Should home schoolers be "watched"?

If you are asking if homeschooling should be monitored by the school district in which you live or participate, I would guess that the answer would be yes. The reason for my answer lies in the fact that, in order to graduate from a school with any sort of diploma, credential or verification of knowledge, a student must meet certain standards and have achieved certain levels of knowledge. One would think that the school system through which you are working as a "homeschooler", would provide you with certain benchmarks, to ensure that your student (your children, I assume?) meet those standards and have learned according to those requirements.

If a person waits for a child to take college entrance exams, before determining whether the child has received adequate training, the liklihood and opportunity for failure and rejection is greatly increased. Such a rejection coulld be incredibly traumatic for the student. Having said all of that, as a former teacher in the California public schools, I wonder if that is actually what the public schools are doing these days?

In my tenure, I saw some amazingly scary things in public education while there. For that reason, it is entirely understandable that many parents choose to educate their children at home, these days.As a taxpayer, I truly hope that certain learning standards are being established and upheld aross the public schools in the United States. Likewise, I hope that all of the children in the United States are provided with an equal opportunity to receive a quality education in the public schools, particularly since I am required by law, to contribute to its' coffers.

Since school attendance is mandatory by law, I would think that certain educational requirements would be mandatory as well, even among homeschoolers.As an artist, I agree that everything is a learning experience. However there are basic tools for processing information and getting the most form each life experience which one encounters. These include the ability to read, to write to use mathmatics and science to gather and process the information which we receive over a lifetime.

Many students are not receiving the foundational education necessary for living a richer life down the road, simply because they have never been provided the basic tools with which to process the vast experiences which life has to offer. A person who cannot adeqautely read write or even speak a second language will have a very different response to a situation, than someone who has been educated. Education is so critically important in that regard... and all children should adequately receive it.

Absolutely not! The only real way they could be evaluated, I think, is through testing. Some people just don't test well.

Also, there is just know way of seeing what and how much knowledge a child in his/her brain by answering a few questions. The idea that all children of a particular age need to know the same things is just weird to me. Now that I'm out of school no one expects me to know exactly what other people around me know.

I don't think its the home schoolers need to be watched because their abilities will be tested on college entrance exams. With that being said, is it an injustice not to test the child on a regular basis to make sure they on the right path. I do think home schoolers can be deprived of certain social skills that can only be acquired in a traditional educational setting.

I do believe... The parents / educators of the home schooled students need to meet minimum requirements. How can a mother who hasn't received a gh School degree or GED home school her children?

Homeschooled children should not be tested on a yearly basis; in fact, I think it negatively affects education that school-schooled children are tested annually. Some countries have successfully used tests to improve education, but these are usually tests based on standard knowledge and skills and not by the corporate testing industry the way they are here. I think it is appropriate for home-school teachers to have to pass basic knowledge tests, especially if they are teaching high school-level courses, but only for qualifications, and not to make people jump through hoops to discourage homeschooling.

I think home schooled children should be required to take basic tests yearly. That does not mean taking tests that adhere strictly to curriculum taught in school for that grade level, just a basic test that most kids of that age ought to know. I don't think that preset curriculums are right for every child, and am possibly living proof of that.

I did terribly in school and feel that it was due to the regulated, non-flexible curriculum that keeps kids minds 'in a box'. I think if we had the ability to learn more freely, reading the books at our leisure, and learning in the way that we best see fit, most kids would develop better. For example, if I had been able to study and test for classes at my speed, I could have graduated 3 years early, which would have greatly benefitted my style of learning.

Unless you have a (proven)gifted child though, they should be able to at least pass some manner of testing once per year based on a suggested knowledge for kids of that age, as long as the test does not force the child to study curriculum that you may or may not be teaching them in homeschool.

Yes, because there needs to be some kind of minimum standard of learning for a child to achieve, so that you know that they are at LEAST on par with their 'school-schooled' counterparts.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.