Cost Benefit Analysis Of Spotsylvania County Public Schools

For years flocks of children have gotten up at the crack of dawn and gone to the brick building to sit at their desks for eight hours straight, but now a very effective style of school called homeschooling has emerged. Most of todays parents have gone to a public school because homeschooling was not very well known back when they were school aged. Since then, homeschooling has become much more popular and has been proven to be effective. Parents should consider homeschooling their kids as an alternative to sending them to a public school.

The Forrest County School District (FCSD) is dedicated to meeting the wide-ranging academic needs of all students and presenting opportunities for individuals to develop specialized talents and interests.

Shawn Abdallah walked to school as usual. He rode the packed-shut elevator to floor 9 as usual. He trudged down the hall to Ms. Sweeney’s class as usual. Yet his father’s words rang in his ears. “You can only go to private school for three months. Then you can go public school for three more, on floor 17. Or you can try public school for nine. Then it’s homeschool for you. I’m sorry. We just don’t have the money anymore.”

Before the development of the United States education system it was necessary for children to homeschool, but that time has passed. Today students have the option to attend the school that best fits them due to the process of open enrollment. The United States educational system now offers students options such as religious schools, charter schools, private schools, and public schools. Therefore, no reason exists that they can not find a decent school that meets their academic expectations. Families that homeschooled have a distinct disadvantage to families that attend public or private schools.

Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) is Maryland’s second largest school system, educating about 130,000 students yearly and employing about 19,000 people. The system has an annual budget of around 1.8 billion dollars and operates over 200 facilities where a wide range of academic and specialty programs are offered the families it serves.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) has many pre-existing policies to ensure a positive and effective learning environment can be established. These policies cover areas such as curriculum writing and grading. In order to effectively develop a sailing based STEM curriculum for elementary school students these guidelines must be followed.

Clemmitt, a veteran social policy reporter, powerfully argues in her March article that with more parents wanting to homeschool their children and few cases of abuse and educational neglect, furthermore raises the question of what actions can be done to protect the child. She states, parents main reason for homeschooling is based on special learning needs, ethnic, religious and political conditions. Clemmitt used the example of a homeschooled child’s experience, celebrities, as well as a pros and cons debt and, statistics.

In chapter 11 of the textbook titled “How are schools governed, influenced, and financed?” there was a section called school spending and could be found on page 354. The section talks about how much is spent by parents when enrolling a child into school, the average from 2013-2014 was just over 11k a year. There are two figures that are incorporated into the section, one shows how the average has changed over the last ten years and the other is the average spent by each state to educate one child. Each school/state has their own way of funding and to see what it is from school to school is interesting.

Public schooling in the United States fails in providing a quality education for student in K-12. In 2015 the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measures reading ability and math and science literacy among 15-year-olds in dozens of developed and developing countries, found that the United States is ranked 35th in math and 27th in science Desilver, D. (2016). The number one thing every parent wants for their children is for them to have access to the best possible education available. As a result of a low quality public education, parents are progressively looking for alternative ways of schooling. In particular, some parents have decided that homeschooling would better prepare their children in life. This paper will analyze both the pros and cons of homeschooling.

There are many definitions for the term “real world”. Consequently, to the homeschooling parent, the real world starts when they give birth at conception, all the way until they reach the lawful age of 18. As a result, parents have structured their curriculum up to the 12th grade level. The “real world” has various meanings, and to the homeschooling community, there are many factors which come into play (Ray, 2004, p. 5). Ray asserts

The greatly discussed dilemma of having a child be taught in a public school setting versus a homeschool setting has been evaluated by parents since the idea was first introduced in the 1970’s. Public schooling had been the standard method of teaching since it is a requirement for states to provide public, free education for children in grades K-12. However, the backlash against the system began when two educational theorists and supporters of school reform, John Holt and Raymond Moore, started to question both the techniques and the products of public schools. Some parents went on to support the ideas of them and began to teach their children in the environment of their own homes for several different reasons. Some included moral or religious reasons, a desire for high educational achievement, dissatisfaction with public schools’ instructional program, or concerns about drugs and peer pressure in a public school environment. Child development specialists believe that homeschooled children are isolated from the outside world, therefore making them socially handicapped. If being exposed to this type of education on an elementary school level, the child can suffer from the lack of fundamental development of effective social skills needed for a lifetime ahead of them.

In the United States today, millions of students’ attend public schools and face some sort of violence that is associated with that school. It can be gang related or just simply bullying in the school. Because of these rising issues, parents are being forced to pull their children out of public school and home school them for their safety. Is this the best action for the children? Will they be missing out on many life skills that are learned while attending schools with peers their own age? How can the schools make our children feel safe so that they are able to attend the public schools and so that schools don’t lose out on valuable funding from the state? The idea that many believe will fix the problems at school is by implementing

Twenty years ago, many states did not allow home schooling. Constitutional protection has always been uncertain. The U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on home schooling. Although in 1972, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Court did restrict compulsory school requirements in a limited ruling involving the right of Amish students not to attend high school (Lines, 1996). In Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Amish parents claimed that high school attendance was destructive to their children's religious beliefs and would interfere with their pursuit of the Amish way of life (Fisher, Schimmel, and Kelley, 1995). Since this ruling there have been many court cases dealing with the issue of home schooling. All 50 states allow home schooling ad 34 states have enacted specific home schooling statutes or regulations (Clark, 1994). What drives many home-schoolers are the well-documented social troubles and the declining test scores in the public schools. In 1991, the total number of children being home schooled was between 248,500 and 353,500. Many public educators feel that children who are home schooled are missing out on key learning situations that come from the public school. For instance the sciene experiments, these would be very costly to duplicate at home. Also they argue that home school children miss out on the social aspect of school. Very often they are

Merry, Micheal S., and Sjored Karsten. "Restricted Liberty, Parental Choice And Homeschooling." Journal Of Philosophy Of Education 44.4 (2010): 497-514.

Most parents hear the word “home-school” and conjure up many assumptions that are either false or overlooked at. The technology provided, as well as the teaching quality spent on home-schooled children requires a lot of time and effort from the parents; it is an act of dedication and total commitment. According to the Robinson Curriculum, the parents have “little personal time or time alone. If care is not taken to set aside time for yourself, it is easy to never have time alone. They are basically with their [children] 24/7” (The Robinson Curriculum). There are many positives as well as the negatives outlooks pertaining to “sheltering” kids from attending private or public schools. Many adults are