Am I a hypocrite?

The question from an anonymous commenter asks: "Why is it okay to take money from public education to support your family but public education is not good enough for your children? Seems hypocritical to me," There are a few other items in that comment I will address here as well.

Back to the first question, am I a hypocrite? Well, only if I wasn't paying taxes. I contribute to the public education system under duress, like everyone else who has paid taxes. Ask yourself this: "Is the doctor working at the HMO that takes millions in Medicare a hypocrite if he takes his family elsewhere for medical services that are much better?"

The premise is that the state offers a "Free and Appropriate Public Education" (FAPE). The state mandates that teachers be certified in the content area of instruction delivered. Because the state has made laws dictating how the public education system works, as long as I abide by those laws I am free and clear to raise my family as I deem appropriate guaranteed by the freedoms we enjoy in this country. It is not a moral issue of public monies coming my way. I am providing a service to the state and am being remunerated appropriately by my service under conditions of my contract and state laws. No other conditions are stipulated or inferred.

Does a public defender become hypocritical if say, his juvenile delinquent son needs an attorney to defend him in court but chooses to defend him himself on his own time and nickel?

In essence the connection between public monies that pay me for my contracted services and a supposed obligation to support the system with my own children is fallacious. People sometimes get a little snotty about it (not referring to the anonymous commenter of course!) because public vs. home education is a hot topic.

As far as really good companies go, well, you will find a Chevy truck at the Chrysler dealer my brother works at, but he still makes them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But since he drives a Chevy and not a Ram truck, does his productivity go down? No, you should see his house!

But the fact that I am a homeschool dad does not automatically make me dis-engaged/unengaged, or weak, or a weak link. Some actually hope or expect that condition to exist, as if I have no control over my own work ethic. If I do everything as unto the Lord, as scripture mandates, it doesn't matter how I feel. As long as this is the furrow I am plowing for the Lord, I won't look to the right or the left, until I get to the end of that furrow. At that point if the Lord gives me another field to plow, so be it.

The same way a doctor making his living providing a contracted service at an HMO does not automatically become the weak link there.

Believe me, there are so many weak links that are avowed defenders of public education that it isn't even funny. It is, in fact, scary. Just go to an NEA national convention.

I know how to be a good teacher, and/or principal. I can even feel good about what I do because I know how to run an educational production system that turns out a good product. If I leave the system, it will be for other reasons.

As far as educational reform goes, consider this: if you have a chronically disengaged teacher that is tenured, it takes on the average of 3 years of hard documentation, observation, coaching, observable non-growth, more coaching, letters of reprimand, mentoring/peer coaching, meetings, more meetings, union interactions, attorney's, board meetings, etc., and the cost to the district of about $250,000-300,000 to let loose of one disengaged teacher.

If the administrator has to go through that process, the rest of the school is affected seriously. So many just help the disengaged teacher limp along until retirement....and that could be 5-10 years away with a student contact figure from 200 to 1500 students over that time.

Well, hopefully that will get you thinking. Happy to address anything you think I might have missed.


On another note:

I appreciated the comments on the textbook series. I hope my last post on that wasn't too anti-climatic. Some have more experience than others and that can be intimidating to those just starting out. My point was to be encouraging to those just starting as well as enlightening to everyone that public education sometimes is just as improvising as home schooling can be, only in directions not guaranteed or even approved by the state. The point is that the text is a tool. We work with the best tools we know as we are faithful to the time He has given us to raise up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, as God provides. It's simple really, just not that easy :-)