Homeschool Alliance of North Carolina

“By Chris Foreman

Six Christian families across Pennsylvania intend to continue their federal court battle in hopes of receiving an exception from state law mandating that they supply their local school districts with documentation about the home-schooling of their children.

The families, represented by the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association, have been tied up in litigation for four years with a half-dozen districts, including Norwin, Franklin Regional in Murrysville and Homer-Center in Indiana County.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that there are no federal constitutional issues in the consolidated case, but the parents plan to appeal to the entire circuit court or petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their claims, said Michael Farris, a lawyer for the association….”

For more of this article visit:  http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_585045.html

“By RENÃE C. LEE
Hubert Rowry’s memories of his public school education still haunt him.

As a black student growing up in Beaumont and Austin, Rowry, now 33, says he often felt isolated and ignored in school. White teachers seemed to give white students more attention than to black students, and that affected his learning and self-esteem, said the Cypress resident.

“So many things happened to me in terms of racism from teachers, principals and other students,” Rowry said. “I decided I’m not going to subject my kids to that.”

His three children, ages 8, 6 and 3, have never been in a traditional classroom. He and his wife, Chelsea, home school them.

Once seen by many blacks as something only whites do, home schooling has steadily gained momentum in the black community in the past eight years and is expected to continue to grow, say home school experts.

“Ten years ago, there were not that many people of color home schooling,” said Brian Ray, president of National Home Education Research Institute in Salem, Ore.

General dissatisfaction with public schools and increased awareness about home schooling are motivating blacks to change course, experts said.

Concerns about children missing associating with other students and the loss of a spouse’s income, however, keep many blacks who are interested in home schooling from taking the leap.

An estimated 220,000 black students were home schooled in 2007, according to the institute. In comparison, 84,000 were home schooled in 1999, according to a survey by the National Center for Education Statistics….”

For the complete article please visit: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5964005.html

“By Liz Tufts
August Siena Thomas isn’t your average college student. In fact, most of her friends aren’t even out out of high school. That’s because she’s only 17 years old.

“When I was 14 I started full time at UMass Amherst, ” says Thomas. Yes, you heard it right she started college at 14.

The Montague teen will graduate this May from the Honors College at Umass. She’s majoring in Linguistics and the Ancient World, and has minors in Italian, Ancient Greek, and Art History. But her resume doesn’t end there. She got her high school diploma at 13 and started college courses at Elms College at 11. But one of her great accomplishments is finishing her first historical novel, which she started writing at 13.

“I started writing a historical novel set in 15th Century England , it’s the story of the coming of age of a young king., ” says Thomas.

August, who’s was home schooled by her mother since she was 9, is the only student in Massachusetts to be named a 2008 Davidson Fellow. She is one of 20 other students who will receive scholarships from the Davidson Institute, a national organization that supports gifted youth. …”

For the full text visit: http://www.cbs3springfield.com/news/local/27562204.html

“By TIFFANY ARNOLD

When a vacation evolved into a three-year adventure across the Atlantic Ocean, the world became Jennifer Carpenter-Peak’s classroom.

Circumstance forced Carpenter-Peak’s parents to home school her, a fourth-grader at the time, and her sister while they lived and traveled by sailboat. During the trip, their classroom could have been somewhere on the Azores, a group of volcanic islands near Portugal, or in the tiny ship cabin where she and her sister slept. Recess might have meant a retreat to Caribbean island beaches or taking in the view offered up by the Madeira Islands, off the coast of Africa.

But once Carpenter-Peak re-entered public school as a seventh-grader, she soon learned that her experience set her apart from her peers. Like the rest of society, her fellow students did not know much about home schooling.

Though home schooling is becoming more mainstream - the U.S. Department of Education has pegged it as the fastest growing segment of school enrollment - there is a generation of adults like Carpenter-Peak, who were home schooled when home schooling wasn’t so popular.

Home schooled parents share the unique perspective. They were home-schooled; now they have children of their own. Now they must decide what is best for their own kids: to home school or not to home school? …”

For the complete article visit: http://www.herald-mail.com/?cmd=displaystory&story_id=202167&format=html

:By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

MINAS GERAIS, BRAZIL, August 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two homeschooled children face a battery of tests this week in a showdown between the Brazilian government and a Christian family over the educational rights of parents in the South American nation.

The children of Cleber and Bernadeth Nunes have already passed the entrance exams for law school at the ages of 13 and 14, but that doesn’t satisfy the Brazilian government, which has been trying to force them into its troubled school system since 2006.

After over a year of battling authorities for the right to home school their children, the Nunes’ two prodigies will be tested on a variety of subjects to prove that their parents are not guilty of “intellectual abandonment”, a legal term that indicates that one has not fulfilled the obligation of providing for the education of one’s children.

The tests will include a wide array of subjects, including mathematics, Portuguese, science, history, English, geography, arts, and physical education.  The family has been preparing their children for the test for over a month, and the Brazilian media is covering the case…..”

For more of this article visit: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081802.html

“By Wes Clement/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
The number of students home-schooled in Arkansas is expected to increase this year following an established trend of growth of enrollments in the state, according to Melissa Savary, director of The Education Alliance, an association of home schools.

A final enrollment count for the 2006-2007 school year, the latest number released by the Arkansas Department of Education, indicates there were 15,012 Arkansas students home-schooled that year, up from 10 years ago at 6,420….”

For the complete article visit: http://www.pbcommercial.com/articles/2008/08/19/news/news1.txt

“Recently, the Hickory Daily Record published a guest column by Mike Koivisto in the absence of Scott Hollifield of the McDowell News. I thought the readers of the Hickory Daily Record might like to read about our homeschool experiences, since I offer a different view of homeschooling from Mr. Koivisto.

We began our homeschool journey in 2000. It was during that fall that we discovered that our oldest child, who had been on the “A” honor roll all of her academic life, did not learn any math skills in third grade in public school. Her entrance exam to fourth grade showed that she had the math skills of a child finishing 2nd grade.

She was unable to complete assignments in her fourth-grade math book because she did not know basic multiplication and division.

Did we, her parents, know that she was not being taught multiplication? No. We assumed that she was doing well in third-grade math, based on her report cards.

What we did know about third grade was that it was all important to know how to take a standardized test. She spent third grade learning how to color in the little bubbles on the test. And, miraculously she passed that test at the end of third grade, because she was promoted to fourth grade.

Thus, our homeschooling journey began. I spent two years working with her on mastering basic math skills. And I began teaching her younger brothers at home as well. What I found is that I was equipped to teach them as well as a certified teacher. Yes, they are able to pass the end-of-year standardized tests.

And to correct a fallacy in Mr. Koivisto’s article, they do not have to “pass” it to be promoted to the next grade….”

for the full text please visit: http://www2.hickoryrecord.com/content/2008/aug/20/homeschooling-not-easy-rewards-are-many/news-opinion/

“…Grace Bee’s husband, Republican candidate Tim Bee, is in the middle of one of the most competitive congressional races in the country. She already had a house full of six children that she’s responsible for mothering and home-schooling. Her title of “mom taxi” is well-earned — her home is 30 minutes southeast of Tucson. …Home-schooling the kids

“Bulletin #63     California Appeals Ruling   08/11/08

     (Please note that the following is not meant to provide legal advice to anyone. It is meant to provide the personal opinion of the author and to provide general educational information about the judicial system and this specific ruling.  Anyone reading the following opinion is advised to contact an attorney licensed to practice law in California for appropriate legal advice. Anyone seeking information about the ruling is advised to read the ruling in its entirety and/or to contact an attorney)

Did you know?  Despite the statutory requirement for credentialed tutors in California, that an appeals court has now concluded that since the practice existed that parents (and perhaps the umbrella schools they might have been using) were home schooling their children as tutors without having credentials, that in fact, the court recognizes that practice as being deemed acceptable despite the existence of the law.

NHELD offered some background information on this case in our previous bulletin, Bulletin #60, regarding the initial California ruling (http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B192878.PDF) about which it was claimed that “homeschooling was illegal” in California as a result of that ruling. The court’s ruling was revisited through an appeal process.

In that appeal of Jonathan L.et al., v. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County in the

State of California’s Court of Appeals (http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B192878A.PDF), the court referred to home schooling as ”full time education in the home by a parent or guardian who does not necessarily possess a teaching credential.”

More importantly, the court issued two main conclusions:

“We will conclude that: (1) California statutes permit home schooling as a species of private school education; and (2) the statutory permission to home school may constitutionally be overridden in order to protect the safety of a child who has been declared dependent.”…”

http://www.nheld.com/BTN63.htm

“SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A California appeals court ruled Friday that parents lacking teaching credentials can still home school their children, reversing its previous decision.

The three-judge panel in February prompted an enormous uproar throughout the state when it initially ruled that all California children had to be taught by credentialed teachers, including the estimated 166,000 students taught at home.

Numerous home schooling organizations, religious groups and others urged the appeals court to reconsider its ruling. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and several other politicians also asked the court to reverse its decision.

”This decision confirms the right every California child has to a quality education and the right parents have to decide what is best for their children,” Schwarzenegger said. “I hope the ruling settles this matter for parents and home schooled children once and for all in California, but assure them that we, as elected officials, will continue to defend parents’ rights.”

The appeals court did call on the state Legislature to clear up what it called conflicts in state law to specifically allow home schooling. It noted that the legal uncertainty “has resulted in a near absence of objective criteria and oversight for home schooling.” …”

For the complete article visit: http://www.times-standard.com/ci_10141575?