Is Public Education For All?

To home-school your child is a decision that cannot be taken lightly, especially as a single parent.

I have five children, three of which I have or in the process of doing. When I took on the responsibility to home-school my oldest two, my husband was alive and he allowed me the time, money and resources to teach them more effectively than they could have gotten in public school. They both graduated from a public school with honors.

After my husband passed away, I did not have the strength to take on such a large task as educating my second two at home. So they have been in public school since Kindergarten. While my son is gifted, in the top 95% of the nation in testing, he has no desire to do well in school because it comes way to easy for him, even the gifted programs. I feel as though I did him an injustice by sending him to public education.

While my 15 year old gets excellent grades in school, and comes home and studies every night, she has no confidence in her ability. This is something teachers do not instruct children on in a public forum. They can only get this through homeschooling.

My youngest was assessed with A.D.D. in kindergarten in public school. I felt as if I could not help her with a learning disorder by homeschooling her. After three years in the public school system, she still could not read! Her math was far above average, as was her other skills, but not her reading. I tried everything, from Sylvan, to private tutors, after school help, but to no avail. I only had one option left, I pulled her out of public school and began to home-school her.

While a child is at school for approximately 7 hours, only about 3 of that is actual instruction time. When they return home from school, you can count on at least one hour of homework they need assistance with. So I invested my three hours from 10 am til 2pm allowing for a break and lunch.

There is actually a web site that allows you to home-school your own child, but since I was disillusioned with the whole public school forum, I pieced together books and lesson plans from friends until I could find the one that taught my daughter the way she learns (she is a phonetic learner, schools like to teach sight words as their main course of reading).

While there are many excellent curriculum's out there, some are quite expensive, and on a widows budget, I went with a wish and a prayer. I used A Beka one year (excellent curriculum, but very hard and very expensive). I always wanted Hooked on Phonics, but it had always been out of my budget, until I ran across it at a Hospice store. The packages had never been opened and for a whopping $25, I had a brand new full curriculum.

I now get to spend an extra 7 hours with my baby, teach her self confidence, a work ethic, and how to clean house (Home economics 101). But she can now read at a second grade level, and she loves to do it on her own, then share with me and all her sisters and brothers how good she is.