The Homeschooling Handbook_ From Preschool to High School - Mary Griffith [37]
Evaluation and record keeping are overseen by the private program resource teacher and administrator.
You have a built-in support group in other enrolled families.
Drawbacks
Tuition, other fees, and materials for private homeschooling programs can be expensive.
The private program you choose may turn out not to suit your needs as well as you expect; you may be reluctant to abandon your investment even when the program obviously no longer meets your needs.
Relying on a private program may keep you from developing confidence in your and your children’s ability to tackle homeschooling on your own; conversely, as you develop more confidence in your homeschooling, you may chafe at assistance or supervision you feel you no longer need.
You should find out as much as you can about any program that interests you. Talk to other families who’ve been with the program for a year or more and, if possible, even to families who’ve left the program: Are the staff friendly and supportive of your educational goals? What kinds of evaluation or testing do they use? Can you work with their requirements? Do they provide transcripts or diplomas if you need them? Do they fully comply with your state’s regulations?
Public Programs
The number and variety of homeschooling options available through public school systems have mushroomed over the past five years. Such independent study programs offered by public schools vary a great deal, from those originally intended to accommodate students expelled or suspended from regular classrooms, or students diagnosed to be in some way “at risk” of failure, to new ones designed especially for homeschoolers. Some seek merely to prepare high school students to take and pass the GED, and others work hard to spark genuine interest in learning in their students. Usually, there will be some sort of contract between the teacher/school and the family about what work and support is expected from each and how the student’s work will be evaluated.
One relatively new option for homeschoolers is the charter school. The charter school movement began as a way for public schools to experiment with different approaches to school reform. Sometimes charter schools are brand new, independent schools; sometimes they take the form of a smaller school within an existing school. In all cases, the participants—usually teachers, often also an administrator or two, parents, sometimes local businesspeople or community leaders—draft a “charter” to govern the school. While the exact rules vary from state to state—and not all states yet allow them—charter schools are generally free of most of the legal rules and regulations that apply to conventional schools and can thus be quite innovative. Many, like magnet schools, are based on themes such as science and technology, the arts, or vocational fields such as business or food service, or adopt specialized educational approaches (e.g., Waldorf or Montessori). A number of charter schools around the country have begun experimenting with programs for homeschoolers.
California’s homeschooling charter schools, for example, have proved to be extremely popular with homeschooling families. Some enroll several thousand students and offer a wide variety of field trips, short-term cooperative classes, parent education workshops, and learning materials. Other charter schools are smaller and focus on particular learning philosophies or instructional themes, or they combine homeschooling with one or two days of optional on-campus activities.
Like private homeschooling programs, most charters and other public programs assign each family to a supervising teacher or facilitator who advises on curriculum and materials, offers ideas and suggestions, and maintains student records based on reports submitted by the parents. The frequency of meetings with facilitators and the complexity of the records maintained depend on the rules of each charter. The experiences of different families even within the same program may vary substantially depending on the facilitator assigned and may