Last updated on June 10, 2010
I was asked recently what my views on home schooling are. I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about this important topic.
Some of the best primary and secondary education I have seen has come from parents teaching their children directly in the home. This is something I would like to encourage.
Part of my hopes for the future include a redirection of money from perpetual war to education. The primary goal of this is to improve our public education system, but this does not discount private and in-home education. One of the things I’d like to do is to institute a system of voluntary standards in primary and secondary education which would establish a base line for public, private, and home school education. This would be a set of topics and standards which every adult should know as well as a standardized testing system — again, voluntary — where any student may elect to take these tests and be certified with a standard high school diploma.
When I went to high school in New York, the state had a “NY State Regents” diploma option as well as a locally issued diploma option. The Regents system was geared towards college preparatory work and had strict, but obtainable standards. I’d like to base a national system roughly on that format and make it available to any student in the United States: public, private, or home schooled.
By establishing a nationwide standard, any university or employer can be assured that students completing this program will have this base line education. By keeping it optional, schools and parents may elect not to follow the program if they feel it is not appropriate or if they have something better.
It is all about Liberty here, and be setting up these standards, families will have a clear path to secondary education and their children will have the same footing upon completion as those in public and private schools.