Category Archives: Homeschooling

Homeschooling

What the heck is Twitter, and why are you using it?

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A friend (and colleague from the world of homeschooling) sent me a message (on facebook, of course!) this morning:

Rob, I should have guessed you’d be lead geek in any party… how do you use Twitter?

My answer turned into an essay:

First a joke: “Twitter is the internet service for people who wish they had a stalker.”

My thesis is that the internet & homeschooling are an important mix. Parents are NOT (for the most part) using the internet an a means to teach their children. Parents (mostly moms) ARE however, voracious users of the internet as a way to find homeschool products and to network with other homeschooling families (mostly moms) for advice, encouragement and fellowship. And this has been, by and large, a good thing. Twitter fits into all of this in an organic way.

Twitter is in some ways, micro-blogging. Think of it as a series of blog entries, limited to 140 characters each. But it is also more than that – more interactive, and closer to realtime.

When websites started (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth in the prehistoric 1980s!), they were conceived of as static repositories of information. But the ease of updating rapidly produced a new variant, the blog (A contraction of “website log”–>”web log”–>”blog”).

Initially, users bookmarked sites they liked and made periodic visits to see if there was anything new. I remember the days of opening up my favorites (organized by topic) and running through, clicking on each URL to see what was new. Fun, but inefficient. Then came RSS (Really Simple Syndication). I prefer the google reader, but I’ve not made an exhaustive study. I’m currently subscribed to 146 websites. Any new content is excerpted/copied and placed in the “inbox” of my RSS reader where I can browse through it. I read and scan through them quickly (a necessity). I can flag anything significant with a star, and with a click or two, forward things to friends & family. You can view items from my RSS feed that I have “starred” in a widget on the left side of my blog (http://redhatrob.com).

Twitter is the next step in all of this. In one sense, it’s an aggregation of all the facebook status updates from all of your friends. But that’s only one way in which it is being used. Imagined another way, it is a giant real-time chat room with several million users all sending in sentences all at the same time. You can get a visual on this (slowed down and excerpted) by going here: http://beta.twittervision.com/

All of the individual messages (140 characters each) go into the public stream. But, of what use is this firehose of messages? Twitter gives you a few simple tools to extract the posts you are interested in. You “follow” a select group of twitter users whose messages you want to read. This stream of messages  is visible on your twitter homepage, and you can scroll back through messages to read up on what you might have missed. you can also search the public stream for keywords you might be interested in.

The twitter stream is also public via some open software routines which has led to a variety of interesting tools that expand on the basic searches that twitter allows you to do.

Key Word Alerts
There is a service (tweetlater) that will scan the entire twitter public stream and aggregate messages which contain key words you are interested in. As an example, I get an aggregated email message every four hours which shows me any messages with the words “Greenleaf Press” in them. I search on other keywords as well (wink!). Tweetlater started as a service to let you schedule your messages to be posted at times you select, but i find the keyword alerts to be the most valuable feature.

There is also a wonderful tool called tweetdeck which takes the concept of a live “search” on the twitter stream and executes it with great power. Tweetdeck allows you to configure multiple columns, each filled with a stream of twitter messages which match a search criteria you have established.

Hashtags
Twitter users have adopted the convention of using “hashtags” to efficiently identify the topic of certain messages they are sending, or the community they wish to address. One of the most popular hashtags is #tcot. (stands for Top Conservatives On Twitter). A number of twitter users add the hashtag #tcot to the messages they send with comments on current politics & social issues. In tweetdeck, you can configure a column to retrieve all of the messages that contain the hashtag #tcot. in that column you will see an ongoing, realtime conversation between individuals around the country (and sometimes the world) on political topics. Sometimes the senders interact with each other, sometimes they are simply posting a link to a story / blog post that they have found or one they have authored. Links in twitter messages are “live.” You can click on them and your browser will immediately open a tab showing that site.

During real-time, breaking events, folks with mobile phones and twitter accounts have quickly adopted a hashtag (by convention and tacit, un-coordinated agreement), and then posted real-time updates from the field to the twitter stream. When the terrorist attack occurred in Mumbai (November, 2008), the best real-time info from around the city came from the hundreds of people posting messages using the hashtag #mumbai. People all over the world were literally reading short text messages posted by people trapped in hotels trying to figure out how many terrorists were out there and where they were.

Weird URLs
To conserve message space (remember, messages are limited to 140 characters), most users “shorten” the URL of a link using any number of public services. Think of it as a link shorthand, or link encryption.

Mobile phones
This is one of the most interesting and intriguing facets of twitter. You can have messages from certain selected users forwarded to your cell phone as text messages, AND you can send twitter messages from your cell phone. You register your cell phone with your twitter account and adjust the settings there. I “follow” over 1,000 twitter users, but I have only 3-4 forwarded to my cell phone. We’ve effectively used this feature during legislative lobbying, to keep track of the real-time location of key people we needed to speak to and to co-ordinate our activities.

It’s also a fun way to impress your friends. I’m one of 52,375 people following the twitter account of Karl Rove. I have his messages forwarded to my mobile phone (usually only 2-3 a day). It’s fun to hear the phone beep in a meeting and then turn to someone and say, “Excuse me, I have a text message from Karl Rove.”

Public and Permanent
The real caveat on twitter is that the entire message stream is public, and permanent – occasionally folks forget this, with embarrassing results.

Twitter & Google
At first thought, these seem to be very different animals, but in another way they are not. Google works by ranking relevant websites based on how other users on the internet link to and evaluate them. Twitter is likewise a real-time source of information. You can go to the twitter stream at any time and search for what thousands of people are saying about a particular topic. Or you can post a message yourself and invite responses. If you pay attention to the twitter stream for a few minutes, it is often (though not always) self-correcting. Think The Wisdom of Crowds, and/or Adam Smith’s invisible hand. If you ask a question of a random man on the street, you may get an erroneous, inaccurate answer – but if you get the attention of a crowd and ask them, and let them interact and refine the answer, they do a surprisingly good job.

All of this is still evolving. It may prove a fad and collapse. On the other hand, it is such a decentralized and democratic community that the potential for “networking” is tremendous. Like all tools, it can be used for good or ill.

I find that I need to discipline myself and schedule/ration the attention I give to this. 15 minutes, twice a day is my current limit. But it is a new part of my communication strategy – and I find I have been connecting with other like-minded folks in new and interesting ways.

Incidentally, there is a #homeschool hashtag being used. Probably will be others…

Sorry to be so long-winded, but it helps me to organize my own thoughts when I write all of this out.

– Rob

book reviews, Homeschooling

Weapons of Mass Instruction

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John Taylor Gatto has a new book out. That is cause for celebration. For those who are not familiar with him, a bit of his biography is in order. Gatto taught for 30 years in the public schools of New York City, specifically Community School District 3, Manhattan. He was named New York City Teacher of the year in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991. In 1991 he quit his teaching job rather publicly, with an editorial in the Wall Street Journal which began thus:

Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents.

You can read the rest of his provocative essay / editorial / resignation letter at his website: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/prologue2.htm

In 1992, Gatto published a revolutionary book, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. Seventeen years later, that book is still in print. Since 1992, he has been writing and speaking nationwide. Among other things he has been outspoken in his admiration for the modern homeschooling movement – though he didn’t homeschool his own children.

In 2001 he published The Underground History of American Education. Extensively researched, the book is, in some ways, Gatto’s magnum opus. In it, he documents in detail the movement begun in the late 19th century to adopt the Prussian model of compulsory schooling in order to train docile factory workers and obedient soldiers. It is an eye-opening study. It can be ordered from Amazon, or read online at Gatto’s website.

And now we have his newest composition. In some important ways, I think it may be his best work. Many of the themes of his writing are repeated here, but they are more polished, more concise, more persuasively presented. And there are some provocative and startling new ideas here as well. Ideas that will (or should) make anyone involved in the education of children think.

The dedication opens poignantly:

I dedicate this book to the great and difficult art of family-building, and to its artists, the homeschoolers in particular . . .

From Gatto’s Prologue: Against School:

Do we really need school? I don’t mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don’t hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surly put that banal justification to rest.

A little later, Gatto quotes H.L. Mencken with approval:

The aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim. . . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. . . and that is its aim everywhere else.

In chapter one (Everything You Know about Schools is Wrong) Gatto summarizes the startling and alarming statistics on literacy, gathered from a large and impeccable source, US Army induction records. In the early 1930s, the literacy rate for young men was 98%. By 1944, it was 96%. But by 1951 it had fallen to 81% – a startling decline. By 1973, the tests on young men inducted into the military revealed that male literacy had fallen to 73%. All of this in spite of the increased attention in the 1950s and 1960s on education. Spending on education had skyrocketed. New teachers had been trained and hired. New methods had been developed and adopted. What went wrong? Gatto suggests that education was never the stated purpose of compulsory schooling – control and conditioning was. He has quotes from the founding documents of public schooling to back up his assertions.

In chapter two (Walkabout: London), Gatto celebrates the lives of successful men and women who have achieved remarkable things without formal “schooling” (which doesn’t mean they weren’t educated!). Sir Richard Branson, David Sarnoff, & Bill Gates are 3 of his more important examples but there are others with life-stories every bit as compelling.

In chapters three & four (Fat Stanley and the Lancaster Amish & David Sarnoff’s Classroom), Gatto continues his examples and contrasts those who have learned how to think with the stunting effects of twelve years of classroom confinement.

Chapter five (Hector Isn’t the Problem) tells the tragic story of a student with behavior problems who is labeled and kept in school’s version of “protective custody. In Chapter six (The Camino de Santiago) Gatto begins to lay out one of the guerilla techniques he developed to help his students really learn – by helping them to escape the artificial setting of the classroom and observe the real world. Chapter seven (Weapons of Mass Instruction) expands on this theme and gives more examples of what Gatto discovered really helps students and how schooling systematically stifles them.

Chapter eight, (What is Education?) is a thought experiment in which Gatto imagines what the goals and methods of a new school, a humane school would look like. No testing, flexible time commitments, no walled compound:

I know how odd this all sounds: first I tell you reading, writing, and arithmetic are easy to learn as long as they aren’t taught systematically, and now I tell you that the very “comprehensive” school institution which Harvard called for in the 1950s is ruining our children, not helping them. I know you’ve been told by experts that the complicated world of today requires more school time, longer school days, longer years, more testing, more labeling.

Well. . . you’ve been bamboozled, and I hope your own experience will confirm that by little reflection. How do you think millions of Americans learned to be literate on desktop computers, and all the rest of the paraphernalia of the information society? Not at school, that’s for sure.

Chapter 9 is a personal plea from Gatto entitled, “A Letter to My Granddaughter About Dartmouth.” In it, he advises her to take a few years off and work until she understands herself better. And then he gives her a frank appraisal of what she will, and won’t, learn at Dartmouth.

Chapter 10 (Incident at Highland High) was my favorite chapter in the book! Gatto relates two incidents. The first was the 2008 incident in Germany in which a sixteen-year-old girl was forcibly removed from her home by a group of fifteen policemen and city officials. Her crime – she was being homeschooled and did not want to attend the local public schools. Gatto reprints the letter he wrote to the German ambassador in the US. He also relates his own experience in dealing with official repression and over-reaction. In 2004, while giving a talk to the students at Highland High School in Rockland County, NY he was interrupted by three police officers who burst into the auditorium and announced (via bull-horn) that the assembly was over and all students were to return to their classrooms. The superintendent of schools had found Gatto’s talk to be so inflammatory that he called the police to stop it.

In his Afterword, Gatto announces, An Invitation to an Open Conspiracy: The Bartleby Project. Inspired by Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, a boycott of standardized testing:

Mass abstract testing, anonymously scored, is the torture centrifuge whirling away precious resources of time and money from productive use and routing it into the hands of testing magicians. It happens only because the tormented allow it. Here is the divide-and-conquer mechanism par excellence, the wizard-wand which establishes a bogus rank order among the schooled, inflicts prodigies of stress upon the unwary, causes suicides, family breakups, and grossly perverts the learning process – while producing no information of any genuine worth. Testing can’t predict who will become the best surgeon, college professor, or taxicab driver; it predicts nothing which would impel any sane human being to enquire after these scores. Standardized testing is very good evidence our national leadership is bankrupt and has been so for a very long time.

His solution? When the tests are handed out on test day, Gatto urges young people to write across the front of the test, “I would prefer not to take your test.” And don’t. “An old man’s prayers will be with you.”

Weapons of Mass Instruction is a hardback, 215 pages. It can be purchased directly from Greenleaf Press for $24.95 by clicking on any of the links in this review.

– Rob Shearer

Homeschooling, Tennessee politics

Tennessee’s jihad against homeschoolers

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The State of Tennessee’s jihad against homeschoolers continues.

It began in late 2007 and continued into 2008. An employee of the Department of Education, nominally in charge of the office of non-public schooling was criss-crossing the state making a presentation in which she declared that the diplomas issued by Tennessee’s church-related, category IV schools “were not worth the paper they were printed on.”

As a result of her presentations, other agencies and departments of the state began to reject diplomas issued to homeschoolers when a high school diploma was required by law for certain regulated categories of employment. At first it was the Tennessee Police Officer’s Standards and Training Board (POST) which refused to allow a homeschooled high school graduate to continue serving as a sheriff’s deputy, even though he had completed the police academy taught by Walter State Community College and already been hired by the sheriff’s department.

Then the Department of Children’s Services refused to allow a homeschooled high school graduate to continue to work in a daycare as a caregiver, because the law stipulated that a caregiver must hold a high school diploma recognized by the state of Tennessee.

Now comes word that just this past week the Tennessee Board of Cosmetology has refused to permit the licensing of a young women because her high school diploma is from a church-related category IV school.

Once again, it bears repeating: The State of Tennessee recognizes these diplomas for the awarding of HOPE lottery scholarships. The University of Tennessee and all of its campuses recognize these diplomas for purposes of admission to college. The state community college system recognizes these diplomas for the purpose of admission to a community college. Vanderbilt, Sewanee, Rhodes, King, Belmont, David Lipscomb, & Lee University all recognize these diplomas for admission to their college degree programs.

It is only the few state boards where the Department of Education has some influence that have rejected them. Homeschooled kids are smart enough to enlist in any branch of the armed services, attend any public or private university – but according to the state of Tennessee they are not qualified to work in a daycare, serve as a police officer, or dye someone’s hair.

Folks, this is outrageous. This is the petty tyranny of a unionized bureaucracy. The educrats cannot stand the fact that a few courageous families have said “no thank you” to the government-monopoly factory-model one-size-fits-all public school system. Perhaps they have been emboldened by the Obama administrations shut-down of the Washington DC voucher system. Who knows?

The Tennessee Legislature has the opportunity to correct this bureacratic jihad against homeschoolers. They can over-rule the Department of Education and restore some sanity to the state’s policy on education.

The Tennessee State Senate is scheduled to hear SB0433 this coming Monday, May 4th. Here’s the official summary of what that bill does:

Tennesseans, call your senators and urge them to vote for SB0433.

book reviews, children's books, Homeschooling

Handwriting by George – Volume II

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Some years ago, the Shearer children were practicing their handwriting in their handwriting workbooks – the kind with the nicely spaced ruled lines to help in keeping the letters equally sized – but were finding the standard sentences more than a bit boring.

Cyndy had just run across a reprint of one of George Washington’s own schoolbooks. When he was sixteen, he had begun copying maxims for polite behavior into his schoolbooks. The rules described the behavior of a gentleman, and many claim that they greatly influenced Washington’s attitudes and standards for his own behavior.

(Just an aside, I have just finished viewing the John Adams mini-series, produced by Tom Hanks & HBO last year, 7 episodes, 8 hours 20 minutes running time. I highly recommend it, not least for its remarkable portrayal of George Washington!)

Where was I? Oh yes, handwriting.

Cyndy and the children found that they were having some very interesting discussions based on Washington’s maxims. “Show nothing to your friend that might affright him” kicked off a discussion about no tormenting guests with scary insects, etc.

Other rules address issues involving putting others first and self last – and other ways to show respect to those around us.

In 2002, we published Volume I of Handwriting by George with the first 27 of his 110 rules. Today, I am very pleased to announce the publication of Volume II with rules 28 through 55. Volumes III & IV will become available in May, and June.

Each volume is printed on 8″x10″ ruled sheets with space to copy each rule at least once, and often 2 or 3 times. There is also a framed space on the facing page where children are encouraged to draw their own illustration for the rule. Drawing time makes a nice break from handwriting practice!


Handwriting by George, Volume I, paperback, 64 pages is still available for $6.95


Handwriting by George, Volume II, paperback, 62 pages is now available for $9.95

Ancient history, Bible, Homeschooling

A book you don’t need to buy (and one you already have)

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When Cyndy started homeschooling our children in 1985, we talked (a lot) about what we wanted to teach them, and how. For the first few years, the basics of Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic were fairly obvious and straightforward – Cyndy had taken several education methods courses and already understood the phonics vs. whole-word controversies.

It took us a while to settle on an overall scope and a method for teaching history.

After several disappointing experiences with textbooks, Cyndy discovered that our children loved biographies (surprise!), and that textbooks were useful only as references to be consulted briefly for overview.

As we talked and thought about that, we were strongly persuaded that teaching history chronologically was the simplest, most direct, most effective way to cover history for our children. I had spent two years in college in a chronological humanities program, based almost entirely on original source readings (at Davidson College). My grad school experience was a delight when I discovered that Stanford offered a joint degree in History and Humanities. I joined a two-year seminar with graduate students from a variety of departments as we went through a two-year chronological humanities program, based almost entirely on original source readings.

As we started to speak to other homeschool support groups and at convention seminars, one of the most frequent first questions was, “Where do I start?”

Our answer was always the same: with the Bible and the history of Israel.

About a third of the books of the Old Testament are grouped together as “Historical” books (12 out of 39). In addition, over half the Pentateuch is devoted to the history of the Patriarchs and the origins of Israel. And all of the prophetic books contain some historical narrative, with over half of Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Daniel being devoted to history.

It is an understatement to proclaim that History is an important part of the Old Testament.

It is important that our children know the history of Israel. The best way to teach them the history of Israel is to read the Bible to them.

The Old Testament is neither too hard, nor is it too difficult for children to understand. Just because they don’t understand every detail (or the implications of every event) does not mean that there is not immense value in reading the stories of the Old Testament to them.

We have always begun our study of history with our children by reading the Bible to them and studying the history of Israel.

Parents often ask us, what reference books or resource material do you use to teach the Bible to children. We have always answered, “The best resource for teaching the Bible to children, is the Bible.” All of the books ABOUT the Bible are less important than the Bible itself.

It is the Bible that Moses is describing when he tells parents in Deuteronomy 6:6 & 7:

6 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.

7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

For years, we encouraged parents to read the Bible to their children, and for years parents kept asking us for a study guide that would help them teach the Bible to children. Finally, in 1994, AFTER we had written study guides for Egypt, Greece, Rome & the Middle Ages we wrote The Greenleaf Guide to Old Testament History.

I’ll repeat the assertion from the title of this post. This is a book you don’t need to buy. The important book is one you already have, your Bible. But, if you have decided to teach the history of Israel to your children AND to use the Bible as your text, you may find that The Greenleaf Guide to Old Testament History will be helpful to you.

It is NOT a workbook for students. It is a guide for parents and teachers. It organizes the historical books of the Old Testament into 180 daily readings (the length of one school year). The readings average one, sometimes two chapters a day. The basic pattern is to read the chapter from the Bible to your children. Then ask them to tell you the story in their own words. Then, we include some discussion questions that will help you to profitably discuss the chapter. If this sounds a bit like the Charlotte Mason principles of narration – that’s what we were aiming for!

I’ve uploaded the Table of Contents and the first four lessons in a sample .pdf.

And I’ll repeat, one more time, the title of this post: This is a book you don’t need to buy. The most important book you can teach to your children is the Bible.

If The Greenleaf Guide to Old Testament History has helped and encouraged families over the years to teach the Bible to their children, then it’s probably the most important book that Cyndy and I have done.

You can order it (if you must!) directly from Greenleaf Press for $12.95.

– Rob Shearer, Publisher
Greenleaf Press

Homeschooling

National Homechool Basketball Tournament Star – already signed with the Lady Vols

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Photo by Logan Hoffman / for the News-Leader

Homeschooling sports teams are coming of age. The breadth, depth, and quality of play at the national basketball tournament has been steadily improving for the past five or six years. This year’s event in Springfield, MO involves 340 teams from 20 states playing games in 33 local gyms.

The star of the women’s basketball competition is 6’1″ Taber Spani (with the ball in the picture at left) who has already signed with the University of Tennessee Lady Vols.

Very nice coverage from the local newspaper in Springfield, MO.

h/t: Susan Frederick, who posted a link to this story on Kay Brooks‘ national email list for homeschool leaders.

There is also an annual Homeschool World Series in Panama City which draws baseball teams from the southeastern states. Many of those players wind up recruited and offered scholarships by colleges.

And finally, there is the spectacular success of Tim Tebow, Heisman trophy quarterback for the Florida Gators. Although he played for a public high school in Florida, he was homeschooled by his mother and took advantage of the Florida homeschool law that allows homeschooled students to play for the public high school they are zoned for.

The growth in homeschooling has been significant. From one million students in the 1990s to an estimated two million students today. There may be more students in homeschool than there are in private schools. No one knows for sure, as homeschoolers are notoriously difficult to count.

Their academic success has been noted for years – on standardized achievement tests, ACT & SAT scores, and in national spelling and geography bees.

Now, it seems, they’re going to be achieving prominence in organized sports as well.

Homeschooling, National Politics

NY Times discovers a 13-year-old homeschooled conservative

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and features him on the front page of the Fashion & Style section.

Their tone is condescending, but Jonathan’s message comes through loud and clear.

A Conservative is someone who believes in

1.    Life
2.    Personal Responsibility
3.    Less Government
4.    The Founding Principles

New York Times story: The Little Mr. Conservative

Here’s a video of his speech at CPAC (uploaded by his dad):

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC8T4TPAIc0

and here’s a link to his website: Define Conservatism

Homeschooling

Homeschoolers save Tennessee taxpayers $300 million per year

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I received a catalog of mailing lists available for rent this past week. I noted that there are three commercial homeschool mailing lists available for rent with 600k+ household names & addresses,

Since we all know that homeschool families average 14.3 children, that means there are already 8.5 million homeschooled children [a bit of sarcasm there, gentle readers!].

Seriously, the mean family size for homeschool famlies IS higher than the general population – an average of about 3.1 children in one large-scale study of 20,000 homeschoolers.

So if we take the number of households from the commercial mailing lists (600k) and multiply it by the average children per household (3.1), we have a rough estimate of 1.86 million homeschooled children in the entire United States.

I actually think that estimate is still on the low side. Homeschoolers are notoriously paranoid concerned about being counted, compiled, or registered by anyone. So, the 600k families whose addresses are available for rent certainly does NOT represent all the homeschooling families in the US.

Two million homeschooled students is certainly a reasonable estimate/guess.

Four years ago, the National Center for Education Statistics published an estimate of 1.1 million homeschooled students, based on data from the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program conducted by the federal government. At that time the number represented 2.2% of of the school-age population.

If the number has reached two million nationwide, then the percentage being homeschooled is probably around 4.0% of the school-age population of the US.

You could guesstimate the number of homeschooled students in each of the 50 states simply by calculating 4.0% of the school-age population for the state.

The US Census Deparment 2006 estimate for Tennessee was 1,044,713 persons between the ages of 5 and 18. Four percent of that number would be 41,788. So, it’s fairly safe to say that there are 40,000+ homeschooled students in the state of Tennessee.

Taken as a group, the 40,000 homeschoolers in Tennessee represent a larger enrollment than 130 of the state’s 135 public school districts. Only Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, Shelby County, and Chattanooga have enrollment numbers over 40,000.

The state spends an average of $7,639 dollars each year for each student enrolled in the public schools.

So, collectively, the parents who are educating those 40,000 students at home are saving the taxpayers of Tennessee $300 million EVERY YEAR!

You’re welcome.

All we ask is to be left alone, so we can keep educating our children.