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

[Igel]

26. Because the teams aren't academics.

They're bonuses, add ons. Some states allow homeschoolers to participate. Some don't.

They're not always just school-based. I've known schools that didn't have enough students for their own team. The students a team district-wide or from 2-3 adjacent schools.

Often the "you don't attend, you can't participate" argument relies on funding.

In some cases the school only pays for part of the extramural funding. Or the funds are kept segregated on the school's budget. There's the mission of the school with one funding source; then there are extramural sports with a different source. Football team needs new uniforms? School won't buy them--the PTO does. There's a real sense in which they're "extramural"--they're "outside the walls" of the school.

There are even entirely self-supported organizations. You want to belong to X club, you pay the fee to support it. The only thing the school does is make available a heated/cooled lit room with a volunteer employee.

Then there's the larger district funding issue. Homeschooling parents pay taxes for the schools yet don't use the school's academic services. It's claimed this is fair because they don't want the services. Then when they do want *some* services it's said to be fair to deny them the services because they don't want the complete service package. Sometimes the argument is made that non-attendance deprives the school of federal or state money-if they're not going to participate in society's obligation to teach all students, screw them. Still, the parents usually pay more in taxes than extramural services would cost. Federal and state money goes for academics and teacher--not coach--salaries.

The funding issue falls flat in many districts. The district we live in has a grandfather-in clause. If you're a sophomore at a high school you can spend your junior or senior year there. It's your "community." You have something like a $50 tuition fee per year. No property tax money from your parents, but you can be on the football team, debate squad, whatever. You attend the school, you can participate.

Often the "you don't attend, you don't participate" argument sounds like sour grapes or bitterness. "Public schools not good enough for your parents, little asswipe? You don't like our beliefs? You disapprove of our views? And now you want to let little Amanda-Sue or Billy-Sean use our facilities? Screw you!" It's not a public-service argument, not a betterment-of-society argument. It's seldom even a fiscal argument that is sustainable, unless you assume that tax support for public education is a duty to society with no reciprocal obligation. Having a dozen homeschoolers on teams that are no larger than they'd otherwise be doesn't exactly cost the schoolboard a dime. You pay $X for your 30-person team, regardless of who they are. It's usually a moral-support-for-public-education argument. It's an ideological argument waged by one set of adults to hurt the parents by punishing their kids--if the parents fall into line, great, otherwise the kids get the shaft. Not very compassionate, either. Sure, nail the parents for being obdurate, uncaring conservatives who sacrifice kids for ideology and personal views. But then to sit back and be obdurate, uncaring liberals who sacrifice kids for ideology and personal views? I find this unconvincing. I think it's common, and that not just in the sense of "frequently occurring."

Some school districts even take the societal obligation to educate all students as a service to the community seriously enough to ex parte allow homeschoolers to actually do the lab portion of their homeschooling science or foreign language curriculum on campus. Can't do the lab with the spectrograph at home? Don't have the right telescope? Not enough photogates and accelerometers in the garage? Off to the high school with you for the afternoon! Sometimes there's an equipment/materials fee, sometimes not. It does some serious pomo deconstruction of the idea of a public school system as a monolithic, bureaucratic entity.

Personally I think that since it ultimately depends on the allocation of tax dollars it should be up for a community vote every decade or so. Just put it on the ballot in November every 10-12 years.