Barbara Frank

President Obama recommends  shorter summer vacations for U.S. schoolchildren so they can attend school for more days than they do already, because he believes that they’re at a disadvantage compared to students in other countries.

His Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, says more school hours will “even the playing field” when it comes to comparing our schoolchildren to those in the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, homeschoolers excel with far fewer hours of instruction than most public schoolchildren receive. So is it really more hours of instruction that schoolchildren need?

First off, President Obama’s assertion appears to be inaccurate:

Obama and Duncan say kids in the United States need more school because kids in other nations have more school.

“Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer than our students here,” Duncan told the AP. “I want to just level the playing field.”

While it is true that kids in many other countries have more school days, it’s not true they all spend more time in school.

Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests - Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).

Apparently children in the countries that outscore ours in math and science attend school for more days per year but fewer hours per year. So the suggestion by Obama and Duncan that a longer school day results in “gains” (test scores, which do not necessarily equal learning) is not backed up by the foreign countries whose kids outscore ours. They actually have shorter school days.

But if you read the entire article, you find that merely educating kids isn’t really the point anyway. Here are your clues:

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

Summer is a crucial time for kids, especially poorer kids, because poverty is linked to problems that interfere with learning, such as hunger and less involvement by their parents.

That makes poor children almost totally dependent on their learning experience at school, said Karl Alexander, a sociology professor at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University, home of the National Center for Summer Learning.

Aside from improving academic performance, Education Secretary Duncan has a vision of schools as the heart of the community.

“Those hours from 3 o’clock to 7 o’clock are times of high anxiety for parents,” Duncan said. “They want their children safe. Families are working one and two and three jobs now to make ends meet and to keep food on the table.”

Do you see it? What we’re talking about here goes way beyond merely educating a child. This is about raising children because their parents have been deemed unable or unwilling. This is about schools becoming publicly subsidized daycare centers for school-age children, even on the weekends.

What it’s not about is how many hours of instruction it takes to educate a child so he can beat the math and science scores of kids in other countries. Homeschoolers have already demonstrated that.

Convention season is on the way. It won’t be long before that brochure shows up in the mail box again, offering early bird discounts and listing a stellar line-up of homeschool speakers.

Some homeschoolers avoid conventions, believing that they can learn what they need to know from Web sites, books, magazines and of course, like-minded friends.

Those are all good resources, but there’s an energy found at the convention that you can’t get anywhere else. Being around so many other homeschooling parents is quite invigorating. Some speakers are really encouraging. And having the opportunity to flip through new homeschooling resources for hours is a huge plus.

The homeschool convention makes a good outing for the couple that can get someone to watch their children. My husband went with me a few times, which gave us a really good opportunity to talk about our children and how the homeschooling was going (what our goals were for the kids, etc.) in a way we could never find time for in our daily lives.

There are things you can do to make your homeschool convention experience a fantastic one. Ive experienced many homeschool conventions as an attendee and also as a vendor. You’ll find my tips for a great homeschool convention experience in “Keys to a Successful Homeschool Convention Experience.”

Once in a while, I stumble on one of those articles written for homeschoolers suggesting that there’s really no such thing as a teen.

The author usually goes on to say that the concept of a teen is a relatively recent development stemming from our modern culture, and that once upon a time children were able to transition into adulthood with little if any difficulty. 

My reaction to this? Beans!

We’re on our third and fourth teenagers, and the journey of raising them from birth to adulthood has been nothing if not fascinating. All four differed tremendously in temperament, and yet all four definitely showed signs of becoming teens at the usual time.

Did we raise them all the same? No. It’s not possible. We’re not even the same parents today that we were ten or fifteen years ago, and we don’t do things the same way we used to. I like to think we’ve learned at least a couple of things in the process, and that they’re reflected in our parenting skills.

So we have four very different children, all homeschooled all the way through, and all from the same two parents. Yet each one exhibited signs of difficulty as they made that transition to adulthood.

There were the usual physical signs, of course—the whole puberty issue—and that’s normal. But it brings with it many emotional issues that are also normal, so when people write that there doesn’t need to be any turmoil during the teen years, I have to laugh. Hormones are dramatically changing, the body’s changes cause emotional responses…..how can there not be turmoil? As a woman of a certain age (ahem), I’m more aware than ever of how much damage hormones and physical changes can do to your peace of mind.

Then there’s the idea that it’s not normal for teens to rebel. I’m sorry, but it’s normal for humans of any age to rebel. It’s the result of sin in the world. God’s children, the Israelites, rebelled against Him repeatedly, as noted in the Old Testament of the Bible. If even God’s children rebel against Him, why would we be exempt from experiencing the rebellion of our own children?

I’m not saying that rebellion is good, but I do think writers who suggest teen rebellion is not natural are being a bit Pollyanna-ish, to say the least. Those who go one step farther by suggesting that homeschooling will prevent rebellion are naïve at best.

So what is the homeschooling parent to do when her once-adorable offspring reaches the age of 10 or 12 or 14 (it varies) and becomes an emotional powder keg? I offer some tips in my free e-course, “Ten Tips for Coping with Temperamental Teens,” but my best advice is to avoid panic. No, you’re not a bad parent, and your child is not a bad seed. Some emotional upheaval is normal when a child begins that transition to adulthood. Just avoid over-reaction to your preteen or teen’s occasional odd behavior, and pray as hard as needed. My own experience has been that no matter what they were like as teens, they eventually become adults of whom you can be proud….even though they gave you some gray hair along the way.

This week’s Carnival of Homeschooling is in honor of the Missing Day. Which day was that? You’ll have to go see for yourself. While you’re there, do take time to enjoy the wide variety of posts, all related to homeschooling and sponsored by Homeschoolbuzz.com.

It alarms me when I hear someone say (usually in a homeschool convention speech) that our homeschooling efforts will prove successful only if all of our children homeschool their own kids someday.Yes, I think it would be wonderful if that happened, but I’m not going to hold my breath for it. And we have not told our children that they must homeschool our someday grandkids. For one thing, God called us to homeschool. It wasn’t a decision we made because someone here on earth expected us to do it (back then, nobody expected us to do it…they were all pretty surprised, actually.) So how can we demand that our kids do it? That request has to come from God.

I don’t believe the goal of homeschooling is to perpetuate it. I think the goal is to allow children to grow up naturally within the protective circle of the family, to live in the real world (as opposed to the unreal world of the classroom) and to learn what they need to prepare them for life. Once they’re adults, they should have the freedom we have to make their own decisions, with God’s direction.

The current financial crisis has been coming for a long time, but it’s just over the past few weeks that the media seems to have noticed, and boy, everyone’s noticing now that the stock market has plunged. It’s scary to contemplate the future in light of what we’re finally seeing in the news.

Christians know that God will look out for them, but also that they need to follow His guidance about money and how to handle it. As homeschooling parents, we have ample time and opportunity to share those precepts with our children.

But what we teach is not nearly as compelling to them as how (or whether) we walk our talk. Recently columnist Cal Thomas wrote about how we are to look at money:

Throughout Scripture, people are warned that money is a false G-d that leads to destruction. Wealth is best used when it becomes a river, not a reservoir; when it blesses and encourages others and does not solely feed one’s personal empire.

It’s easy to point to the greedy people who are responsible for the economic troubles our country now faces. But, are we living within our own means? Are we giving to our church, to other areas of need, and to those who need our help? We can talk ourselves blue in the face about how God wants us to handle the money He has given us, but our kids won’t really hear that talk unless it’s accompanied by action.

Recently I was surprised to read that the number of homeschoolers here in Wisconsin has decreased. Since I’m accustomed to the homeschooling movement growing like a weed, that was news to me.

And it’s likely to be accurate, because we have to submit a form every fall stating the sex and grade level of each of our children. So the state should have a pretty good idea of how many homeschoolers there are here.

I realize that Wisconsin has a virtual academy, a program where kids learn at home using a state program. They are counted as public school students, and rightly so. Some homeschoolers have switched over to that program and thus reduce the headcount of homeschooled. But nationally, the annual increases in the rate of homeschooling are shrinking, so I don’t think the virtual academy gets all of the blame (or credit, depending on which side of the fence you’re on).

I think this decline was inevitable. For one thing, my generation has not replaced itself. Even parochial schools are seeing decreases in enrollment, and many small local public schools long ago disappeared in favor of larger consolidated schools. So there has not been as high of an increase in the birth rate as one would expect. (The millions aborted since 1973 represent a good portion of the missing.)

Also, the economic difficulties of the past few years have sent some stay-at-home moms back into the work force. I’ve known some parents who could work and homeschool, but it’s certainly not easy, and many parents don’t feel up to it.

Last but not least, the homeschooling movement could not continue the exponential growth rate it saw over the last 25 years. Few movements do. Sooner or later, it was inevitable that things would start to taper off. I know many people don’t want to hear that, especially those who earn a living off of homeschooling (full disclosure: I’m one of them.) But it couldn’t go on expanding like it did.

And that’s a good thing, really, because there are plenty of parents who should not homeschool their kids. I remember a woman I used to know who told me, right in front of her child, that she was an accident whose arrival ruined her parents’ carefree lifestyle. They put her in daycare as soon as she was old enough to be allowed in (six weeks old). When she was five, they put cable television in her room so she’d stay upstairs. To make a long story short, she grew up to be a drug-using, promiscuous mess. But had she spent every day being homeschooled by her hostile mother (I can’t even picture that!), she would likely be even worse off now.

So I don’t think homeschooling could (or should) ever expand to include all parents. Thus its growth had to slow down sooner or later.