Lorena got her College Algebra test score back last night. She is on track to get through the class just fine. She only has to get a passing grade on the final and she will be able to move on to her last math class this fall. Even though this is not her favorite subject, she has worked very hard and I am proud of her. Kelly and Christian continue to finish up their final projects. Christian finished his research report for the year yesterday. Kelly should finish hers today. I will put them up on the internet in PDF format as soon as they are both finished. I sprayed the lawn with what is supposed to be a really good clover killer last night. Now we are supposed to have several days of hot weather her in the mid-valley. We will see if the stuff really works. I will have to put it down one more time in about a week. I am looking forward to working on the lawn this coming, three day, Memorial Day weekend.
Update: A very homeschool friendly was just bill passed in the Oregon State House of Representatives. It is a bill that, if it ever gets signed into law by hour homeschool-phobic governor, Ted Kulongoski, will reduce the requirements imposed on homeschoolers by our the State of Oregon. Currently, homeschoolers have to notify the Educational Services District (ESD) that they have removed their child from the public school for the purpose of homeschooling, then turn the results of standardized tests into the ESD four times over the course of the child’s education. The new bill would keep the notification requirement, but remove the requirement to turn in the test results.
This makes a whole lot of sense. All the homeschool families we know with the exception of one use a standardized test to test their children every year. The process of homeschooling already imbues the parents with a better understanding of their child’s academic standing than is possible in a classroom environment. Generally, the parent is correcting virtually all the work the child does. Often, especially in the lower grades, the parent is sitting and watching while their child does the work.
We lost a lot of confidence in the good intentions of our ESD when we notified them of our intent to homeschool. They had finished a school year and we had been notified that they had received very high scores on the state tests. They were both scheduled to move on to the next grade. When we received the acknowledgement of our intent to homeschool back from the ESD, they had put them into year they had already successfully completed the previous year. The way the law reads, a new homeschoolers test scores do not have to be reported to the ESD until eighteen months after they start homeschooling. Because our children had been assigned, to the wrong grade, we would have had to submit test scores two or three years earlier than if the grades had been assigned where the ESD knew they properly belonged. We had to go through an additional unnecessary exercise to get the records corrected.
We were very pleased to note that Andy Olson, the representative from our district voted for eliminating the test reporting requirement. I sent him the following email note where I got at least one thing wrong. We speak Spanish at home and English at work, not visa-versa.
Dear Mr. Olson,
The reason I am writing this note is to express my thanks for your vote on the Homeschool Equity bill.
We moved to Albany two years ago so I could take a job in Corvallis. As I am from a pioneer family that arrived in Marysville in 1846 and a second generation OSU alum, I was quite excited to bring my family back to this area. We were even excited about putting our children in Oak Grove and Fir Grove middle schools.
We were extremely disappointed in the quality of education at those schools, but we were even more distressed about the attitudes of many of the staff. We decided that because we plan to stay here for awhile and are active in the community, we should start homeschooling our children.
We have been absolutely amazed at the homeschool infrastructure in this area. Our children are getting an amazing education, have a huge variety of opportunities for socialization, all because of the homeschool friendly nature of Albany. As do most of the homeschool families we have met in Albany, we test our children every year. The less time we have to waste shuffling paper for what, in our experience, has been a disinterested and marginally competent government bureaucracy, the more time we will have to provide a quality education for our children.
On another note. Our family is bilingual. We generally speak English at home and Spanish at work. We really have liked the tenor of your last campaign. If you are interested, we would be happy to talk to you about volunteering for helping you with future campaigns both as an educational experience for our children and as a way to participate in the community. We would be particularly interested in working in the area of Hispanic outreach.
Sincerely,
Kenneth W. Chapman