Not a concept I will support
My earliest years homeschooling was in an unfriendly-to-homeschoolers state, in an unfriendly-to-homeschoolers town. How unfriendly? When your kid’s friends parent’s tell you that your kid is no longer welcome to play with their kids cause you are now homeschooling you know you are in an unfriendly place. True story.
Being in this unfriendly place meant too that I constantly had folks question my ability and right to homeschool. Shouldn’t there be someone looking over your shoulder? folks in the grocery store asked. Well, you must be a professional teacher to know what the kids need to learn, others told me. With every question my back grew stiffer and so did my resolve to homeschool and my confidence that a homeschooler did not need to be accountable to anyone. I learned rather quickly that I was quite capable of administering my own child’s education.
Homeschoolers can school their own without being accountable to someone else. That is a common comment I make to my sis when we start discussing the topic of homeschooling comes up. She’s in the camp that all homeschoolers must be accountable to someone because without this homeschoolers fail. Hmm, accountability doesn’t mean that all public school kids graduate summa cum laude or even knowing how to do simple math. Her attitude constantly reminds me that there’s a general public out there, perhaps ones who are quite familiar with successful hs’ers, with a strong belief that hs’ers must be accountable to someone else.
From that unfriendly-hs state we moved into a homeschool friendly area with large umbrella schools. I avoided them knowing that I did not need to be accountable to anyone. I did not need a professional teacher reviewing what my kids did throughout the year. I knew from my early years that I was quite capable of administering my own child’s education. Then we hit the high school years. I have watched one hs’er friend after another join these umbrella schools as their kid entered the high school years. I heard these reasons excuses for joining an umbrella school:
I could never put together that high school transcript. A transcript, really? If you pulled out your high school or college transcript you’d have an example. Visit the local library and read one of the many hs books on putting together a portfolio and transcript. Follow their instructions. And my favorite method, cruise the web and look at the numerous transcripts posted by other BTDT hs moms. Visit the websites of your local state colleges and universities and see what is required from a high school graduate and bingo, you have the minimum of what is needed on that transcript. Course descriptions can be pulled together in a similar manner. Visit your state’s and other states DOE sites for course descriptions and use them as a model for putting together your own child’s courses.
I need someone to look over my shoulder and keep me accountable. Read this blog’s head-quote. The most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. Get educated. Learn what your child needs to do to get into the college or field he desires, and then have him do it.
My kid won’t do what I want him to do, so I can tell him he has to do it since the umbrella school requires it. Go back to parenting 101.
A kid needs an official high school diploma. Many homeschoolers have entered college with a mommy issued diploma. And many have entered the military with a mommy issued diploma. It’s as official as it gets.
But my true reason for avoiding umbrella schools stems from something written recently by LaJuana on TWTM forums:
From a philosophical standpoint, by submitting to an umbrella school, we are, in a sense, contributing to acceptance of the idea that homeschooling parents are not capable of administering their own children’s education, but instead, they require oversight by professionals. That’s not a concept I want to support.
