Yes I vote! Yes I voted NO to have my taxes increased to pay for a new high school. I'm sitting here in my home reading the Newspaper Letters to the Editor and I disagree with a few. So here on my blog I get to voice my opinion!
You say those of us who voted NO for this tax levy do not care for the future of our children. What about the homeschooling community??? I cannot speak for them all but I can for my family. We do not owe the school system anything. Who pays for our childrens education? Who spends their time teaching them? Us parents do that's who. Yes I may not be qualified to do so according to the state or the local School System... but my qualifications don't come from any of these. God gave me my children and it did take me a while to realize what responsibilities he gave to me but teaching my children is one of them.
It rubs me the wrong way to read letters to the editor stating that those of us who voted NO to this tax levy don't care about the future of our children. My children are so very important to me and their education is my responsibility. Maybe if more parents would take the initiative in their childrens education we could make a difference in the future of our world. I'm not saying everyone should homeschool but parents can be more involved in the education of their children. Let the parents fund these sports programs, band programs, etc. Some homeschoolers are poor families but they find a way to provide these things for their children. Why can't the parents of public schooled children do the same? Maybe I'm wrong but that is my point of view. Homeschooling your children is a choice and it's a choice our family has made. We do not get special resources from the governement or even a tax deduction so when the opportunity comes to increase my taxes you can bet I'm going to vote NO.
2 comments:
You may not realize this but I homeschool my girls. 3 of the 4 in fact. We were squeezed out by No Child Left Behind. My kids are academically excellent but we tend to get sick a lot. Now that attendance is as important as academic achievement by law no matter how quickly my girls make up their classes and how well they test they are marked down for missing school. In the case of my two middle girls, their permission to attend a better school outside of our area was revoked. This was because the school wasn't meeting its AYP. The district brought in an Ichabod Crane-ish corporate axe man who capriciously (IMO) revoked the transfer permission of over 20 families. Consequently, they made AYP by the end of the year. But education was never a factor. It was always about stats and compliance - the greatest detriment of NCLB.
My oldest goes to a charter high school. State law now decrees that if she doesn't have 93% attendance for each term then she gets NO CREDIT for the term no matter how well she is doing academically. How exactly does this benefit her? It doesn't. She's class valedictorian.
If she has more than 4 excused absences a term we must pay $2 per class missed and have her make it up on Saturdays. So now union teachers get to work Saturdays and we get to pay extra whenever my child is ill - and she will be ill.
If she misses a week of class due to her heart issues, then we will pay about $12 for each day missed for all five days at a cost of $60. It will take her over a month to make up the week. Over time we could be paying hundreds of dollars on top of medical bills thanks to NCLB.
It seems to me that the rich will not have to worry about this. Their children attend private school and do not have to adhere to NCLB as far as I understand. Only the underprivileged and infirm will bear the brunt of this new policy. For this privilege we pay taxes.
This is obviously a way for the schools to force children to help the school adhere to NCLB's untenable yearly achievement goals while compensating the teachers for their time, but it takes choice away from parents. What? Haven't my children been testing well enough? Do the schools think that only they are qualified to help my children catch up? The answer to that is "yes", and I have warned my girl that homeschool may be in her near future.
So, in my longwinded way I support your decision to vote NO and commiserate with your frustration with the current state of affairs.
~Douglas
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