I was a secret homeschooler.
Oh, it was legal enough to homeschool. Oklahoma is pretty advanced in that regard - homeschooling has been legal for practically ever.
I get very angry at people who disparage homeschoolers because they have no clue why we chose to homeschool and all the serious effort and expense it takes to homeschool.
Among the reasons to homeschool: one or both parents are in jobs that require frequent relocations. The military has a lot of homeschoolers for that reason.
The child has a disability the school can't or won't address.
The child has been bullied and punished for being bullied by the school administration.
The teachers are administrated and supervised into incompetency (I think most teachers are competent but the system blocks them from demonstrating it).
The child is on one end or the other of a bell curve academically and his/her academic needs are not being addressed.
The child has a different learning style than the school advocates (many kinesthetic learners are hampered in public school settings, for example, because public schools aren't set up for children who need to roam, handle, taste, and manipulate things in order to learn about them).
The school thinks the child has an issue that requires medicating and the parent disagrees.
The child's health precludes being exposed to so many pathogens or allergens (compromised immune system, severe allergy).
The child's health precludes being vaccinated (one of my 8 children never got all her vaccinations because the first set sent her into a 3 month coma, and the second set - at 5 years old - sent her into anaphylactic shock followed by a coma, and the third set - when she was 19 - sent her into anaphylactic shock and a 3 day stay in ICU to stabilize her, so she will never have any more vaccinations - but the other 7 had every vaccination possible).
The parents are philosophically opposed to the manners and behavior encouraged in the school (Man, I went ballistic on the teacher who told my son he could behave however he wanted to at home! How dare she tell my son he did not have to listen to me?)
The parents are religiously opposed to the curriculum taught in the school. (I am religiously opposed to the dumbing down of our children by school administrations that fail to realize the full potential of each child - this is the primary reason I homeschooled, but several of the previous ones also applied.)
I homeschooled because public schools failed my children, but I did not fail the public schools.
Homeschooling does not mean forsaking public education - it means you work hard to make sure your children get a decent education while you also fight to make sure other children can get a decent education.
I paid then, and am still paying, property taxes that support the schools, ad valorem taxes that go towards education, and in Oklahoma, a portion of the car tag licenses go towards education. I vote on legislation that supports public education. I vote on bond issues that release funds to public education. Once in a while, I even buy lottery tickets that go to fund education.
Not one penny of those taxes went towards supporting homeschooling. Homeschoolers have to pay all of those taxes to support public education and they get zip in return for educating their children themselves. Most homeschoolers accept that as the price they have to pay to guarantee an education for their children.
Over the years, I've helped the local public schools become computer literate and to have enough computers for every student to use. I've helped raise funds to keep the buildings air conditioned (crucial when the temps soar above 100ºF). I've helped raise funds to buy textbooks and supplies. I've helped pass legislation that increased teacher pay and made the classroom smaller and safer. I've opposed any legislation that did otherwise, and that includes "teach to the test" legislation.
And I haven't stopped, even though my youngest has been out of college now for 3 years, I still fight for a decent public education to be available to all students who want or need a public education. Just because I had to homeschool doesn't mean I don't recognize the need for decent public education.
I wish, I really wish, people would stop demonizing homeschoolers.
We aren't evil, or ostracizing our children.
Up at the top, I said I was a secret homeschooler. This doesn't mean we hid out on some enclave surrounded by barbed wire reciting the alphabet and using chalk and slate for the lessons taught by rote.
No, what it meant was that as a single parent, my children attended public school while I worked, and when I realized they were getting a sub-par education, I began homeschooling them in addition to the public schooling - and worked to try to improve public education so other parents wouldn't have to either settle or make the choices I did.
As forward as Oklahoma is in homeschooling, the state is strictly segregationist. If you homeschool, you are not allowed to use public school facilities.
At all.
If the state ever learned I was homeschooling in addition to sending my children to public school, they would have been expelled. So I had to homeschool them secretly. I told them we were playing games, doing chores, visiting friends, and doing extra credit activities so when they talked about it at school, it would never sound like they were being homeschooled.
But they were.
Yes, it meant I had no life - I'd drop them at school in the mornings, go to work, plan out their studies during breaks, pick them up, and the lessons would begin and last until bed time. When my weekends occurred during the school week, I'd take them out for field trips. When our weekends coincided, we went on field trips. Every moment of my time was spent either educating them or preparing to educate them. It was a lengthy 25 years of my life, those school years, but it was only a portion of my life. I also used my children as extra volunteer labor in the activities I wanted to do so I was building my life-after-children life. That was part of their education, too, that I had a life that I'd placed on hold for them and I'd resume it when I could. It taught them that they could have lives of their own and that even if circumstances delayed them, they could still work towards having their own lives.
I admit I basically used the public schools as a free babysitting service while I worked to try to improve the schools and homeschooled my kids after hours. If I'd been able to stay at home to homeschool them instead of working, I would have homeschooled them openly, but there's zero support for single working parents to homeschool their children.
My efforts at improving public schooling has been a dismal failure.
I have ideas on how public schooling should be revamped so it doesn't fail itself and the students relying on it, but that's too lengthy for just a diary post.
Part of it involves greater parent involvement, but not the barely tolerated sort that relegates parents to play ground supervision, photo-copying, collating papers, sorting supplies, running the "Pep" store, and organizing fund raisers.
I believe that public schooling and home schooling should be dovetailed, supporting one another. Children are far, far more capable than public education as it stands now allows for, and teaching to the test stifles so much - teachers as well as students.
This whole "leave it to professionals" attitude our society is developing pisses me off. Credentialing is no guarantee of competency, and a lack of credentialing is no guarantee of incompetency.
Perhaps the way to improve education is to change society.
So, guess what I've been doing?