Beyond the realm of stupidity....

That would be the WV legislature. Not to mention all of us who let it slide when the legislature threw out the provision that in order to home school your child, you had to have been educated a minimum of 4 years beyond the grade you are teaching. Makes sense, doesn't it. I do sort of remember a flap at the time about the provision keeping parents without a college degree or some post high school education from teaching their children at home beyond the grade school years.

Ok, let's get to the heart of my being so pissed off I can barely see to type. Yes my blood pressure is probably that high. My husband's ex, give her the benefit of the doubt (which I honestly doubt she deserves, but...) has mentioned that in order to keep their younger daughter from "straying" or in other words, being a teenager and rebelling (more on that topic later--it's a long story to which I don't quite have all sides of yet), she is threatening to pull her out of high school and home school her. After a small go-round this afternoon with the older child, a senior, over why the younger did not come here on the afternoon school bus as she was supposed to (part again of the long story), I called the local school board to find out what the minimum requirements to home school were.

Imagine my utter shock when I was told that it was to have at least a GED. OH PUHLEEZE. I will concede that having a GED does not mean you are stupid. It does not necessarily mean you couldn't hack it in the minimum high school program. I know there are various reasons for not obtaining a high school diploma, such as family hardships, i.e. having to go to work to be the support of your family and probably a host of other valid reasons. I would even include the total lack of personnel in the school system who even give a holy crap about anything about you, much less try to help you.

However, in this world today, a good education is mandatory for any level of success. At minimum, a high school diploma from an accredited high school, preferably a post high school education of some sort. I don't mean it has to be a traditional 4+yr college with a bachelor's degree and beyond. Junior college---like the local business and technical school, or the vo-tech to get mechanical training and the like. Something to enhance your chances of making enough of a living to support yourself and family without having to resort to welfare.

Yes, I have a bachelor's degree. It was great for getting me my first post-college salaried position, possibly even my second. But after that, all it did was put me more years in debt than I ever dreamed of being, and even more than that, it helped to teach me how to reason, how to learn what I do not know, how to successfully deal with people in life. Now, my upbringing had quite a lot to do with that as well, as has my own common sense (yeah I know, that's debatable). But I have enough common sense to know that with only a diploma from a, sorry Mom, backwoods-later-to-be-taken-over-by-the-state high school, (and Mom, she graduated 20+ yrs after you did), I would not have the balls to pull my child out of school to homeschool her simply because I do not like some of the people she is hanging around. Which is what it boils down to.

But unfortunately, because the WV legislature has given her the right to do so, she can, without a by-your-leave from anyone, even the child's father. So that gives us one less piece of leverage to use to gain custody. Which is something we are seriously looking at, and the child in question is 15 now, not 7. So she herself can pretty well choose to stay with us.

And I don;'t think necessarily that you have to have a college degree to be a good parent and want the best for your kid, but if you are going to educate them yourself, would you not want to be several years ahead of the child in education? I would. Simply to keep enough ahead of the child to be effective in my teaching. I have had family members who have homeschooled their kids, most in the grade school years, and then putting them into regular school to complete their diploma requirements. These people are not dummies. They kept their children home when they were young, instilled the values as well as the knowledge to help them succeed in life--and high school, and then let the schools teach them. These kids are still young--as I look at them from the back side of 40, but they seem to get along alright.

But I do not want to see my bright, individual, unique stepdaughter yanked from her friends and school to sit at home and be taught, or not, by her mom, when I feel her opportunities would be severely limited by such action.

When I get the rest of the long story, I may change my mind as far as she is concerned, but I doubt it at this point, based on past history. But I still give huge thumbs down to our state legislature, and all of us parents who didn't call them on it soon enough, for throwing out a provision that , to my mind, would ensure a better education for our homeschooled kids overall.

No offense intended to those who are doing their job right.........