This is a guest post from Sarah Faulkner. She is a homeschooling mom in Washington state. She has five kids, ages 13, 11, 9, 5, and 2.
I am still feeling rung out from my decision to put my kids into Homelink. It has been such a long week, I feel like a piece of paper that has been wadded up and thrown in a garbage bin. So, I thought I would pick myself up and go visit a friend.
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In the United States, our education system stinks. But parents in “good school districts” tell themselves they are different. The problem with this logic is that it’s precisely those economically advantaged kids who don’t need school. Read more
This is a guest post by Anya Kamenetz, pictured above with her daughter. Kamenetz leads education coverage at NPR, and her new book is The Test: Why Our Schools are Obsessed with Standardized Testing – But You Don’t Have to Be.
Between kindergarten and 12th grade, students in the US on average take 113 standardized tests. There is a huge movement among parents to protect their kids from this onslaught of tests. And the teachers generally can’t stand teaching to the tests, or administering the tests. Which makes you wonder, why is the testing culture so entrenched in our schools—even among school reform leaders? Read more
This is a guest post from Erin Wetzel. She is a artist who lives in Tacoma WA (that’s her drawing). She homeschools her daughter. You can connect with her on instagram @ekwetzel.
I’m going to go ahead and confess: we use food stamps.
It’s not fun living right above the poverty line. I’m ashamed that we can’t afford our basic needs. I’m tired of not having a phone and cutting my own hair and making all our meals at home. I’m tired of carefully asking the grandparents at Christmas if, instead of buying new toys, they’d help us pay for Phoebe’s ballet lessons. Read more
My son and I are on one of our pretty-much weekly shopping trips to buy clothes that he doesn’t need. I love watching him get giddy at a shirt rack. He tries on clothes for hours, and I wonder: is it okay for him to buy women’s clothes? Is it okay to let him buy outfits as a hobby? Are hats okay inside? Read more