What would compel you to see no alternative but to home-school your spawn?

The only possible reason I can imagine is the unlikely proposition that available schools were less capable than myself.

A thought too hideous to contemplate.

My daughter is grown now and was raised in a rural environment where lots of kids were home schooled for various reasons. She attended public school and our school district was a very good one.
I believe kids need the socialization of school as much as the educational aspect but…that said, the way things are now, if the only choice I had was to send my child to a violence ridden school district where teachers are carrying guns and school becomes more of a prison environment, yep, I’d yank my kid and home school in a heartbeat. There are plenty of extra curricular activities to comp the lack of peer interaction.

My resons:

1. No evidence of actual learning taking place during school hours.
—1.a. Racist lessons: Kindergartners learning about “the first Thanksgiving” by making construction paper “Indian Headdresses”. Cultural appropriation, yay?
—1.b. Colouring pages, and grades reduced for not finishing said colouring pages. I offered to send actual work for my child to do in lieu of colouring three pages a day. This offer was rejected.
—1.c. Jingoism. Songs like “I love my freedom; I love my country” sung by a five year old who cannot define when asked the words “freedom” or “country.”

2. Far-too-consistent begging for additional money – weekly “snack tax” going to fund afternoon candy and cookies, PTA fundraiser, literal letter home begging for money in exchange for not doing another catalogue fundraiser, forcing the children to run laps during recess for a corporate-sponsored “run-a-thon” fundraiser.

3. Lack of Respect to Parents from Administration—One day, my son’s school bus driver just… chose not to come to work. Whatever, it happens. So, naturally, the school ushered the children into the lunchroom, passed out snacks, then picked up a phone and called the 20-something sets of parents to let them know they would have to wait for a bus driver to finish their route, and would they like to come pick their child up?

Oh wait, that didn’t happen. What did happen was they lined up the kids against a brick wall and made them sit silently on cold concrete for 1½ hours while nervous parents were left standing at a bus stop wondering where their children were, and frantically cycle calling the – now empty – school office since no one was around to pick up the phone.

—-These were my reasons for pulling him in the first place. You only have to follow the US news to understand why I have no desire to send him back.

There’s a science fiction short story that I read as a kid, and don’t even remember the plot. If I think on it, things will click and it will pop into focus. It isn’t the tale, but the title that jumped at me with the above narrative—“Becalmed in Hell” You’ve got to get out of there.

I remember now. Another great Larry Niven yarn.

Well, neither my wife nor I have the desire or talent to homeschool our child, but we did put her in private school. But it wasn’t for bullshit like this—it was because our local schools are overcrowded.

Off the top of my head:

Teachers who promote

* Nationalism/Patriotism
* Homophobic views
* Traditional gender roles

Teachers who may jeopardize

* any student’s health and happiness
* my child’s curiosity and joy of learning
* the students’ right to their own opinion

However, before attempting to home-school, I would probably send my child to a democratic school, such as Summerhill. They are not obligated to stick with the state’s lesson plans.

If I lived in eeh-merry-ka where there’s guns & shit.