Reason why we'll be home schooling #427

"(Teachers) are there to make sure that the kids are being appropriate."

-Mother of a middle school student at a campus in Florida where a handful of 13- and 14-year-olds are in trouble for having sex during class. If that's what teachers are for, then what about teaching? Transferring knowledge? Who does that?

Read the full story here.

It goes without saying that sex in the classroom is way high on the list of social reasons I would never send a child to public school. But when parents start saying things like this, it points to the utter brokenness of the system. Instead of, "They need to be better instructors," we now have, "They need to be better babysitters." I know some very dedicated teachers, and I respect their heartfelt efforts, but how can anyone have faith in a system that is so far off the mark that most schools cannot even get 20 percent of their students up to grade level in English?

Folks--and I may be preaching to the choir here, but so be it--home schooling is not just about keeping children out of the world, because I'm not even completely sure that's what kids need. They certainly don't need to see their classmates going at it in the back corner. But it might not hurt for kids to see what the world is like every now and then.

Home schooling these days is about providing quality instruction, and if anybody asks, that's what I tell them. Some children don't have the privilege of parents who will teach them at home, so I hope the public school system improves for their sake. But my kids will have that privilege.