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Originally Posted by Smalls
How is #2 a weakness? I'm confused on that.
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Two. No Immunizations Required – Most American school children have their immunizations checked and completed about the time they enroll in school.
You can think of home schooling as a loophole in the immunization requirements of most states. My wife and I have reviewed volumes of data and evidence and concluded that children are better off being immunized against the common childhood diseases for which immunizations are safe and readily available.
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Originally Posted by Smalls
Only one I disagree on is where you have #9. That could severely cripple a student later in life if he has inadequate knowledge in a certain area. That may not apply to you, but that's not to say someone else that is weak in math or English hould be teaching their children Trigonometry or how to write a well constructed thesis statement.
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The common misperception here is that homeschooling parents need to or actually serve as the primary instructor for all classes and courses. Through middle and high school, most homeschooling parents outsource an increasing amount of coursework to options that are more qualified than they are, especially in math, science, and foreign languages. Of the 24 high school credits needed to graduate, our own children will average about 14 credits earned in a setting taught by a source other than a homeschooling parent.
I am planning for articles in the coming weeks describing some of the best available resources in math and science for homeschooling parents to outsource those courses. Of course, parents of public and private school students may also consider whether some of these options are better than the choices may be a better match for their children than the options at their local schools.
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Originally Posted by Smalls
I also find it slightly ridiculous to use Jesus, Peter, James, and John as examples of people who were not hindered by the "lack of socialization opportunities". You're going to compare the society of today to that of 2 millennia ago? It's completely different.
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That's a fine opinion. It's up to each parent to consider the relative value of socialization and academic rigor as it pertains to their own children and the brick and mortar schools available in their own district.
Peter and John ended up travelling widely in the Roman world and needing to communicate the gospel to more languages and cultures than will likely ever be encountered by the average Louisiana public school graduate.
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Originally Posted by Smalls
Also, Theodore Roosevelt is a rather special case, considering his family chose to home school him for medical reasons, and because they could do it; the Roosevelts were a very wealthy family. He was also an exceptionally bright child.
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Sure. But given the available resources of today, a family need not be wealthy to provide a very high quality home school education to their children. Even outsourcing the majority of our children's coursework, we are spending a small fraction of what Louisiana parents invest in their children's private school education or what taxpayers are paying for each student's public education. We are averaging less than $2k per year per child, and most of that is related to their science projects which are a great experience, but definitely an elective expense.