"Some home-school leaders see in K12 and other cybercharters a threat to the academic freedom that motivates people to home-school in the first place. Taking public funds means accepting mandatory state testing, a schedule of vaccinations, requirements to submit attendance records and adherence to state curriculum guidelines.

"If too many home-schoolers are seduced by K12's free computers, textbooks, art supplies and science equipment, "a lot of home-school freedom could be in jeopardy," said Tom Washburne of the Home School Legal Defense Association. "What has made home schooling as successful as it is today is its wide freedom to do what's successful for your children."

"And if too many families are co-opted by the public schools, he said, there will be no constituency left to defend home-schoolers' rights."

-- Chris Moran, from his article Cyber Classrooms

While I agree with most of this, there's an error. The writer apparently thought independent homeschoolers don't have to adhere to state curriculum guidelines. In California, that's not true. We who homeschool via California's private school law are still mandated to follow Education Code rules about curriculum offered.

Other than that, I'd have to agree with what Washburne is quoted as saying. We who homeschool independently are in danger of losing our rights because so many other homeschoolers have entered the public school funding system through charter schools, public school ISP's and cyber-charter schools.

Public school educrats have successfully divided us into independents and dependents. As more people go for the free computers and curriculum, we independents find ourselves without much support. If bureaucrats want to attack us, it is much easier to attack one or two lone-wolf independent homeschoolers than to attack a group of fifty or one hundred.

Still, I will stand for my right to freely direct the education of my children without the heavy-handed public school laws and bureaucracy telling me what to do. The U.S. Supreme Court and Constitutional Rights are on our side.

HEM's Intro to We Stand For Homeschooling

  ¶ 1:58 PM