Edited to add: Our illustrious teacher has removed his blog. He emailed Daryl this morning with nothing but a letter laced with profanities that even I couldn’t top and told Daryl and his “Cronies” that we won. I didn’t know we were in a contest, but apparantly Mr. Teacher just couldn’t handle it any more. C’est la vie. Now if only he quits teaching. He proved in his letter to Daryl that he shouldn’t be a teacher. How very sad because this country is lacking good teachers. He just isn’t one of them.

I’m speaking of this: If Ignorance is bliss, this guy is moronically happy… (and also to further prove I have nothing against Daryl)…

So, let’s pick apart (Mr. I’m-such-a-wonderful-5th grade-teacher-I’m-going-to-rip-anyone-else-apart) his blog post that I linked to.

Now, let me say that I am very fortunate to have family and friends who are totally supportive of my homeschooling. Part of there reasoning is due to the very things Mr. “Wonderful” is speaking of.

By our very nature, we, as homeschoolers, are out and about in the world more than most kids. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It is good because our kids are getting that “socialization” society thinks we lack. It is bad because we are mixing with the very society that we feel isn’t doing their job to educate our children well enough. Now before I go on, let me just say that I realize homeschooling is not for everyone. I am not like some (who shall not be mentioned as they are being boycotted), that feel **every** child should be brought home and homeschooled. I simply do not think this is possible. And, let me also say, that though the top of a homeschoolers list might be “bad schools”, the majority of them are not.

That said, let’s have it, point by point.

Everyday that I drive home from work, I pass by a private, religious school. This school is a K-12 school, and is well known in the area. It’s called Mesilla Valley Christian School. As I was driving by this school today, I was struck by the thought of people pulling their children out of public school in order to put them in this school.

And rightly you should be. I mean, if they aren’t in your school, you won’t get paid. I understand that concern. But this one paragraph is more loaded that it appears. Mr. “Wonderful” teaches Public School. I hate to tell him this, but the war between public -vs- private has existed long before he did. And it is an unwinable war. It will never been won so long as we have the money in existence to pay for these private schools.

But, onto the next matter:

I have nothing personally against MVCS, I haven’t heard bad things, and it’s located very near the NMSU campus, so they are probably at least mildly aligned to the ways public schools run things. The problem I have is that public education gets bashed so much in this country, and it’s unfair. We are extremely lucky to have free education in this country. If you want to go to school past 7th grade in Mexico, you have to pay.

Are you sure you have nothing against this school? Sure sounds like you do. And let me tell you, public school (the ones that deserve it) gets a beat down because the Government does not value education in this country as much as it should and as such, those schools suffer. When will you public school teachers realize that it isn’t YOU we are beating down, it is the school system in general. I don’t care about you and what you teach or even how you teach it. I care about the fact that you don’t have the resources TO teach it and likely won’t get those resources any time soon. And because you won’t get them, is the reason my kids are at home being taught by me. Oh and don’t use the “your tax dollars are paying for the school system and if your kid isn’t in school, the schools aren’t being paid” bit–won’t work, buddy. My tax dollars are STILL going to public schools in this county, whether I want them to or not. So the schools are STILL getting their money’s worth. Why don’t you ask your under-worked, over-paid bigwigs who are pocketing some of that cost to build their multi-story homes with gas-guzzling SUV’s in the driveway–one of which belongs to their over-spoiled, never-punished, and just-barely-legal-enough-to-drive teenager.

But no. It’s all the homeschoolers fault.

Next:

Now the problem here is that private schools and home schoolers (don’t even get me started on that bunch) claim higher averages on the SAT’s, they claim higher graduation rates, and they claim to put a higher percentage (all per capita of course) of students in college. I have some issues that stem from these trends, and here’s why:

(1)Parents PAY MONEY to put their children in private school. This means that a poor Mexican woman with 4 kids and daddy in prison isn’t going to have the resources or the means to put her children in private school. Also, Smokey McCrack isn’t going to care enough about his children to pay for their education. This means that public education has to deal with children of parents that don’t hold education as a high priority, and that drags down the numbers.

Firstly, we claim higher SAT scores because we can prove that our scores are higher, just by the student-teacher ratio alone. There is ONE of you and THIRTY-FIVE (sometimes higher) of them. How in the hell do you expect them to get any kind of education, let alone you actually having the ability to TEACH (as opposed to sheep hearding, crowd control, in-service days, testing that has absolutely nothing to do with learning, etc.). Whereas, there is ONE of me and only TWO of them. I’d said I have the upper hand in that game.

As to your first reason “why”: GET OVER IT. If you did not want to teach “smokey mccrack’s” children, or immigrant children, you should have NEVER become a public school teacher. You sir, are the antithesis as to why I homeschool. Your attitude of “why should I have to” is the exact reason kids do not learn. You feel someone owes you something just because you have to teach the “lesser” children of this society? You feel that homeschoolers are at fault because you’ve been put in this position? Well, got news for ya…. You live on the border to Mexico–that’s 5th grade geography right there. You are going to, by rights, have to deal with immigrant children (whether illegal or not) and, guess what–TEACH THEM. And here you are only concerned about “dragging the numbers down”? And you question US and our right to homeschool?

Next moronic statement:

Parents who home school have an alterior motive. I’ve seen it myself. Whether it’s for religious reasons, personal issues, over-bearing parenting, or because that child couldn’t handle the social aspect of public education. I’ve personally seen lots of extremely socially inept home schooled children who go off to college and can’t handle the rigors of large classrooms and having to socialize in an educational setting.

I don’t think I need to touch this one with anyone’s ten foot pole. It stands on its own merit. All this idiot needs to do is read my previous paragraph, and for anyone else reading, you’d see that he just proved ALL of my points.

Moronic Point “whatever”:

Private schools are not accountable for what they teach. This should not be. I don’t care whether they’re taking state money or not, they’re educating children, and should be accountable. I can’t start a business and decide not to pay taxes because I did it without government assistance, and when it comes to education, everyone should be accountable, public or not.

And rightly they shouldn’t be. They’ve proven repeatedly that they can give our children a much better education (in some instances, of course) than public schools can. Feel threatened?

Blah blah:

How do we know that home schooled children aren’t basically being taught how to take the SAT’s? At least in public education we’re held accountable to teaching standards. The inequities in public school are present in both private and home schooled education, they’re just magnified when a public school has 500 students as opposed to a home setting of 2.

Wow, pot, kettle’s calling, he’s black…. Ayep, I’m sitting here just giving my kids the answers to the tests, that’s **exactly** what I do, as do every homeschooler I know. Ayep, that’s what we do.

Next:

Education is not a one-size fits all, but it’s getting better. For someone to say that they’re going to pull their children out of school and they don’t care about others, they are socially irresponsible and show exactly what is wrong with this country. All children deserve a fair chance at education, not just yours. If the American society works together, we can fix the problem. If you’re selfish and don’t care about anything beyond your front door, then fine, but don’t expect help when you need it either. Children deserve better, our children, everyone else’s children, all children, deserve better. We can give it to them, but we need to put the bickering aside and focus on fixing public education, not tearing it apart.

He says what he did above, but then he backslides and says “All children” deserve a chance at education, not just mine. Yep, you are correct. All children do deserve a chance and honestly, while I have the chance to give them something better than YOU can provide, I will. And no, my keeping my kids home is not “tearing it all apart”. If anything, it should become a wake-up call for the public school bureaucrats to actually FIX the problem instead of just applying multi-million dollar band-aids.

Here’s the thing, Mr. I’m so wonderful: My husband is a PUBLIC high school teacher. My husband busts his ass daily (and nightly) to actually see to that his kids are EDUCATED and are LEARNING. There are many, if not most, teachers who do. I live in a predominantely Mexican population (my own child’s elementary school was 62% Mexican/Hispanic), my own neighborhood is an “every other neighbor is” Mexican or Hispanic.

Hell**I’M** Latino by birth.

And no one here is complaining about us “homeschoolers” ruining their child’s education. In my county alone, there are some 4,000 (that’s THOUSAND) of us alone. And get this, some of us are black and some of us are (gasp!) Mexican/Hispanic.

Oh, and it was MY HUSBAND’S idea we homeschool. That was after public school and after private school. BOTH failed to educate my kids.

If a public school teacher admits that it would be best if his kids were OUT of the school system–then something is wrong with the SYSTEM–not the teachers.

Lastly, as I said above and to any teachers reading–GET OVER YOURSELVES. It isn’t all about you. Some of you just out and out stink at teaching and others don’t. Go back bite each other with your problems because it certainly isn’t this homeschoolers fault your school boards cannot figure out how to properly spend the money MY taxes pay for.

~~Enjoy your day…..
Toni

(ETA to add my comments I left on his blog)

Mr. Ross,

I’ll ask you like I asked you (figuratively)on my blog: why do teachers take offense to my homeschooling **my** children? It has nothing to do with YOU (the teacher)and everything to do with lack of true education time, and lack of space or will (to teach) by **certain** schools (read: not all) to educate our children properly.

My husband is a public high school teacher, it was his idea we homeschool. As I said before, if a public school teacher has the idea to homeschool his own kids, then something is wrong with the **school** system itself, not the teachers.

Teachers should not feel threatened by us in any way. You have no reason to.

I take offense to your “these people have no redeeming values and are un-productive members of society”. Prove to me where your kids are. Most high schoolers don’t work (and if they do, only work part time), only participate in activites that pertain to **them** and wish to have nothing to do with this “society” you speak of. In fact, it is now **required** that a student have so many hours of volunteer work before they can graduate. Why “force” them to have this if they are such “productive members of society”?

But nearly all of the homeschoolers in my county are Civically minded, volunteer on a regular basis (without having to be **told** to)and most, like my husband, hold down more than one job. We support ourselves and no one else–that is we don’t take funds from you in any way. We don’t come knocking on your door asking for money for over-priced pieces of thin christmas wrapping paper, really badly tasting chocolates and cheap calendars. We fund our own resources AND we STILL pay taxes to fund yours.

Without complaining. Willingly.

And no, I’m not going to attack your lack of spelling skills or grammatical mistakes. We ALL make those mistakes–even homeschoolers.

You should try to be around us, just once. You might learn something. Something you never thought you’d learn.

Like tolerance.
Like acceptance.
Like how to be socially productive with **every** member of society, not just the ones **like you**.

Here, I’ll give you your first lesson. Contrary to what you believe, homeschooling IS part of that “vast public educational expeirence” that you speak of. We co-op, we buddy up, we lesson plan, we “teacher conference”, we learn from each other, we get and give advice and we educate each others child when it calls for it.

We **are** socially conscience. We do just as much as you do in your classroom. But for us, we aren’t limited to four walls.

Now, none that I have said is a personal attack on you. I have tried to give you reason for why we take exception to your blog post. You might note that your blog is public and if you wish us to not read it (seeing as how it is on a public blogging space) you might think of using the administrator tools available to you and make your blog private.

If you’d like to see a “true attack” (at least on your comments, not neccessarily you) go ahead and visit my blog.

I dare you. If you delete this, you are a coward and thusly, will have proved my point.

~~Toni