just rambling
Our state’s primary homeschooling association sent an email today marked Urgent! A local news station currently has an online poll regarding whether homeschooling parents should be required to have teaching credentials, which I assume relates to the recent court decision in California.
I can understand wanting to inform home educators about this poll so that they can vote if they choose. (At the time of this writing, you can find the poll on the right if you scroll down on the 9News home page.) But the email went on to discuss the California judicial interpretation and make the exaggerated claim that voting in this poll “could be very vital in protecting freedoms here in our state.” How exactly would a nonscientific poll that the web site states “should be considered anecdotal and used only for entertainment” affect one’s freedom to homeschool in Colorado?
There’s more to it than that! The decision in California has been blown out of proportion as well. I think this particular case had an appropriate decision. This family was breaking the very simple laws, anyway. So, do I feel the need to fight against the attack on homeschool rights in California? No.
So, on top of that, would voting in an unscientific poll make a difference? Only in changing perspectives, maybe, which is a worthwhile cause. If I had seen the e-mail in time, I might have voted. It is a bit too hopeful to think that this will change anything of importance, though.
Maybe I’m too cynical and overly suspicious, but I think CHEC capitalized on the current fears about the CA court decision to push their organization and the upcoming Day at the Capitol events and exaggerated the poll’s importance in order to have an excuse to plug CHEC and HSLDA in the rest of the email. I don’t think that a poll changes anyone’s perspective to any extent but merely reflects what they already think. Certainly I think homeschoolers should take advantage of the current media fixation with homeschooling regulations and express their views and take part in the discussion, but IMHO participating in an anonymous poll with no ability to comment is mostly just slacktivism.
Ugh. I agree that this has been blown out of proportion. Sadly, it makes homeschoolers look bad when we overreact (sp?) to every piece of legislation or court decision to come down the pike. I’m not saying things couldn’t go wrong for us in California, I’m just saying that we should not be alarmist about it. Give the lawyers time to do their jobs and THEN see if there’s anything we need to do. Oh, and double shame to homeschool ‘leaders’ who are using this situation to their advantage to stir up fear in homeschool families to increase enrollment or garner participation in programs.