Saturday, April 08, 2006

Michael Strong on School Choice

My father sent me a URL to a column by Michael Strong. Michael is a co-founder of FLOW. The column is about how many African-Americans want to pull their children from public schools, and the struggles they face.

The column starts with a great opening line: "While pundits and academics argue away, the quiet sucking sound you don't yet hear are African-American families leaving our public schools when allowed to do so."

A big part of the column is about the various groups which are fighting vouchers. Michael covers some of the same points I made back in December when I wrote why vouchers are not going to be wide spread any time soon.

Hopefully more families will realize they have the option of homeschooling, once they decide they have had enough with the public school system.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, , , ,

2 comments:

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said...

From the movie "Good Will Hunting"...

(Will): "The sad thing is, in about fifty years you are going to start thinking for yourself, and then you're going to realize two things.

(Snob, who had been trying to humiliate Will's friend):"What's that?"

(Will):"First: Don't do that. And second: you just dropped $120,000 on an education you could have had for $1.50 in late charges at the public library."

Unless accreditation agencies protect them, brick-and-mortar universities cannot hope to compete with virtual universities which grant credit by exam, which have no facilities or grounds, few faculty, and need only rent an examination hall twice a year.

The British Open University and the University of Allahabad enroll students by correspondence. Why go to school if you can make school come to you?

The GATT contains provisions on trade in services. I look to the day that some philanthropist stakes some hungry third-world country's suit before the World Court, and forces the opening of the US $600 billion + K-PhD education industry to on-line competition.

In the meantime, homeschool.

Jennifer James said...

I read this column and, of course, it really resonated with me as a black homeschooler and director of NAAHA.

Experts are slowly realizing that blacks are indeed abandoning public education. While homeschooling isn't the number one educational alternative for blacks yet, it certainly is gaining a lot of attention and grabbing hold of scores of blacks across the country.