It has been awhile since I've had the time to check out EducationNews.org. Here are a few that I enjoyed:
Lauren Miller was threatened with arrest for politely standing outside Gheens Academy in Louisville and trying to teach parents they had options to public schools. The Jefferson County Public Schools has some of the lowest performing schools in the nation. Lauren, of the Bluegrass Institute, tried to hand out flyers encouraging parents to sign a petition requesting school choice. The school officials may recognize the public schools are horrible, but they do not want to let others make suggestions.
Bernard Gassaway writes about how parents in New York City feel disconnected, disrespected, and dismissed by New York City Department of Education (DOE) officials in: Parents, Mind Your Own Business. Bernard use to be a principal of a high school. He explains how the DOE officials just wants the children in school, but don't want the parents involved. He shows how the DOE officals have a set of strategies for ignoring parents' requests and suggestions. Bernard has some suggestions on how to best influence public schools. It is a good list. I was surprised that homeschooling was not one of the options, since Bernard is a homeschooling father.
Joel Turtel does a great job of explaining why bad public schools don't go out of business. And he ends with encouraging parents to homeschool.
And I greatly enjoyed Michael F. Shaughnessy's interview of Joel Turtel. Joel gives a good summary of the major problems with public education today. One of the points Joel makes is public schools spend about 50% of their budget on non-teaching areas, mostly bureaucracies. This is in contrast to the 20% that private schools spend. The 50% of the $500 billion education pie is a lot of bureaucracy.
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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education, Lauren Miller, Bluegrass Institute, school, public school, Louisville, Kentucky, Bernard Gassaway, New York City, Department of Education, Joel Turtel, Michael Shaughnessy
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