Salon: Home-schooled and illiterate - for some kids it means isolation with little education

[Igel]

23. I've seen this a few times.

I live in Texas. In TX a parent can issue a high school diploma. Homeschooling is essentially a (state-)constitutional right.

If their senior's failing and wouldn't get a diploma *and* would drop out of school if they didn't graduate it's a kludge that works. I don't know how you validate a parent-issued diploma, but there must be some way. You could also take a few classes at a community college. Even if you're failing because you just don't meet the graduation requirements of x credits for science and y for history you could still probably pull off auto mechanics or such.

I've also known girls who were pregnant, doing badly in school, and who were "homeschooled" for their sophomore or junior year. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn't, esp. if they're juniors. So they stay homeschooled and are content enough for the time being with their prized possession and the sense that they've done something with their lives.

I imagine parent-issued diplomas also wreak havoc with drop-out statistics.