Reminder: This expo is this coming weekend!

Will I see you there???

Free Homeschool Student ID cards through the end of September!

From the Alpha Card website:

AlphaCard believes that every student should have a real student ID card, but homeschooled students don’t usually have access to them. We've decided to do something about it by offering homeschooled students FREE professionally printed photo ID cards through the end of September.

There won't be any shipping fees or attempts to sell you anything. As part of our AlphaCard Cares initiative, this is truly a free program with no strings attached that reflects our commitment to giving back to communities in need.

• Free professionally printed Photo ID Card
• Shipping & Handling included--no strings attached
• Offer valid through 09/30/13 (or while supplies last)
• This program is restricted to the U.S. only.

Click HERE to visit the AlphaCard website.

Catch a Spark!

  

http://app.nationalproduction.wgbh.org/e/es.aspx?s=2531&e=91424&elq=c0c29ac3574b42bf974476a13c07bb80

Do you have anyone in your family who has trouble learning from a book but learns well from documentaries and audiobooks? Me too! Textbooks aren't a good fit for many. I strongly encourage you to learn the way you learn best - and encourage others to do the same. 

A favorite resource of mine was, and still is, the SPARK newsletter. If you are always on the lookout for good quality math, science, and history resources than you should certainly click here to subscribe to this wonderful free newsletter.    

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/newsletters.html

Illinois Lowers Compulsory Attendance to 6 Beginning in Fall of 2014

No surprise, but Governor Quinn did sign the bill lowering the compulsory attendance age to 6 beginning next Fall. 

Here is one article with details.

While this doesn't have a direct impact on Illinois homeschoolers (under most circumstances), it does, of course, have an indirect impact on all of us. 

How will the Common Core State Standards Affect Homeschoolers?

This past Wednesday I attended a debate about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) hosted by Congressman Randy Hultgren. I sincerely applaud his efforts.

The debate took the form of two people "for" the CCSS, two "against", and a moderator. There wasn't much of a difference between the two camps though. The moderator was with the Heartland Institute < http://heartland.org/common-core >  and only one member of the panel really had a real "pro" CCSS position. 

Here is the primary argument for: It is a lot better than what we had. 

This is certainly true. These standards are a lot better. The standards Illinois had before were confusing and were written in such a way that any child at almost any level would meet those standards. 

These facts are also in support: 

A) The CCSS are designed to be minimum standards. Bare minimum. It is always hoped that students will far exceed the minimums required of them.

B) The CCSS are supposed to be 85% of a classroom's curriculum. The other 15% is up to the school and teacher. 

C) There are a lot of skills not mentioned in the CCSS - so they can be and should be included in the discretionary 15%. Saying "it isn't in the CCSS" is not an excuse to not teach it.

D) There are no provisions for special needs students. All students are expected to meet the minimum standards. This said, clearly not all of them will and, likewise, many students will exceed these minimum standards. It is up to the schools to deal with special needs students on an individual basis.

E) There is no national curriculum. There are many thousands of curriculum providers labeling their materials as CCSS compliant. It is up to the school to decide if the material is appropriate for their use. 

The arguments against can be broken down into three categories:

1) those about the history of American education, 

Many of us believe that education should be locally controlled. Many of us know that education isn't specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution so should be controlled locally (remember the 10th amendment?) and many of us are still a bit peeved with President Jimmy Carter for forming the Dept. of Education and on and on with abuse of power.... none of these issues make the CCSS themselves bad. It simply means folks are frustrated that they are being shoved down our schools throats. 

http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/tag/education-without-representation/

2) those about the PARCC testing associated with them, and finally, 

Many people are very upset with the standardized testing required under CCSS. The tests cost about $29 per time and per student, take place three times each year and are computerized (so require schools to have a computer for each test taker). (So, the cost of all the new computers plus the $90 per student are an unfunded mandate.)  If you got frustrated over the current two weeks of testing a year - you ain't seen nothin' yet. The samples of the tests though have shown all kids of issues including poor formatting, difficulty inputting math answers and psychological assessment questions that will apparently be added to the Gates Foundation "birth to death" tracking system under development. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/03/student-database-gates-foundation_n_2800684.html   Again though, while this is a huge issue...  none of these issues make the CCSS themselves bad. 

3) those about the  CCSS's themselves. 

Finally we get to the CCSS themselves. The primary complaint had to do with teachers not teaching something because it wasn't listed in the CCSS (see C above) and that there is no incentive for a teacher to teach something that isn't going to be on the PARCC test. This implies that schools will only ever strive to meet the bare minimum.

The main complaint then is that the bare minimum included in the CCSS is far too low a standard. 

So how might this actually affect homeschoolers? In a nutshell, it only affects you as much as you want it to.

 

You can choose a curriculum that is CCSS compliant. Many of those that are aligned to the CCSS are designed to meet or exceed the CCSS. This doesn't make them bad or good. 

There are also many non-compliant materials still available and some curriculum providers have two versions available so if you want non-compliant you should always ask. Obviously too, if you choose to unschool orcreate unit studies & lapbooks  they clearly don't have to be compliant. It remains your choice. 

In Illinois you have no required testing so you don't need to worry about your student having to take the PARCC test. If you do choose some form of annual testing you are in control. Some states do require testing and specify tests but I haven't heard of any that are planning on requiring the PARCC tests for homeschoolers. 

All in all, are homeschoolers affected? While we are certainly affected as part of the greater society I don't think we are specifically and directly affected. We have choices!