Month: July 2008

Well, it looks like I am going to have to rethink the plans we have made for the kids as they move into high school. It turns out that one has to jump through a ton of hoops to get kids below the age of sixteen into our local Wake Tech Community College. The requirement is for the kid to take a bunch of tests at the parent’s expense. Then, and only if an administrator at the community college gives their personal approvales of both the test scores and the maturity of the kid, he can be admitted to the school. If the kid is admitted, the parent must sit in on every minute of the class–and this for the mediocre, politically correct education provided at the community college.

It also turns out that the “transfer” degree at the school is not a transfer degree in the traditional sense. All the Wake Tech transfer degree says is that if the state universities in North Carolina would normally accept a class that is part of the transfer degree program, then the credit will be given for the class at that university. The “transfer” part of the program sounds EXACTLY the same as just taking classes at the community college without participating in any program and then transferring them over to the big state university. The only thing one receives from the community college is an Associate of Science transfer degree which requires throw-away classes like psychology and sociology and is worth just about as much as a government high school diploma–the cost of the paper.

We were planning to send both of the kids to the community college for a couple of years each. Based on the abysmal and inadequate “transfer” program and age discrimination at Wake Tech, we have decided to just have them take as many CLEP tests as possible until they are sixteen. Then, if we have no other option, put them into a community college to take a couple of math and science classes that can be transferred to a real school.

Kelly took here second CLEP test today. The one she took was History of the United States I: Early Colonization to 1877 for three semester hours of college credit. She did great and will now be going on to take the History of the United States II (3 hours), Spanish (12 hours), Analyzing Literature (6 hours), Biology (3 hours), Sociology (3 hours), and Psychology (3 hours) next year. We really did not want her to take so many CLEP tests next year, but the local community college, Wake Tech, is not very friendly to homeschoolers who are under the age of 16 even if they have a demonstrated ability to do the work. So, we will just have her take a few more CLEP tests next year and the year after. If we are still around when she arrives at her Junior year in high school, we will sign her up.

We have found that one of the tests accepted by the state of North Carolina as a nationally normed, standardized test for homeschoolers is the ACT test. Both Kelly and Christian will take it at the end of each school year starting next year. It is really a college entrance exam, but that is good, because it will give them practice on taking a test they will need when the time comes to go to college.

We definitely want to go see some fireworks this Fourth of July. It sounds like there is an opportunity rich environment; there are fireworks, in Fuquay Varina, Garner, Lillington, and I have been trying to think of what we can do to fill out the weekend. We have been invited to a get-together on Friday. I have been checking on museums and the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh will definitely be open over the whole weekend. I think the kids and I should give Lorena a break and barbeque up some ribs, make some coleslaw, and maybe try to make some of our own ice cream. We really need to go to the Holly Springs Library to turn in our books and get some new ones–we found that our friends Jim and Madelaine Melton live just a couple of blocks from the library, so we might stop in and bring them some homemade bread or something like that, too. We are definitely going to need to get some

As for the volcano camera, we are still making good progress. I am writing up a cross-platform application in Python that will connect to and control the volcano camera computer from either a Windows or a Linux laptop. We are making some minor modifications to the GPS so we can hook it up properly and the camera is now up and working, too. We have to swap our camera out for a triggered version so we can trigger the capture from the GPS pulse-per-second signal, but that is a fairly trivial change. We have been ticking the problems off one by one to the point where now all we have is a couple more items and a fairly large application programming task.