North Carolina Home Schools To Get Public School Money

[n2doc]

In July, the increasingly right-wing legislature in North Carolina passed a bill to divert $10 million from the public school budget to create vouchers that would give low-income students up to $4,200 a year to pay for private school tuition. Such vouchers are a popular conservative proposal for "reforming" failing public schools.

North Carolina's vouchers, which will become available in 2014, allow public money to go to unregulated private schools that are not required to meet any educational or teacher preparation standards. In addition, thanks to the way the law was written, the money will be available to "home schools"—literally schools set up in someone's house. Homeschooling traditionally has been done by parents. But the state recently changed its home schooling law to allow people who aren't parents or legal guardians educate kids in a group setting. The only requirement for such schools is that the teacher have a high school diploma, that the school keep immunization and attendance records on its students, and that it give kids a national standardized test every year.

NC Policy Watch, a project of the nonprofit North Carolina Justice Center, went out and found some interesting "home schools" that may be eligible for taxpayer funding next year. The Paramount Christian Academy has one teacher who teaches her granddaughter, a neighbor's kid, and one special-needs student. It uses textbooks from Bob Jones University and A Beka Book, whose offerings we've chronicled here at Mother Jones.

As Deanna Pan explained last year, such instructional materials teach Bible-based "facts"—such as the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. The materials also suggest that the Ku Klux Klan "tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross" and that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, for instance. Gay people are singled out for special scorn in one Bob Jones teachers' guide, which says that they "have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists." And math haters—these books are for you.

more

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/12/north-carolina-home-schools-public-vouchers

[dem in texas]

1. Grandma is a teacher

I was called for jury duty waiting in the big room and talking to the lady sitting next to me. I asked her what she did and she said she was a teacher. Where do you teach I asked her. She said, oh I home school my grandchildren.

My sister has a master's in reading education and is a reading specialist testing children's reading skills for her school district. She said she has found that home schooled children do well on math and science tests, but score low on reading tests. To my way of thinking, reading comprehension is the most important thing you learn in school, because that is the base you need to learn all other types of things.

[Squinch]

2. Socialization and getting along in life with people who are not membes of your family are the

most important things you learn in school, too.

[FBaggins]

3. Misses some key parts of the law

The funds are only available for disabled students who were in a public school during the previous semester.

So it's unlikely that an existing homeschool would qualify for any funds.

[El_Johns]

4. I don't see anything like that in anything I've read about the law. Do you have a link?

[FBaggins]

5. Here you go

http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/PDF/H269v7.pdf

Eligible student. – A child with a disability under the age of 22 who meets all of the following criteria:
a. Requires an Individualized Education Plan.
b. Receives special education or related services on a daily basis.
c. Has not been placed in a nonpublic school or facility by a public agency at public expense.
d. Has not spent any time enrolled in a postsecondary institution as a full-time student taking at least 12 hours of academic credit.
e. Has not received a high school diploma.
f. Meets at least one of the following requirements:
1. Was enrolled in a North Carolina public school during the previous semester.
2. Received special education or related services through the North Carolina public schools as a preschool child with a disability during the previous semester.
3. Received a scholarship grant for the previous semester.
4. Is eligible for initial enrollment in kindergarten or the first grade in a North Carolina public school.