2004 News

Homeschooling News 2004
From near and far in reverse chronological order.

Note: Newspaper links can quickly go "bad" as they are archived.
If the link doesn't work try checking the newspaper's search feature.

12/26/04 Homeschooler raises funds to buy bikes for underprivileged children. Stephen Hall of Lakeland, 5 years old, wrote solicitation letters and did extra chores to collect money to finance 5 bicycles as part of the Salvation Army's Angel Tree program in conjunction with Cellular South and AM-600 radio. Read the rest of the story in this RedNOVA article.

12/26/04 Homeschooler is finalist in national arts talent search. Cecilia Michelle Huerta, a Dickson County cellist has been named as one of 130 finalist in the National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts "Arts Recognition and Talent Search". She'll be competing for scholarship dollars in the 2005 ARTS Week in Florida next month. Read the rest of the story in this Tennessean article.

12/19/04: Where should home-school oversight be? Nashville's Tennessean newspaper asks this important question with an in-depth article on homeschooling in our state and portions of the article have been repeated in media across the state. Most homeschoolers would say that we're doing just fine and additional oversight isn't necessary and would be a waste of the State's already overstretched resources..

Weighing in on the issue is Rep. Mark Maddox, a public school employee, whose attempt in 2001 to increase reporting for homeschoolers failed in a House floor vote 52 to 35.

"This state has an obligation to make sure its citizens are educated. It would give home-school parents an extra assurance that their children are not behind their peers. I'd want to know my children are on an equal footing."

Parents who want this assurance have many tests already available to them that can measure their child's progress in relation to their peers.

Additionally, the state doesn't issue homeschoolers diplomas now. Will they issue them when our children pass those state tests?

Homeschoolers will be keeping a close eye on the legislature this January.

Successes from last year include:

Rep. Mike Turner's bill last year to require homeschoolers to submit to the same tests that public schoolers must take was withdrawn after much protest from homeschoolers and their friends in the legislature.

And last year the previous years discrimination against homeschoolers in the allotting of lottery scholarships was corrected with one legislator calling it 'educational bigotry' to require homeschoolers to score higher on SAT/ACT tests than their private and public school peers.

You can post comments about this issue at the Tennessean's website here.

November 2004 Homeschoolers apply logic to Akron Beacon Journal articles. The Bludorns say: "We’d like to give you a few tools for explaining to your friends, neighbors, and elected officials why using bad logic isn’t a good idea when attacking homeschoolers." And since the ABJ quoted from the Bludorns' book on logic, "The Fallacy Detective", they seem just the right folks to point out a few errors.

You can read their critique of the professional's work at their website. They also link to the original articles if you missed those.

11/24/04 HSLDA responds to ABJ articles. HSLDA's Michael Smith responds to the homeschooling series published recently by the Akron (OH) Beacon Journal. Among his rebuttals are that the number of college applicants that are homeschooled is less than the average for two reasons: 1. most homeschoolers are still between the ages of 5 and 17 years and not eligible for college and 2. due to differing state regulations many 'homeschoolers' are reported on college applications as private schoolers. Further Mr. Smith points out that according to the US Department of Health & Human Services in 2002 nearly half of child abusers were teachers and daycare providers.

Read the entire rebuttal here.

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4/7/04: Hser Mary Parker of Williamson County wins state 4-H Essay Contest. Her article was titled "4-H: Honoring the Past... Envisioning the Future".

"4-H was like that small seed when it started out. With care it grew from humble beginnings into the nationwide club it is today. We ourselves were much like that seed when we joined 4-H. 4-H grounded us, nurtured us, gave us the room to grow and the knowledge we would need to succeed in life and then sent us out into the world."

You can read the rest here.

3/28/04: Why does Clarksville's Smith family homeschool? It's a lot of fun! Read the whole story, partly in Elvish, at the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle.

3/24/04: MidTn Hser Wins Spelling Bee.
Rose Van Ryckeghem won the Tennessean Spelling Bee and fellow homeschooler Julian Calvin was the runner up! Great work ladies! Read the details at the Tennessean and the Nashville City Paper.

3/10/04: " Should home school students and private school students be held to the same lottery education qualifications, as public school and GED graduates, in order to qualify for lottery HOPE scholarships? Or, should home schoolers and private school students be held to a higher qualifying standard, which is the current state law?

Same qualifications for all groups: 73%
Different Qualifications 20%
Undecided 7%"

From Senator Jerry Cooper's (D-McMinnville) annual constituent survey as reported by the Tullahoma News.

3/9/04: Living History: Knoxville's Christian Family Cooperative's live action history fair makes the news

"They're really excited when they have a fact, especially if Mom and Dad don't know that fact ... to get to tell them and feel like they get to teach their siblings and parents a little bit about what they learned," says CFCS History Fair Committee Co-Chair Larry Varnum.

1/20/04: So why do we need to test HSers?

In the face of current legislation to require homeschoolers (and private schoolers) to pass the public school system's gateway exams the Memphis Commercial Appeal publishes this article.

'Home-schoolers have a distinct advantage because of the individualized instruction they have received,' the admissions officer for Dartmouth College said in the report.

In her new book, "Morning by Morning: How We Home-Schooled Our African-American Sons to the Ivy League," Paula Penn-Nabrit chronicles the steps she took to home-school her three sons well enough to get them into Prince ton and Amherst."

Two Memphis families, the Karimnia and Crowson, as well as long time Tennessee homeschoolers, the Van Tols, are highlighted in this article. Susan Crowson's quote is really excellent: "I don't teach to the tests," Crowson said. "We teach for knowledge and life skills."

Interestingly, Memphis Senator Roscoe Dixon is the senate sponsor of the legislation requiring non-public students to take the very gateway tests that constituents in his own Memphis public school system are having a hard time passing.

See main TnHomeEd page.