{"id":4863,"date":"2012-01-31T11:37:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T16:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4863"},"modified":"2012-01-31T11:37:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T16:37:00","slug":"homeschooling-not-just-for-the-religious-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4863","title":{"rendered":"Homeschooling: Not Just For the Religious Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

While it’s never been solely a Christian-oriented movement, homeschooling is also rising with folks of a more liberal persuasion. Some of the reasons are different, but a surprising number are similar as well.<\/p>\n

Before getting to the specific homeschooling instance, in New Jersey, I wanted to point out this wonderful irony.<\/p>\n

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According to federal Department of Education statistics nearly 2 million children in the U.S. are home-schooled. The number in New Jersey is estimated to be about 40,000.<\/p>\n

While supporters cite the studies suggesting home-schooled students do better on standardized tests, critics counter that these students are not held to the same standards as their peers in traditional schools.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Um, guys, that’s the very reason <\/em>many people homeschool, so they won’t<\/em> be held to the same standards as public schools. We prefer higher<\/em> ones. Hence the better test scores.<\/p>\n

On, then, to the main thrust of the story. Read the whole thing.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

There was a time when Heather Kirchner thought mothers who home-schooled their children were the types \u201cwho wore long skirts and praised Jesus, and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that was before the Sayreville resident decided to home-school her own daughter, Anya.<\/p>\n

Kirchner actually wears jeans, and like the two dozen other families that are part of the year-old Homeschool Village Co-op in Central Jersey, she doesn\u2019t consider herself to be particularly religious.<\/p>\n

The co-op is one of dozens in the state formed by home-schooling parents looking to network and provide their children with opportunities to conduct science experiments, play sports and games, and socialize.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s different about Homeschool Village is that its mission is secular.<\/p>\n

According to a 2007 survey conducted by the federal Department of Education\u2019s National Center for Education Statistics, 83.3 percent of home-schooling parents named \u201ca desire to provide religious or moral instruction\u201d as an important reason to home-school, and it was the most important for 35.8 percent of the parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the opposite of that,\u201d said Vanessa Bowden, a former South Brunswick public school teacher who already is home-schooling her 2 year-old daughter and 4-year-old twins.<\/p>\n

In Bowden\u2019s view, there are \u201ctwo sects of home-schooling people\u201d \u2014 the religious kind \u201cand then the hippies,\u201d like her.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While it’s never been solely a Christian-oriented movement, homeschooling is also rising with folks of a more liberal persuasion. Some of the reasons are different, but a surprising number are similar as well. Before getting to the specific homeschooling instance, in New Jersey, I wanted to point out this wonderful irony. According to federal Department […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,66,67,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-doug","category-education","category-homeschooling","category-liberal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}