Word: home
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Joseph Cirasuolo, superintendent of schools in Wallingford, Conn., has seen the best and worst of home ed: "An excellent education, with computers plugged in," he says, and "horrible, with rote learning and outdated books." Teachers' groups, like the National Education Association, urge stricter regulation, but all 50 states now permit home schooling, with regulations ranging from degree requirements for parents in North Dakota to little or no oversight in Texas and Oklahoma...
...Home schooling, as it is currently practiced, is something of a misnomer. There are a wealth of options--many of them centered outside the home. You can buy a prepackaged curriculum or make it up as you go. Many families mix and match kitchen-table lessons with classes at other parents' houses, apprenticeships and even--where permitted--public school or college courses...
Rebecca Durkee's mom taught her exclusively at home from structured lesson plans--no evolution, thank you. Studying to be a chef, Rebecca had to learn how to do "self-motivated work," while Katie Harwood recalls "learning what we wanted, mostly arty things." Tad Heuer took violin and art classes at public school to supplement home-taught history and literature studies that included visits to Civil War battlefields and 19th century authors' homes...
Nowadays, nearly all home-schooling families belong to one or more of a growing number of local support networks, which organize field trips, soccer teams, even orchestras. Though some educators are worried that these families are opting out of a common society, others note that private schools and even some public ones can be just as insular...
...slew of doctoral dissertations, none definitive, have been written on the social adjustment of home schoolers. Mary Anne Pitman, a social anthropologist at the University of Cincinnati, says, "The preponderance of evidence is, they're fine...