For the last 3 years we have home-schooled our kids. Many in our sphere deeply disagree - the masses are so indoctrinated that homeschooling seems strange when it is public education that is actually the oddity; the new phenomenon in the last hundred years or so. School wasn't federalized until 1982 which meant that even public school was privately funded.
Typically, we would dumb-down the reasons for our choice and sugar coat it all by blaming the school district we lived in being unaccredited and the amendment to the No Child Left Behind act not allowing the transfer to a performing district. We found that people took a huge offense to us homeschooling like what they were doing or did was wrong. We would tip toe around it all despite the real reasons being far more intentional and research based. And I'm not going to get that in depth on the "why" here today....
Now less than 24 hours after dropping off the pre-enrollment paperwork to the public elementary, we are already having to defend our prior choice with great intensity. Our 6y/o completed kindergarten for the 2016/2017 school year, she is entering first grade at a second grade level per her state assessment test-- however, the school feels it is in her best interest to hold her back and make her re-do kindergarten for a "proper" experience.. whatever that is suppose to mean. So you have a 6 year old, who is testing at a second grade level being held back to kindergarten because they want her to have a "proper" experience. Are you kidding me??? Can I add this to the list of why we home-school our kids? Good lord! How counterproductive!
And this is our money at waste here. With the bloated federal funding of these alleged educational institutions they would rather hold an academically advanced kid back nearly two grade levels just so their books indicate she has completed a public schools indoctrination----errrrr introduction to kindergarten.
Apparently her test scores, her portfolio, and the detailed lesson plans which included real life experiences out of the classroom don't qualify as "proper" kindergarten. No, my kid got to watch sea turtles hatch in real life, travel the country, meet new people, make new friends, have pen pals, go to the zoo so often it's a second home, feed a rhino, feed giraffes, participate in a zoology camp at the zoo, volunteer at a wildlife sanctuary, learn to ride a horse, have real life science, go to the beach, pool, hike, as well as classic textbook instruction just isn't good enough because it was "homeschool".
I went against my better judgement agreeing to see how this public school jazz would pan out and I can't even get my kids to their first day without the ridiculous red tape negatively impacting our lives. No thanks... keep your Kool-Aid, we're good.
