Billy or Nancy

(The following is reprinted with permission from
http://www.unschooling.org/resolutions.htm)
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To fully appreciate the following, you should first read the NEA 2000-2001
Resolutions B-68 on Home Schooling located at:
http://www.nea.org/resolutions/00/00b-68.html

FUN 2000-2001 Resolutions

RU-4.0 Public Schooling

The Family Unschoolers Network believes that public schooling programs
cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience.1 When
public schooling occurs, students enrolled must meet all parental
requirements.2 Public schooling should be limited to the children of the
immediate family who choose to attend public school. As long as the expenses
of public schooling are borne by the taxpayers, those funds must also be
made available to parents/guardians for use in the educational program of
their choice whether that be public schools, charter schools, private
schools, or homeschools. Instruction should be by persons who are approved
by the appropriate parent or guardian, and a curriculum approved by the
parent or guardian should be used.

The Network also believes that public-schooled students should not
participate in any extracurricular activities that are not open to all
students. Extracurricular programs paid for by the taxpayers must be open to
all residents.

The Network further believes that local homeschool parents should have the
authority to determine grade placement and/or credits earned toward
graduation for students entering or re-entering a homeschool setting from a
public school setting.3 (1988, 2000)

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1) Public school programs artificially segregate children by age and require
seating at desks set in rows. This does not permit a normal social
interaction with other children or adults such as may occur in everyday life
outside of a school setting. The low number of adults encountered in the
public school setting provides little opportunity for children to see the
modeling of appropriate social behaviors and they are thus more likely to
see only the behaviors of other children their own age without an
appropriate social context.

In addition, public schools cannot provide the customized, extensive and
flexible curriculum available to the homeschool. The public school setting
artificially schedules learning and segregates it into separate subjects
with a limited amount of allocated time per day. This limits activities to
what can fit the allocated time slot and to what can easily be classified as
related to a particular subject. The predetermined schedule also means that
many children will either not have enough time to master the material before
moving on, or will have to waste time on material they have already mastered
before moving on.

2) Parents have a compelling interest in the education of their children and
should therefore be able to determine the requirements that must be met when
their children are educated in public school.

3) Test scores and evaluations from public schools may not be accurate
indicators of knowledge or proficiency and are often of little value in
determining grade placement or credits for a homeschool setting. The scores
often reflect only the ability to memorize material long enough to complete
a test, and the skill set being evaluated is often limited. Therefore, the
Network recommends that the initial months of homeschooling a former public
school student be used primarily to explore the interests and abilities of
the student while allowing the family to adapt to the challenges of the
independence and integration of the flexible and multi-disciplinary
environment of homeschooling which can provide hands-on, "real world"
activities not available in public school settings.

Copyright © 2000, The Family Unschoolers Network www.unschooling.org

The above may be reprinted freely as long as it is used in its entirety and
includes this note.