ODonnellWeb, a pro-home-school site, repeatedly referred to the series as “journalistic vomit.”

Heh. They Goggle bombed themselves.

They also quoted me a couple of other times.

“I get the definite impression that if (the) government wanted to implant a GPS tracking chip in every person in the country, these two clowns would be the first in line for the injection,” one contributor wrote midway through the series.

When the newspaper asked on the series’ seventh day whether it had been fair in addressing home schooling, an ODonnellWeb entry said: “You are kidding, right? It is painfully obvious that the writers spent that last year looking for evidence that supports their preconceived opinions of home schooling. They never had any intention of being fair or complete. As a hatchet job against a minority group, it’s well-done attack journalism. As fair and balanced reporting, it’s an embarrassment to your organization.”

They did focus on some of my snarkier commentary, but I guess I should expect that. Not that it bothers me, I seem to have a talent for snark I will give them credit for highlighting their detractors. Many organizations would pretend we don’t exist.

Daryl gets a mention too.

In response to the question of the newspaper’s fairness, the contributor wrote: “This is a trick question, right?”

Again, they pass on his serious commentary and focus on the snark. They also didn’t link to either of our sites, showing a fundamental lack of understanding about writing on the web.

I have seen very little mention of the series outside of the homeschooling community. I don’t know what impact, if any, it’s having in Ohio, but it doesn’t seem to have kicked up a nationwide firestorm of concern about homeschooling.

And hopefully, this is the last time you’ll hear about the series around here too.

Heh. I checked my logs. I got six hits today from the same IP address that Don identifies as ABJ. All six via a Google search on journalistic vomit.

If you search Google for journalistic vomit you’ll see that I’m #1 and #2. Don is #4.

#3 belongs to the homeschool series page on the Akron Beacon Journal site.

Schwweeeettt!

Homeschoolers excel academically, socially, and in ways that bring lasting benefits to families and our nation. The reason for this success can be traced to the individualized nature of home education. If the government were given power to intervene even further in the lives of homeschool families?as the Akron Beacon Journal calls for?then the unique strengths of homeschooling would be lost to standardization. That’s not too different from what has happened in the public schools.

They also (as I did) question the motives of the so called journalists.

It’s a fine last word on the issue.

1. Should home schoolers be permitted to define themselves, or should
homeschooling outside the home be regulated?,

Education is education. It does not matter where the education takes
place. In the home, or in the woods, who cares? Government should have
zero authority to regulate education. The public school system should
be opened to free market competition.

2.Is there a point at which a parent’s authority over a child is
superseded by the community’s interest, and if so, what is the point?

The community has no rights at all with regards to my children. If
there is compelling evidence of a crime against a child, the child’s
rights may dictate that the state take action. The community has no
rights, nor should it.

3. Should children have say in their education, and if so, at what
age and under what circumstances.

The state should never have the ability to compel a parent to cede to
a child’s wishes regarding education. It may make sense as a matter of
good parenting to solicit and consider the child’s wishes, but that is
an individual decision that will vary for each child and his unique
circumstance. Homeschooled children as a general rule have far more
say in their education that school kids that are subject to state
mandated curriculum and testing requirements.

4.Has your understanding of homeschooling changed, and how?

No.

5. Has the ABJ been fair and complete in it’s presentation of the subject?

You are kidding, right? It is painfully obvious that the writers spent
that last year looking for evidence that supports their preconceived
opinions of homeschooling. They never had any intention of being fair
or complete. As a hatchet job against a minority group, it’s well done
attack journalism. As fair and balanced reporting, it’s an
embarrassment to your organization.

Daryl’s response.

All in all , it’s no big deal. Any regular reader of my site (or Daryl’s) will have heard all this before.

It starts by reviewing the facts in an Ohio case where HS’ers and HSLDA mobilized to force an Ohio school district to follow Ohio law. This, of course, is presented as some sort of victory for the forces of evil.

The so called journalists then discuss the “the web of influence,” complete with detailed drawings and maps of our secret underground hideouts and web of tunnels connecting all our homes. How did they find out about that? Apparently, homeschoolers are the only interest group in America that have thought to form hundreds of local chapters, and use email and web sites to keep informed. Those pesky homeschoolers, what will they think of next?

The bulk of the article could be subtitled, “Democracy would be easy if it wasn’t for the voters.” They review several situations in Texas, Montana, Ohio, and the US Congress in which legislation unfavorable to homeschoolers was defeated because we had the audacity to speak up and exercise our rights as free citizens in a representative republic. The reporters seem to feel that persecuted minority groups should just shut up and take it. I’ll avoid the obvious Nazi comparison here, Godwin’s law you know.

This statement, U.S. taxpayers are saving between $7.7 billion and $14.7 billion annually, based on an estimate of 1.1 million to 2.1 million home-schooled children who are not enrolled in public schools. In Ohio, the sum saved ranges from $238 million to $420 million annually, gave me an idea.

What if we all enrolled our kids in PS next fall? I mean all 1 point whatever million of us. It apparently would crush the school system. Then, we present our list of demands in order to go back to homeschooling. It would be sort of like terrorism for a good cause. Hell, they are all but accusing us of being terrorists anyway.

Just in case your not a regular – I am kidding here.

The authors then move into a discussion of all the horrible things that happen in a free market when the customers express their displeasure with a product or service. Again, apparently selling to us would be a hell of a lot easier if we would just shut up and accept that everybody else knows what is best for us.

The overall theme of today’s article is that homeschoolers are just a bunch of bullies. We apparently are so strong and so feared that we can make state and federal legislators tremble with fear at the mere mention of the word homeschoolers, and multi billion dollar corporations are mere putty in our hands.

Heh. We wish.

Heh. I rule

And I’ll go out on a limb here and agree with these idiots on something. Kidnappers should not be allowed to homeschool. I’m all in favor of a law extending harsh penalties on kidnappers that sully the good name of homeschoolers by using our advanced educational methodolgies as a cover for their lawbreaking activities. Actually, it may even be a hate crime, or possibly terrorsism, for kidnappers to homeschool. Throw the book at them, that’s what I say.

I get the definite impression that if government wanted to implant a GPS tracking chip in every person in the country, these two clowns would be the first in line for the injection. The concept of freedom seems totally foreign to them. Which is of course ironic since if they published an article critical of the government’s “lax” policies on homeschooling in, say Iran, they’d be thrown into jail and probably tortured.

Not that there is anything wrong with that idea

And I also just bought a $15 used monitor from the classifieds, as I’m in no mood to spend cash on new computer equipment either. I pick it up tomorrow.

The recent study and one in 1999 that had similar findings make it clear that home-schooling parents want to be the primary influence on their children’s moral, ethical and religious views. They don’t want their children to be socialized by educators or other children in the public- or private-school setting.

The nerve of some people – thinking parenting is a full time job and not one to outsourced to a government employee.

Among Christian home schoolers, this idea is often expressed as their “worldview.”

Oooo, scare quotes around worldview. How charming. Does this mean that only Christian homeschoolers can have a worldview?

For others, known as unschoolers or inclusives, there is a “me and my children” approach that asserts that no one — or no government — should interfere with their lives. They resent negative outside influences and want to keep their children from being programmed by commercial, materialistic views present in society. They want their children protected from the cliques, bullies and potential violence in schools.

And this is a bad thing, how? What I’m really trying to avoid is my kids growing up to be cynical journalists incapable of an original thought.

Michael Apple, a University of Wisconsin professor who opposes home schooling, believes most religious families want their children in a protected environment, a phenomenon he calls “cocooning” within their “fortress home.”

So the home defense drills are a bad idea?

“My kids socialized more after I pulled them out of school than they did when they were in school,” she said. “I wish that the public understood we aren’t all sitting at home around the kitchen table all day long.”

I find all this much easier when you just stop giving a damn about what the public thinks.

A children’s services worker said parents are isolating their children. “I really think it’s emotional abuse when you don’t allow your children to interact with other children, other people,” she said.

I think it’s emotional abuse to have to read ill informed, self serving statements like this.

Many non-home schoolers share the belief that home-schooled children are too confined to their own worlds and that socialization comes from learning to get along in different settings with people from different backgrounds.

Who cares? Why should any homeschooler care what a non-homeschooler thinks? I don’t. If I wanted their opinion, I would have left me kids in the public school system.

“They don’t want diversity. That is why they home-school,” a focus group member said. “They want (the children) to be with people who have the same value system.”

No, we want our kids to be around people that have a value system, any value system is fine. Well, anything other than bowing before the god of diversity.

Wilson co-authored a book that argues that Civil War abolitionists ignored the teachings of the Bible, which recognizes slavery.

This is certainly representative of homeschoolers. Can we file a class action defamation suit against the paper? This entire series is one big hatchet job.

The strong religious views that the Becks, Gomez and others hold can stir anti-home schooling feelings in the larger community. In interviews and focus groups, many non-home schoolers pointed to a “holier than thou” attitude that they said permeates many families in the movement.

Of course, you’d never see a holier-than-thou attitude from the public school system.

“Not all home schoolers are going to like this, but this will be part of the aim of regulation — to ensure that even within a home-school environment, children are introduced to and exposed to the world of diversity in a liberal democracy,” Reich said at the same discussion of education research that Sorooshian attended.

He’s damn right I don’t like it. Keep your hands off my kids.

“It’s the wrong stance to take from a public point of view to forbid home-school children from participating in public school activities,” Reich told the Beacon Journal. “It ought to be done precisely because it gives the home-school kids an opportunity to interact with more people than they would otherwise in a way that might have civic benefits.”

Talk about paternalistic and holy-than-thou attitudes. Let the poor under socialized HS’ed kids play with the public school kids, because it’s their only hope of seeing the light. What a load of bullshit.

These interactions have not come without friction. Home schoolers are accused of cherry-picking public services

I love how cherry picking the most useful services is presented as a negative. Either your with us or your against us, seems to be the mantra of the public school system. Yet we are the ones that are intolerant.

“I would ultimately like to see the extracurricular stuff taken completely out of the schools and made free-standing, like Barberton Little League is not a school-related organization. It’s a separate thing, and the kids go play baseball together,” she said.

I think this is the perfect solution. What the hell does football have to do with public education anyway? I’m not doubting the value of organized sports, I’m all for it. However, I question whether schools are the best venue to be doing the organizing.

Coming Wednesday: Troubling situations in home schooling.

You mean they don’t consider the previous two days to be a witch hunt for troubling situations in homeschooling?

Something doesn’t smell right about this series. Why would two reporters so clearly have a vendetta against homeschooling? Is one of them married to some sort of education establishment leader? There has got to be more to the story than just a random subject chosen. The underlying hatred of us is very evident in this.