Do I hate public education? Am I elitist?

The answer to the first question is no, not in its purest form. There's something quite awesome about people from all walks of life coming together to learn, discuss, think, and create. There's something very desirable about everyone around me being able to read, write and perform in other intelligent and useful ways.

There's something very noble about declaring and providing for every citizen, regardless of race, religion, creed or color access to the same learning opportunities as every other citizen.

The problem is that this is not what public education looks like today and it doesn't show signs of getting any better.

My great-grandmother taught public school for a breathtaking 50 years, during a time when parents allied with teachers and the students knew any trouble would be dealt with swiftly and by more than one person. Teachers had authority over their classrooms and administrators trusted them to do their jobs and by and large they did. My mother was a school teacher, too, and if you've read my 'blog for any length of time you know by now that I think she's a candidate for beatification. My best friend since 7th grade has taught public school for 16+ years. I'd give up a body part for her and I happen to think she's an amazing and talented teacher. Another very dear friend taught at the college level for several years and continues to use her talents to teach children theatre arts at a nearby private school. She also teaches my children choral singing and her enthusiasm and talent are very impressive.

It should be clear to anyone reading this far that my gripe is not with the vast majority of teachers. My gripe is with the system in which they're forced to teach.

I know several homeschooling parents who used to be public school teachers. One of them was a college professor who gave it all up to educate her own kids. My friends who still teach in public education regularly affirm my choice to homeschool and that, to me, is the most telling of all.

When those working in the public education system decry the system but are largely helpless to fix it, who am I to think I could do any better if I enrolled my children and then tried to advocate for them from the sidelines as I surely would?

Would I have the magic touch needed to get school officials to mainstream my bright but slightly autistic child? Would they willingly exempt my children from classes on sex education that included controversial material I'd rather address in private? Would they even tell me they were requiring my children to attend such classes? Would they let my precocious readers read books several grade levels above their own or would they clamp down and make them wait? Would they penalize us for debating the merits of some of the so-called literature that crops up in the middle and high school English classes? Would they eschew political correctness and call it Christmas instead of Winter Holiday?

The answers are: No, I tried that early on and district officials wouldn't budge. Likely not. No. Clamp down and make 'em wait. Probably. Hell would freeze first.

I've kept my children from public education in a last-ditch effort to preserve as much of their innocence, curiosity and natural love of learning as I can. I never aspired to be a teacher, never even entertained the notion. I wanted to be a writer, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, the next Woodward or Bernstein (they broke the Watergate story in the '70s). I had visions of sending my someday children to the idyllic neighborhood elementary where I'd volunteer my spare time to the PTA and chat up the other parents during meet-the-teacher events. I saw myself making the occasional batch of cupcakes for a class party, helping raise funds for a band trip, or helping to pick out a prom dress.

In short, I saw myself doing all the things I'd seen mothers before me, including my own, do for their publicly schooled children. After all, wasn't that what everybody did? Wasn't that the best way, the only way?

Ten years nearly to the day that I declared to my husband we'd homeschool we're still at it. We've chosen to teach our kids ourselves because even on our worst day my husband and I are still heavily vested in their success and we cannot not go the extra mile to either help them solve their problems or else wait patiently as they wrestle on their own with things they do not easily grasp.

Am I gifted in my ability to teach? Hardly. What I lack in talent I make up for in sheer determination. The alternative is akin to failure and I don't like to fail, so that's what keeps me going.

Which brings me to the second question. Am I an elitist?

I've been called an "elitist" because my family has chosen to homeschool. I always find this charge interesting considering that I and many of the homeschooling families I know have actually picked the far more treacherous path.

How so?

If a child doesn't do well in public school, parents have what I call "the luxury of complaint."

It's luxury to be able to vent your anger to a principal, an entire school board, or the media. You get to be center stage and everyone is obligated to at least hear you out, even if they don't agree with a darn thing you say. It's a luxury to be able to get revenge for your child by filing a lawsuit, maybe even winning some money but at least making public officials squirmy and nervous. It's a luxury to be able to hold someone else accountable for whatever goes wrong in your life.

Homeschooling parents have no one to whom they can vent other than their fellow homeschoolers (who are likely muddling through their own challenges). There's no one we can turn to who's in a position to fix whatever is ailing us, no one to reassure us it'll all be okay. There's sure no one to foot the bill for whatever extra special resources or materials our children might need. There's no one we can smugly blame if our child doesn't learn to read, write, and do math, no night through which we can rest easy knowing we did everything WE were supposed to do and it's THEY who have failed us. We have to live with whatever academic failures befall our children and the only one accountable for them is us. I won't even go into the three weeks of lost sleep as I lay awake in the dark searching my brain for the best way to communicate a particular mathematical concept to one of my children. (All that late-night mindwork paid off, by the way, as I did finally come up with a solution to the problem, no pun intended.)

In fact, if homeschoolers are overheard complaining about their child's struggle in math or inability to fit in, they're usually told contemptuously, "If you'd put your child in public school you wouldn't have that problem." No sympathy, no righteous indignation on our behalf, no nothing.

I know many homeschoolers who brave financial difficulties to teach their children. They work at night or part-time from home. Some are single parents who make all manner of elaborate arrangements with grandparents, friends, or other relatives to keep their children home to learn. I've even known of homeschoolers who braved personal illness or had caregiver responsibilities for a loved one and still got their teaching time in.

Not picking up an elitist vibe from this. . .

I think the criticism of homeschoolers by many public school educators and the NEA stems from two things:

First, professionally trained and accredited teachers seem to need to believe they are the ones best fit for the job. I get that. The question about qualifications to teach is a legitimate one, but it does not justify badmouthing parents who choose to teach their own.

Put another way, it's like me saying, "Hey, I went to college and got a degree in journalism, therefore newspapers should hire only those who got a formal newspapering education because we're the only ones qualified to write the news." The truth is that plenty of folks are good news reporters who never set foot in a college J-school course. This is a fact that doesn't threaten me or my sense of worth.

Second, a lot of folks sincerely believe that someone else -- in every instance -- can do a better job of raising and teaching your child than you can.

The problem with this is that one size does not fit all even though the NEA would like you to believe it does.

Look, just as some teachers really should have chosen a different career path some parents should never EVER attempt to teach their own children. The criteria for what makes a good homeschooling parent varies depending upon who you ask. But it's generally accepted that you must have some degree of education yourself, be so committed to teaching that you'll give up aspects of your private adult life, be willing and able to comply with all the homeschooling laws of your state, and enjoy spending a boatload of time with your child(ren) often at great financial loss.

The hard truth is that many parents do not enjoy spending a lot of time with their children. I know this, because I've been told so more times than I can count. I've actually had people look at me like I was insane when I told them I like being around my kids 24/7. "Huh, not me," they'll say. "If I was with my kids all day I'd have to fitted with a strait-jacket."

Others have told me, "I just don't have the patience to teach my children."

Others have said, "If I stayed home, we couldn't afford all the things our kids like to have."

My feeling in these cases is this: You should not homeschool your kids.

Some parents just do not want to give up their "Me" time, their afternoon trips to the gym, spa, nail salon, lunch with the girls, or shopping at the mall. Many parents do not want to give up their second income, even the ones who could live without it if they had to. Many parents really believe they do not possess the ability to teach their own children.

It's a personal choice that's easy for me to make because I know that in just a few short years all my kids will be grown and gone and then I'll have more time on my hands than I know what to do with. We've lived with only one income for so long it seems very natural to do without certain things. I've never cottoned to the notion that I can't learn what I need to know to become smart enough to do what I need to do.

But what about parents who have no choice but to enroll their children in public school? Poor? Single? Working to support the whole family? Do homeschoolers look down their noses at these folks?

None that I know. In fact, that's one of the reasons I 'blog so often about public education's foibles. Sure, I admit it's fun to poke holes in the position that only traditional schooling can cultivate an educated person. But as a product of the public schools who could have and should have had better, as a taxpaying parent who resents the fact that I cannot send my children to schools I pay for but cannot use because they are fairly rotten in critical ways, I like to shed the light where I can on what needs fixing. I have a right to demand a better return for my money!

A lot of well-intentioned parents are asleep at the wheel and do not bother to find out what's going on with their child in school until that same child goes to start college and has to spend an entire first semester or year in remedial courses because their public school failed them. By then it's too late.

Parental apathy, a willingness to trust too much, is endemic. Why shouldn't it be? Schools tell us to fret not, that they'll take care of everything, that they're well-equipped and well-staffed and well-trained to give our kids exactly what they need. Hearing this, what parent wouldn't relax a bit and fix their gaze upon something else?

I used to cover school board meetings as a reporter for a local newspaper. I covered meetings in five different school districts over the course of my career, some of them large and well-financed and some of them poor, rural and struggling to get by with what the state deigned to dole out.

At nearly every meeting I ever attended, the only ones in the audience were me, reporters from other area newspapers, and occasionally a crusty old taxpayer with no kids in school but gripes about the assessed value of his property.

Where were the parents? Why wasn't anyone asking the hard questions? My guess is that they didn't think they needed to.

Public education affects us all. When it's good, we all benefit. When it's bad, we all suffer.

Homeschoolers realize this and that's why so many of them tried public education first only to rearrange their lives to bring their children home to learn.

I don't call that elitism. I call that courage.