing, I've had Michael alternating with Donna in my head.  Wooooo!

Cut to this morning.  When I woke up (after hearing the duo in my dreams) Michael and Donna were still Woooing in my head and I knew I'd have to listen to something other than the air conditioner if I wanted them to retreat to whatever crevice of my brain they inhabit.  My choice of cure when earworms strike is orchestral music with no words, the kind generically called "classical."  Classical music is complex and long, and my musical-imaging talent is limited to 'catchy,' so I can listen to classical music without causing earworms.  Jazz helps cure earworms, too, but broadcasters sneak in songs with words, and I can't listen to that if I'm also working with words (I'm still trying to get a blogged book finished).  Jazz was out, classical was in.

Ever the optimist, I turned on the (nearly antique) radio-that-needs-an-antenna.  In the winter, the signal seems to come through with no problem, but in the summer the signal is erratic.  I know less about radio signals than I do about music, so I can as easily attribute the poor reception to more birds flying through the air in summer than in winter, or heat waves distorting radio waves.  Whatever the case, it's summer and what I heard from the radio was music + static.  The radio as a cure for Michael and Donna wasn't going to work. 

Next came the CD player.  I had Chopin CDs already in the player, perhaps from Christmas as I don't regularly listen to music, and Chopin would be wonderful for cancelling out Michael and Donna.  Unfortunately, although the CD player turned on and the time-sequence numbers showed that a CD was playing, and although the radio receiver worked on 'radio,' I couldn't get the signal from the CD player to make it through the receiver to the speakers.  Not on Phono, Tape or Aux.  Not on speaker left, speaker right.  No combination of (nearly antique)  dials produced Chopin or anyone else.

Drat.

The Wooooo!s continued to alternate, first Michael, then Donna, egged on by the front page of the newspaper, and my browser's home page.  Everywhere I looked or listened:  Michael.

In desperation, I unearthed our wind-up 'tornado radio,' for use during weather when the power is likely to cut out.  I wound up the radio, adjusted the antenna (small, but effective), and found the station.  The low grinding of the radio's small dynamo underneath the music was an acceptable price to pay for foiling the Woooo!s.   I refreshed my tea, folded the newspaper so that the front page was covered, and wound the radio to its fullest to provide a half-hour of classical music from Kansas Public Radio.  I sat down, sipped a mouthful of tea ...

... and noticed that the grinding of the radio seemed loud.  Perhaps the motor's sound was amplified by the buffet on which the radio was sitting?  I got up and moved the radio across the room to the china closet, and sat back down, but the motor noise now drowned out the music.  I got up and stared at the radio as if that would better help me figure out the noise.  As I stood there, the noise increased and I could see the flywheel inside the clear plastic housing rotating faster and faster.  Now it sounded like an airplane revving for takeoff.  What the hell?  Now it was a jet revving.  Air Force Brats know these things. The dog jumped up, stared at me as if I was what was revving.  Was the belt or rotor of whatever innard was spinning going to shoot the motor out through the plastic casing?  Would it hit the dog?  The china?  Me?  Shrapnel?  Glass shards?  Blood?  Severed things?  Newspaper article about freak wind-up radio IED killing woman and dog?  What could I throw over the radio to muffle an explosion?  Dining room chairs?  Don't be stupid.  The radio revved like a trapped aircraft carrier jet.  How fast could it go?  No time to think.  Grab the radio, burst through the kitchen door, run onto the porch, dog on my heels, radio screaming for takeoff (which way would it explode?), sleeping cat flies from the rocking chair, fling open porch door, throw the radio onto the deck, pull door shut ... just as the jet engine whimpered to nothing.  Now the radio sits in the sun, silent.  And it can stay there.

Michael Jackson's heart attack almost did the same to me.

[halfway through this anecdote, the top-of-the-hour live-streaming NPR news did a Michael Jackson cause-of-death report -- I may just have to hide in a mystery for the day]

Irony in some Common Core Standards reporting

The Common Core Standards initiative came to my attention this morning in a newspaper editorial in the Kansas City Star.  The editorial writer is dismayed because Missouri has yet to join the initiative because of necessary bureaucratic procedures after the death of Missouri education commissioner Dr. Kent King.  The editorial seems to be meant to pressure Missouri governor Jay Nixon to join the initiative.

Intrigued (for other reasons), I searched for basic information about the initiative and easily found information.

• Common Core State Standards Initiative

At the site's main page, I found a link to a report that 49 states and territories have joined the initiative:

• Forty-Nine States and Territories Join Common Core State Standards Initiative

After I clicked back to the main search results list, what struck me as a numerical miracle, was how many states joined the existing 49.  The headlines give the impression that the existing 49, plus their own state, equals 50 states all in agreement.  Yaaaay!

• Southern Maryland Online:  Md. Joins 49 States in Common Core State Standards Initiative
• Iowa Dept. of Education:  Iowa Joins 49 States in Common Core Standards Initiative
• New Jersey Dept. of Education press release:  State Joins 49 Others in Common Core State Standards Initiative
• TN.gov Newsroom:  Tennessee Joins 49 States and Territories in Common Core Standards Initiative
• New Jersey Dept. of Education:  New Jersey Joins 49 States and Territories in Common Core State Standards Initiative
• Cox.net for Rhode Island:  Rhode Island Joins Common Core State Standards Initiative

Maybe those Depts. of Education should not wait for common standards, but start in-house remedial programs for the existing standards of reading for content.

Some sites got it right for the headline.

• Massachusetts Signs on to Common Core State Standards Initiative   Joins 48 Other States and Territories in Support of Shared ELA and Math Standards
• Wisconsin joins Common Core Standards initiative to transform education
• W.Va. Joins National Initiative to Develop New Standards
• State joins school initiative  (Kansas)
• Illinois Joins 48 States and Territories to Develop Common Learning Standards in Math and English
• Common standards could help local students  (Hawai'i)

< bemused thinking aloud >  The CCSSO is the organization sponsoring the MOA sent out to the states, and it is a 501.c.3 organization.  Its members are people who are simultaneously chief education officers of their respective states, and are also acting as ... organizers? ... of an initiative to bring more federal money to their state organizations.  I'm not politically astute enough to specify my uneasiness about the apparent circularity of (state) government employees banding together to gain more (federal) funding for their agencies because I know that they're supposed to advocate for their agencies, but something seems odd.  Perhaps its the influence on my thinking of the bar on military unions. ???

Attn: freelancers and reporters who want to write about homeschooling

I've read many, many op/eds, news reports, blog posts and letters to the editor about homeschooling.  After years of doing this, fielding the same old questions has lost any charm it ever had, and the latest from USA Today (and blogged at Home Education Magazine) only made me sigh at the sloppy thinking.

Since the general public embraces the practice of testing people to see if they are qualified to work at a job, or hold a position of influence, I've put together what is perhaps the first test for non-homeschool writers who want to write about homeschooling.  If you cannot complete this crossword, a puzzle that contains only a few of the items I totted up in a list of possible clues and answers, do not write about homeschooling:  you don't know enough.  If you honor the system that most usually gets the kudos for educating children (schools), and if you fail this test, you won't write your article yet.

Click on the images to make them big enough to see.

[update:  the clue I put in to 6 across was something like, "Supreme court ruling that states that the child is not a creature of the state."  I have no clue why it said "No clue."]

When I've got more spare time, I may just look into really complicated puzzles.  That should be fun.

The answers are at one of my other blogs:  Repatria.

Homeschooling still illegal in Germany: Hardening Pharaoh's heart?

Fox News (and many other news outlets) passed along an Associated Press report that homeschooling is (still) illegal in Germany and that German homeschooling parents are political refugees seeking the protection of American laws that allow homeschooling under various conditions.

• German Family Seeks U.S. Asylum to Homeschool Kids

An equivalent article in the German news might be that public nudity is (still) illegal in the United States and that nudist parents caught naked in public, and subsequently fleeing prosecution as sexual criminals in the United States, are political refugees in Germany because of German laws that protect public nudity in specific German places. ("Nacktbaden Special" would roughly translate to "sunbathing special" but with "nackt" being "naked," not "sun")

The AP article is a superficial overview of the situation of German homeschooling families, and appears not to be overly burdened by too much understanding of cultural differences between the United States and Germany, or of the political usefulness in the United States of the plight of German families who homeschool. I wonder if the tactic of 'hardening Pharaoh's heart' that worked so well in in the Pentateuch book of Exodus is in play? If it is, I hope it does not ruin the chances of homeschooling ever winning official German approval. Mixing my Biblical stories, I hope German homeschoolers don't wind up as Isaac almost did. Who will play the angel who showed up in time before the nick?

For the people not up on their stories from the Torah (which is what the first five books of the collection was, and still is, called before it all acquired the moniker of 'the Old Testament'), hardening Pharaoh's heart provoked a reaction among the target audience (the Hebrews who were then sojourning in Egypt). God said to the pharaoh, "Let my people go;" with God's help Pharaoh didn't; so God and his people got up and went.

The plan of invoking an image of 'the scary German' today (and thus hardening the German Bureaucrat's heart) might be in someone's playbook for, perhaps, rallying support for things such as parental rights amendments: "Don't let it happen HERE!"

All well and good, unless you're living THERE.

Other blog posts by me about the situation of German homeschooling families:

Homeschoolers and nudists

Homeschooling in Germany and a comparison of viewpoints

HSLDA epiphany about homeschooling in Germany

Social change in Germany

Why are Germans leaving Germany?

Homeschool petition presented to European Parliament Petitions Committee

Welcome to America, now speak ... English?

This evening, while riding in the car, I saw that the car in front of us had a back window sticker that stated, "Welcome to America, now speak English."  I'm assuming that in the opinion of the maker of the sticker, English is the 'native' language of this part of the world. 

In a way, I suppose English is, but if the point is that all 'foreigners' ought to speak the language of the land, then the window sticker ought to read something like, "Welcome to America, now speak ...

• A'ananin (Aane), Abenaki (Abnaki, Abanaki, Abenaqui), Absaalooke (Absaroke) ...
• Babine, Bannock, Barbareño, ...
• Caddo (Caddoe), Cahita, Cahto, ...
• Dakelh, Dakota, Dakubetede, ...
• Eastern Inland Cree, Eastern Pomo, Eel River Athabascan, ...
• Fernandeno (Fernandeño), Flathead Salish, Fox, ...
• Gabrielino (Gabrieleño), Gae, Gaigwu, ...
• Haida, Haisla, Halkomelem (Halqomeylem), ...
• Illini (Illiniwek, Illinois), Inca, Ineseño (Inezeño), ...
• James Bay Cree, Jemez, Juaneno (Juaneño), ...
• K, L. M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z

Native American Tribes and Languages

Linguistic peeve of the moment

"Recoup" is not short for "recuperate."

• Recoup means to be reimbursed. 
  "The stock market rebounded and the investor recouped his losses from the day before."
• Recuperate means to recover one's health. 
  "After the accident, Monique needed a cast on her leg to help her recuperate."

Recouping something may lead to a person's recuperation, but the words are not synonymous.

It's one thing to hear people being conversationally inventive with words, but writers attempting to provide facts ought to be more careful.

Did you know?

This YouTube video is making the rounds (or already has, and I'm late again)

• Did you know?

I saw this video a few weeks ago (saw it at a blog), and while it's interesting, it still generates, a 'but what about ...?' response in me.

• China being the #1 English-speaking country in the world ...

Would that be business English or native English?

• 25% of India's highest-IQ people outnumber all Americans

http://www.infoplease.com/countries.html  

India total population: 1,147,995,898

U.S. total population: 301,139,947

Then about 25% of India's population must be high-IQ. (and I don't even know where to look for that breakdown [!] )

• "currently preparing" kids for jobs that don't exist ... using technologies that haven't been invented ... in order to solve problems that we don't know are problems.

Yeah. As if I, a 1968-high school graduate, was trained in any kind of software manipulation, or even minimal coding. Uh, huh.

• "today's learner" will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38

I think my 39-year old son has already done that.

• 1 in 4 workers has been with the current employer less than a year

Is this at McDonald's, Burger King, the perfume counter in a department store, or is this in the Army, with Ford or IBM?

• 1 in 8 couples who married last year met online

As compared to couples in the past who saw a personals ad in the paper ... or consulted Yente?

• 200 million MySpace users

... to include me, who never did anything with the page, and hasn't looked at it more than 2 or 3 times.   So, does that 200 million figure include all the 'dead' people like me?

• #1 country with Broadband penetration is Bermuda...

... which has a very limited population (2008: 66,536) because the islands only comprise about 21-square miles (21 miles long x 1 mile wide at the widest point -- I used to live there), coupled with a massive offshore banking presence.  Unfortunately (for the quotation), the Netherlands is listed (at this site) as #1.

• 31 billion Google searches/month ... that no one knows to whom these questions were addressed "B.G."

Hmmm, let's see.
-- What movie (newspaper, call up theater)
-- Where to eat? (rack your brain)
-- Menu of where we'll eat (wait 'til we get there)
-- (got tired of thinking what people search for, so I searched for what people search for) ... Google Hot Trends

• number of text messages sent per day exceeds the population of the planet
• Decreasing number of years to reach a market audience
• Number of internet devices in 1984 was 1,000
• Number of internet devices in 2008 is 1,000,000,000
• 5x as many words in the English language as in Shakespeare's time.
• more information in 1 week's worth of the NY Times than an 18th century person ever knew.
• 4 exabytes of "unique information" this year
• technical information doubling ever 2 years
• kids will be learning obsolete information
• a fiber optic cable that can handle 14 trillion bits per second
• So, what does it all mean?

It means that things are going along as they always have done.

New technologies just about always inflict obsolescence on older technologies -- maybe with the exception of Betamax.  I guess Sony learned from that one.

Strings of events packaged together do look impressive, but closeness doesn't always equal relevance.  Two interesting books that give perspective to this accumulation of facts are:

How to Lie With Statistics

The Skeptical Environmentalist  (page 336, Weighing risks)

Contrasts

Composition assignment for the day

Compare and contrast:

• AIG using bailout money to pay executive bonuses
• the contemporaneous presidential plan for military veterans injured in battle to pay for their own medical care

Reindeer games?

So I was at the clinic waiting with my mom for the results of Mom's blood test when one of the nurses commented that there was a deer outside. Watching a deer nibble on shubbery the didn't belong to me was far more interesting than staring into space, so I went to the window to watch the wildlife. Of course the deer wasn't a reindeer, but that makes a cuter title than whitetail games.

The deer was pretty, with large almond-shaped ears, a slender deer-nose, and a fringe of white outlining her buff-colored tail. (I believe "flag" is the correct word, but that would make me seem like I knew more about deer than I do) She was cropping the grass, looking up every now and then, taking her time meandering from one interesting patch of grass to another.

After cropping a mouthful of whatever it is that deer crop, she alerted on something. I couldn't see what the deer saw, but it was of such importance to her that she stopped nosing the grass and tensed. Whatever this creature was it spooked the deer, but I couldn't figure out what, in a semi-urban area within many tens of yards of a six-lane interstate highway and in a corporate park, what creature would be that intimidating and not cause police and helicopters to arrive.

Then I saw it -- a brown tabby cat with a collar and tags. And this cat was eyeing the deer, but not in an OMG, You Are Huge! way. No, this cat was stalking the deer.

The tabby acted as if she were a cougar on the prowl. She slunk along the lawn -- so totally not invisible -- and moved to outflank the deer. The deer, for her part, edged out into the lawn away from the shrubby brush and trees that made up the corporate forest. She seemed to want plenty of room to maneuver in case Tabby should strike.

I so wanted my camera, which was sitting at home on the stereo stand fifteen miles away.

Tabby continued crouching and slinking, and Deary-deer tap-danced and tip-toed, unsure which way to really go, and apparently wondering if she could outrun Tabby.

Then Tabby's tail went up and she galloped at Deary-deer who took off, circled Tabby and crashed into the brush. The last I saw, her white "flag" boundingly disappeared behind the overgrown weeds, reeds and saplings.

Tabby stopped and turned her head to watch Deary-deer disappear. She looked around and then hopped off, chasing something else in the grass.

Alan Watts: Work as play

The Serious Need for Play

From Scientific American:

• The Serious Need for Play
  
  Free, imaginative play is crucial for normal social, emotional and cognitive development. It makes us better adjusted, smarter and less stressed

Is 5/7ths a big enough piece of the tax pie?

History

Day after day, year after year, decade after decade I've read that 'education' needs more money, programs or clout. 'Education' usually translates to taxpayer-funded schooling.

For me, the awareness about 'education's' need came when I was young. Sputnik, the first bit of litter to leave the earth, launched not only public awareness of the space age when I was seven years old, but also launched a perpetual push to expand 'education.' Testing, hours spent, and infrastructure have all expanded, almost without question. If an action will expand 'education,' then questioning it seems to be heresy.

The catalyst for my thoughts today is a newspaper report about "specialty" schools "related to industries key to the development of the improvement district." For this blog post, I'll leave aside the integration of worker training with the sculpting of the future jobs market by industrial interests. Job training, while valuable, interesting and useful, is not comprehensive Education.

• Specialty school is sought in south KC

I am not against school improvement. I am not against education. I am not against Kansas City finding the silver bullet to turn news reports about its schools from usually negative to usually positive.

What I am against is the unquestioned expansion of the professionalization of expensive 'education' instead of a personalization of 'education' that individuals can explore on their own. Contemporary 'education' seems to be more about competitive job-training and ideology rather than about encouraging each of us to explore the world around us and our complex interactions with each other.

And yes, personalized education is already available. No, it doesn't get much airplay.

Concentration of fiscal resources

Another news report on the same page of the newspaper with the specialty school information is:

• KC Parks and Recreation Department faces budget cuts

Parks are a possible location for personalized education. Children can explore nature and exercise their bodies at the same time. But there are few tests at parks (depending on your concept of 'test'), nor does the parks-package provide a wide range of public-funded remedial services from many government-sector employees that require health-care benefits and paid-for retirements. Schools with laws mandating attendance are a better bet for adjunct-service-customers.

In news reports about 'education,' the usual course of action writers describe is for funding to go to large infrastructure projects with high maintenance and personnel costs, while broader infrastructure projects, such as parks and libraries (that aren't as tied to moneyed interests) go begging.

In the town I live in, 5/7ths of the local tax dollar go to the schools, and I don't think my town is atypical because other towns in the area have schools as visible from the roadway as our town. From the roadside, we all look about the same, and our town might even look a bit undersized compared to nearby communities.

The purple part is the schools' cut of my town's taxes as of 2007. (graph courtesy of NCES Kids' Zone Create A Graph)

Legal compulsion

In the United States, the trend seems to be that 'all things kid' are (for the most part) centered on the school. Sports, 'extra-curricular activities,' meals (lunch and breakfast 'programs') and music. Dance and horses seem to be in a separate category, but language clubs, chess clubs, and science clubs seem to be school-centric. I think this creates the impression that 'all things kid' belong with schools.

I think another viewpoint might be that 'all things kid' belongs (as a category) with families and communities. I do not see 'school' as synonymous with 'community' because 'all things school' are tied to compulsory attendance laws, while community services are used as needed. Yes, this is ranging far afield, but I think the 'all things kids' activities are connected to each other because of the 'extra-curricular activities'' attachment to legally mandated attendance in the same organization. This attachment allows the extras to be used as goads. "Maintain this (grades), or you can't participate in that (extras)." Even eating patterns have become fodder for compulsory behavior. A carrot and stick mentality seems to affect anything connected to the cultural compulsory attendance service-provider.

Unfinished conclusion

The emphasis on 'education' needs to shift from the professionalized to the personalized. To reduce costs to a more sustainable level than say 5/7ths of a total income, individual adults (since children have little power) must rediscover the concept of the uncoerced desire to learn. This is the same drive that all children start out with -- pish tosh on the "ready to learn" meme that seems to mean 'ready to sit unnaturally still for long times.'

Piggy-backing [do pigs really jump on each others' backs?] on concepts from The Big Bang Theory, the paradigm is in need of a shift.

LOWL

more animals

All fertilized eggs will become someone great

• Unborn Obama

Point 1:  declining to accept a production for broadcast is not synonymous with banning.  I just watched the advertisement, so it hasn't been "banned."

Point 2:  the implication that all children born to broken homes or in circumstances not conducive to a happy life will overcome the roadblocks in their lives has been around for a while.  The first time I saw this proposition was in a short questionnaire in which the series of negative life circumstances is finished with, "You just aborted Beethoven."

Do you think the same sadness at the loss of Beethoven's work would be feltif we'd lost the work of Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Papa Doc Duvalier, Baby Doc, Jim Jones, Ted Bundy, Mao Tse Tung, Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible, Saddam Hussein (or his sons), Lucretia Borgia, Typhoid Mary, Lizzie Borden, Ma Barker, Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, and others?

My point isn't that abortion is a humdrum non-event when taken out of the personal context, only that the proposition of "abortion kills our future leaders" doesn't hold up logically when the point isn't carried through.  The equation must balance.

Bailout banks pledge allegiance to the bottom line

After a weekend of having fun online, my Monday-morning grownup-self lectured me on responsible use of time, and told me to do real-world necessities first (no one else is going to vacuum the carpet -- I know, I've waited for 'them' and 'they' haven't showed), and save online activities for my spare time. (right, 'spare' time) Then I read the front page of the newspaper:

Bailout Banks Sought More Foreign Workers

That bit of face-slappery was joined by ...

Medicare shortage could be billions

Those bits of merry sunshine made me feel that I needed to DO something. Now. Preferably something that would reverberate with the miscreants that mangled my morning. (again, yeah right) But what? What can I do, short of running down the street in my pink-roses dressing gown shouting to all the dogs behind the fences and plate glass windows -- I mean, there aren't even any people here to listen. I am left only with the immediate action of blogging.

Therefore, I'm online again without having even maintained a morning resolution to Do Something Actually Useful. Luckily, I'm female, so I don't have to look myself in the eye as I shave. Washing my face can be done with my eyes closed. Weenie.

My feelings are that the smart people in charge of us all ("They're 'rich' in many ways") may have social skills that put them at the top of the heap, but the decisions made by the current crop of smart people (apologies to Captain Sullenberger) seem to show their allegiance to a 'united corporate nation' rather than to the people of a nation whose tax dollars are supporting these smart people.  I'd like to vote them out of office, but it wasn't voting that put them where they are.

In any case, my morning tea and oatmeal are spoiled, my eyes are become jade, and I'd like to punch something. A fine way to start a morning.

And now the princess cat is up on the table drinking the milk in the creamer. I need to adjust the universe's settings as they apply in this dining room.

The upper-crust schools at home

Hessisches Landesmuseum

Dana commented on an article about QED -- Quality Education by Design. The company provides tutors to families, and the misnomer, 'homeschooling' is applied.  I realize that, as Helen notes:

I think this argument may very well be just an academic exercise at this point. I fear the autonomy we enjoyed while homeschooling our kids may be a thing of the past, as homeschools are driven toward acting more and more like schools.

 

Canal in Bruges, Belgium

Some people may point out that insisting on correct terminology makes homeschool advocates look ... I don't know ... defensive, or doggedly fringey, but it is by clearly stating who, what, when, etc., that we keep miscommunication from clouding discussions.

 

View from the Atomium

Tutors are a long-standing mode of education, so I don't see why marketers don't capitalize on the cachet of private at-home tutoring instead of hopping on the coattails of homeschooling, but maybe that's just me.

 

Butte de Lion, Waterloo, Belgium

The other items that caught my eye are the opinions that homeschooling parents teach only "hippie spawn" (yes, I see the tongue in the cheek), and that they are unable to manage a "last minute field trip to the Louvre in Paris." (and darling, saying "the Louvre in Paris" is like saying, "the Tower of London in London") My eye was caught because I managed to fit in the Louvre for the younger three kids, and my military brats were far from "hippie spawn." And we homeschooled only in Europe. (see my tongue?)

 

View from atop Munich's city hall

In any case, it's amusing, in a faux-shepherdess way, that rock band managers and catalog founders seek to invoke the cachet of a trend practiced by the less well-heeled, but don't seem to quite pull off the authentic article -- at least not in the articles heralding the new availability of high class homeschooling.

(Some parents apparently take the homeschooling concept so seriously that they insist that their children wear uniforms with school logos on them while studying at home.)

 

(I looked up from reading something aloud to see that looking at me.  I suppose our uniform could have been sweatshirts, and our logo was Christopher Robin marching off to the Hundred Acre Wood.)

That last quotation above is why I don't believe even half of what I read in magazines and newspapers, and even some books.  I've read so much misinformation about homeschooling that now when I read any article (homeschooling, or not), one of my first thoughts is how much of the article is skewed, and why.

Scheduled unschooling

I shouldn't poke fun, but I can't resist.

Spicing things up for home-schooled

What I offered to him this fall has become flat and near-drudgery. In order to revive his spark for learning, I’ve drummed-up a deviation from our lesson plans. We’ll devote one day each week to unschooling.

I think the smallest observational nutshell for this kind of misunderstanding is, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

One person doesn't schedule spontaneity for another person. The spontaneity and serendipity of unschooling just have to 'be.' Maybe the family will enjoy a day off, but I don't think it will cure what ails 'em. The expectation of schoolishly productive unschooling is what tends to squelch it.

Unschooling, for all you conventional schoolers, is child-led learning. I allow him to tell me what he’s stoked about, and we set forth to learn as much as we can about it.

Oh, well. Live and learn, one step at a time.

Testing bias against homeschooling?

I think the irony is lost on the blog writer:

Better TOEFL Scores: How to Avoid a Common TOEFL iBT Reading Trap

To succeed on the TOEFL iBT integrated writing section, you will need to identify, by way of note-taking, the thesis and major supporting points of a reading passage. A problem surfaced in my TOEFL iBT class today: several students had different interpretations of what the main idea was!

...

Therefore, the main focus of the reading was the disadvantages of home schooling. The topic sentence in paragraph two changed the tone from informative to argumentative, and more coverage was devoted to why home schooling was an ineffective way to educate students.

And why is homeschooling ineffective?

• learning was not as effective as traditional schools
• that the limited social interaction in home schools compared to its traditional school counter parts would ill-equip these students for future relationships
• home schools had a much more limited curriculum than traditional schools
• According to the reading passage, it was because of these three reasons that home schooling was not as effective as traditional schools.

Mon Dieu! Ce canard charlatans fort!

Ted Bundy and James Dobson

On a homeschool email list, a concerned member posted a PR-release about an interview by James Dobson of Focus on the Family with Ted Bundy, an infamously notorious serial killer who targeted young women between 1974 and 1978. I was a young woman between 1974 and 1978, so a national crime spree concerning that age group caught my attention, and held it.

The public relations release is curious:

• Why is a 20th anniversary ... observation ... necessary?
• What was Florida-incarcerated Bundy's real motive in talking to a 20-years-ago Coloradan James Dobson instead of someone else? (yes, I've seen the credited reason)
• Are the statements in the press release accurate?
• If it's so important, why did Focus on the Family cancel the public appearance on the Glenn Beck show because it seems that Mr. Beck is a Mormon. (? -- I'm unfamiliar both with Mr. Beck and with the program) If pornography is a national emergency, shouldn't a television host's religious faith be immaterial if our immortal souls are at stake?

I also wonder what application the press release has to homeschooling since I saw the release only on a list meant for local homeschooling parents. I really don't mean to kvetch about what shows up on the list, but the apparent conclusion that anything from Focus on the Family = 'homeschooling concerns' is a niggling pebble-in-a-shoe. [read]-[delete] [read]-[delete] [read]-[delete] [ad infinitum] It also seems petty to send items to the list that I find significant, but that have nothing specific to do with homeschooling. Pointed discussions are discouraged.

=========================

But back to the pornography.

Is the conclusion that pornography leads to evil actions accurate? I don't have any use for pornography,but I also don't like being made to fear things for no good reason because I'm of a slightly nervous temperament, so the fear aspect is personal for me.

I remember when Erich von Däniken's book Chariots of the Gods? was made into a television program in the 1970s. When I watched it in my parent's' living room during one visit (4 channels, no surfing) my husband was sitting on the couch, and I was sitting on the floor between his feet with my back against the couch. Part of the way into the program, my husband startled me by patting me on the shoulder. "It's OK. Calm down. It's just a tv program." I didn't even know I was nervous, and I don't remember believing every single word of the narration. Apparently, though, my body language was obvious, even from the back of my head. I guess, at heart, I'm gullible.

So, do I need to worry about the pornography epidemic? Is a fear-reaction prudent? I hear that pornography is everywhere (especially online -- :::glances around the screen:::) and that I must beware lest I'm trapped in the filth. I wonder about the nudie pictures because I lived in Germany for 18 years and didn't notice rampant sexual violence, while at the same time I did see rampant nekkid ladies (rarely any nekkid fellows);pictured on magazines in the grocery store, and billboard ads with untowelled (non-frontal) families relaxing in their indoor saunas. Then there were the people who changed clothes outside at the swimming pool. Srsly! (I bet Hitler had something to do with it.) How did we escape the vile effects?

Intrigued by the email (gullible, gullible, gullible), I virtually went looking for information, and found a research paper. It is an older paper (in line with the age of James Dobson's interview with Ted Bundy), but the research looks sound.

• Pornography, Sex Crime, and Public Policy, Berl Kutchinsky Professor of Criminology Institute of Criminology and Criminal Science University of Copenhagen Denmark

The paper was part of the proceedings at a criminology conference held by the Australian Institute of Criminology. The page was updated in 2007 (meaning someone still values the information), so I'm happy not to have to sully my hard drive history with more searches for sex crimes.

I don't intend to give the impression that I want to sanitize pornography or give it a Good Housekeeping-style seal of approval (not that the paper does that), so I'll just include brief quotations that seems to reflect my limited observations about differences between sexual attitudes in Germany and in the U.S.:

According to these studies, sex offenders generally reported sexually repressive family backgrounds, immature and inadequate sexual histories and rigid, conservative attitudes towards sexuality.

(I consider this quotation significant because of the suicide of a friend of my sister whose father was like nothing I'd ever heard of before, even though her suicide was by gunshot)

...

At any rate it would seem fair to conclude that overall there could not have been any increase in the actual number of rapes committed in West Germany during the years when pornography was legalised and became widely available.

In this study of the crime statistics in four countries, pornography was not implicated in sex crimes despite James Dobson's assertion ca. minute 4:45.

The paper is just 14 pages long and is readable.

Ted Bundy may have believed that pornography was what fueled his repulsively malignant actions. In the brief look I've taken just now at the online information about him, I would guess that his grandfather's repellent influence had more to do with his character malformation than did looking at 'dirty pictures.' (although, the images must have been a trigger for him -- he would know that)

I find nothing uplifting or useful in pornography, but I don't think it helps matters to blame what is possibly the wrong cause of a social problem that brings such despair to the human spirit. Focusing our efforts in the wrong area only delays finding a solution.