Thread: Homeschool students welcomed by colleges.

One of the most encouraging responses to the problems of public schools is the growing homeschool movement.

Homeschools empower parents to explore moral and religious aspects to subjects in ways that government schools cannot.

This has produced a backlash by politically liberal public education bureaucrats, who fear loss of funding, and by democrat law makers who fear loss of votes.

Here is an article of how an annonymous bureaucrat misled a small community college and caused inconvenience to homeschool candidates. This is from a bureaucrat who should have known the law. I suspect he/she did but thought nobody would know better. He/she was wrong.






College Rescinds Discriminatory Homeschool Policy

Homeschoolers throughout Oklahoma are gaining admission to colleges and universities without much trouble. Homeschoolers come with high ACT and SAT scores and an excellent homeschool high school education.

The Home School Legal Defense Association has been working for the last 10 years to clear the way for colleges to adopt nondiscriminatory homeschool policies through their enactment of various amendments to the Higher Education Act. Furthermore, HSLDA attorneys talk with college financial aid advisers and admissions officers on a regular basis to clear up any misconception or discriminatory policies.

Marilyn Siemens, an HSLDA member and homeschool mom who works with CHEF, the Christian Home Educators Fellowship, learned of a discriminatory policy that had been established by the Tulsa Community College. The policy required all homeschoolers to take an Ability to Benefits (ATB) test to gain admission or seek financial aid.

In spite of the fact that Marilyn Siemens sent the college officials a copy of the law, which she received from HSLDA, and the Oklahoma Board of Regents policy, the college dug their heals in.

Marilyn Siemens contacted HSLDA. Attorney Christopher J. Klicka called the admissions office and talked with one of the officers, explaining that HSLDA had amended the Higher Education Act [by persuading congress to change the law] to specifically allow for homeschoolers to receive federal financial aid if they had “completed high school education in a homeschool setting.”

He further explained that that some colleges had mistakenly required homeschoolers to pass an ATB test in order to gain admission because many of them were seeking federal financial aid. The college contacted an unnamed bureaucrat at the Oklahoma Department of Education who insisted that they needed to require the home school graduate to take the ATB test.

Attorney Klicka meanwhile sent a demand letter to Tulsa Community College, telling them to correct their policy immediately in light of their lack of compliance with the law. He stated that their longstanding practice of discrimination needed to end. He ended the letter by saying, “You have all laws before you—you have no excuse—an arbitrary opinion of some bureaucrat somewhere does not cut it in the face of the law.”

The president of Tulsa Community College finally retracted their inequitable policy; homeschoolers are no longer discriminated against when seeking admission or financial aid at Tulsa Community College. Although this struggle lasted longer than most, we praise God that the college finally came around.

A few months earlier, Wheaton College in Illinois made the same error when they required homeschool graduates take the ATB test. Wheaton received HSLDA's information and within 24 hours corrected their policy and sent out a new policy letter to each new student applicant they had misinformed. Wheaton College continues to serve the homeschoolers well.

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/ok/200605170.asp

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Wheaton College, by the way, is an evangelical Christian liberal arts college. Even they were confused, but their response was much kinder and more responsive.

Every so often you meet an exceptional student.

Brantley Wilson certainly qualifies for that.

He is a product of homeschooling.

Beaufort grad finishes two degrees before age 18

Home-schooler Brantley Wilson earned two associate degrees from the Technical of the Lowcountry and was accepted to the U.S. Air Force Academy before he earned his high school diploma.

Brantley will attend the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado in the fall. He plans to study engineering and rocket science.

He said his choice to attend a military college made sense because both of his parents were in the Air Force.

Daniels, Brantley's old math teacher, said he's one of the best students he's ever taught.

But the handwriting still needs work. http://www.hslda.org/docs/link.asp?U...176116c%2Ehtml

My own elder son, whom my wife and I helped educate, quit high school and went to a Big Ten university in his junior year.

Frankly I don't see what the big deal is here. Shall we go through and sing the praises of those that have accomplished the same thing, or even more, while attending public or parochial schools? What is the point here?

We all know that home-schooled students are very bright. I home-schooled my own daughter. All home-school parents are not Christian either.

And not all christian homeschool parents are conservative.

In my experience, if you explain your circumstances, colleges usually don't make it hard to apply.

On every other forum I've been on, bumping your own thread (dead by 3 weeks, BTW) is considered very poor form.

Originally Posted by Donkey_Left

And not all christian homeschool parents are conservative.

In my experience, if you explain your circumstances, colleges usually don't make it hard to apply.

Yes, all of you raised good points. It is true that not all homeschool parents are Christian or conservative. In fact only about half are.

It used to be overwhelmingly Christian and homeschoolers faced outrageous accusations and bias. They have overcomed each attack by proving that they do superior academic work, students are better at social skills, and the movement embraces all races. Bizarre false accusations included charges of child battery and polygamy! Even the US Army refused to accept homeschoolers as high school graduates!

There was outright rejection by colleges, but as the successful results became undeniable, and as the homeschoolers' high graduation rates made colleges look good to accreditors and donors, then the colleges open the gates a little, and later began to compete for homeschoolers and their tuitition payments.

It is a very big deal to one who have followed this topic for thirty years. Looking at the future, homeschools provide a model for public schools in many ways such as individualized learning and discipline. The religious and moral values still elude public schools, but private vouchers religious schools or private tax breaks can allow taxpayers to defund bad public schools and select private alternatives.

Now that the flood gate of opportunity has opened, I expect good things for public and charter schools by following their example... or losing funds. And this could become a major transformer in the Black and inner-city poor communities if transferrable tax-credits and vouchers give them an educational choice.

You obviously know nothing about how the education system works. Taking money away from poor, inner-city districts is not going to help the students. Trying to get single-parent families (or 2-parent low-income families) to home school their children is an invitation to disaster.

Most Americans are not capable of providing a good education to their children. They have neither the knowledge, nor the training, nor the time.

Originally Posted by pramjockey

You obviously know nothing about how the education system works. Taking money away from poor, inner-city districts is not going to help the students. Trying to get single-parent families (or 2-parent low-income families) to home school their children is an invitation to disaster.

Most Americans are not capable of providing a good education to their children. They have neither the knowledge, nor the training, nor the time.

Far from it! Taking ALL the money away from inner-city schools run by the government and sending the students to private schools (which cost less money!) would be an awesome blessing to the poor families.

Recall in FL when Jeb Bush opened the lottery for vouchers to the poor to escape the poor slum schools? The NEA predicted nobody would notice, but the system was flooded with innercity parents who wanted out of the public school monopoly.

Most Americans would opt for private Christian or secular or general religious schools in a heartbeat if only they could. I like both the vouchers idea and tax credits. Either will work.

Private schools and homeschools do far better work for far less cost.

Originally Posted by t714zu

Far from it! Taking ALL the money away from inner-city schools run by the government and sending the students to private schools (which cost less money!) would be an awesome blessing to the poor families.

Recall in FL when Jeb Bush opened the lottery for vouchers to the poor to escape the poor slum schools? The NEA predicted nobody would notice, but the system was flooded with innercity parents who wanted out of the public school monopoly.

Most Americans would opt for private Christian or secular or general religious schools in a heartbeat if only they could. I like both the vouchers idea and tax credits. Either will work.

Private schools and homeschools do far better work for far less cost.

they may want out, but do you have any figures for how the students did compared to when they were in public schools, not just other students in public schools but these particular ones before and after they left the public school system.

By the way I noted you admission that you were mistaken on another thread. I may disagree with you and wonder how you can be a intelligent person and still a member of a church, but I do respect you for your honesty and integrety, at least as far as anyone can tell about anyone else on a board like this.