Ok, so unlike my dear friend who jokes about having only one reader – I seriously do! And I’m not so sure that reader isn’t *me*. Nonetheless, I’m going to take this opportunity to publicly complain.
There is an election coming up soon. Superintendent of Instruction for the State of California is but one of the positions we voters will be looking at and making a decision on.
This guy is one of the candidates. As a homeschooling mom, it’s important to know what the candidates think of homeschooling. We don’t expect them to whole-heartedly want everyone to homeschool, but knowing that no ill-will is harbored toward our community, is important for us.
When queried about his view of homeschooling, this guy forwarded this response:
Home schooling’s appropriate for children who have special difficulties that make it impossible for them to participate in traditional schooling. But under California law, a parent has the right to home school provided the parent is qualified to offer instruction. Personally, I believe nearly all kids would benefit more from being in traditional schools. Many parents home school for religious reasons, because they still hold outdated views on race or ethnicity, or for what they consider to be moral reasons. Since we have provisions for students to attend a school outside of their local community when there are legitimate reasons to do so, home schooling as an alternative to “unsafe” campuses is hardly a legitimate alternative. For the most part – overwhelmingly – the public schools of California are not only safe but are providing a high quality education. Yucca Valley should be no exception. If it is, as Superintendent I would like to hear the
complaints.
There has also been a tremendous amount of fraud connected with home schooling. Corporate organizations have sprung up to drain precious taxpayer dollars from the state budget to “supervise” home schooling. That has been to the detriment of those children, who by necessity, must be home schooled.
My advice? Send the kids to a traditional public school.
http://leonardmartin.us/wordpress/
http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=353608
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/17/BA1J1DF1CR.DTL
FaceBook Profile: http://www.facebook.com/stevegdoesloans#!/profile.php?id=100000011360041&ref=profile
Best Regards,
Leonard J. Martin
The fact that he makes the un-wise decision to include his *home* phone number on such emails seriously makes you question decision making process. To protect the stupid – I’m choosing to drop that information here.
So, out of curiosity, and to learn just a little more about a topic he CLEARLY has little real information about – I emailed him personally. I invited him to learn more about homeschooling, the people who choose it and the myriad of reasons why we choose it. Here is his response:
I did not expect any home schooler to be satisfied with my response. Nor will I
change it to appeal to the thousands of home schoolers who are voters. If this
election were in the 1950s I would have received a question from someone
representing tens of thousands of parents who opposed the racial integration of
our public schools. They would have been looking for a candidate who
agreed with them. My response would have turned them off and they would
have urged me to read all the arguments in favor of segregation. I know
those arguments, as I know the arguments for home schooling. Now, I’m not
equating home schoolers with segregationists, but the situation is the
same. As I would not edit my response to the segregationists to win their
votes, I will not shape my response to home schoolers to seek their votes
either.
I explained before that there are legitimate reasons for home schooling.
If you meet those conditions, I fully support home schooling. But that is
not why most home schoolers engage in it. And while they have a legal
right to do so, I do not support home schooling in those situations.
Best Regards,
Leonard J. Martin
WOW!! Inflammatory, accusatory and still so INCREDIBLY wrong about the topic. Is ignorance bliss? Well, I don’t know about that – but it certainly is IGNORANT.
Yes, Mr. Martin – you’ve lost my vote. And as the emails about your responses spread, like wild-fire, throughout the homeschooling community, you can rest assured – you’ve lost the vote of all of the other homeschoolers on the state as well. And the vote of ALL those that support the homeschooling family.
