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If you can't beat them, join them: announcing the Home School Performance Fund

Well, you see, we've got Traditional Public Schools and Charter Schools, and each of them gets to keep the tax dollars assigned to individual students, so why not Home Schools?

Look, access to conduit capital financing can be critical for the Home School with inadequate physical education facilities.  As long as you are a "high performing Home School" [as measured by student GPA, DCAS scores etc.], why shouldn't you be able to ask the State to help you build the athletic facilities that your student needs?  A basketball hoop for the driveway?  A swimming pool in the back yard?  You can't object that, once built, the State will have no equity in the facility, because the State isn't going to get equity in most Charter School buildings, either.

And how about money to pay the consulting fee to hire an Educational Diagnostician?  [There are quite a few of them available just now, as school districts are laying them off right and left.]  I mean, you might not think that your student has special needs, but if you could make a case for it and get him or her on an HSGIEP [Home-School-generated Individualized Education Plan], then you should also be able to qualify for the $20K plus that the State and Feds spend on such kids.

I always knew my kids were special.

Since Home Schooled students are often reported [with about as much veracity as Charter School students] to out-perform traditional schools, I say, "Why allow funding inequities to exist!  Home School parents pay school taxes, and it is unfair that my neighbors' kids get more State benefits than mine for attending a different kind of public school."

How do I know that Home Schools are public schools?  It's easy:  they have preference zones [the boundaries of your property]; they have limited enrollment; they don't have unionized faculties; and if the kids bomb out or become disciplinary problems they can always be dumped back into their feeder pattern Traditional Public Schools.

Home Schools, it seems, are just really, really tiny Charter Schools.

Think of them as the micro-breweries of public education.  [I begin to see possibilities of a whole new drinking game here.]

But how much to spend on the new Home School Performance Fund?

Let's see:  racinos are getting $8 million this year.  Charter Schools are getting $2 million and access to minor caps.  I'm thinking that we'll start small:  $1 million this year for the HSPF, with a ceiling of $5 million in the future.

And just to show you that I am not out to ruin the Traditional Public Schools or the Charter Schools, I will agree up front that whenever a new Home School is started, it will generate an impact report that everyone else in the system is completely free to ignore.

I was going to suggest that we pursue this via a new Governor's private definitely not public working group, but then it occurred to me:  all we really need is a working lunch with Earl Jaques.

Comments

Anonymous said…
We laugh now.But you forgot one consideration. A meal. If I homeschool, where do we feed my child? Can we qualify for an exemption to count ketchup as a vegetable? And am I limited as to how many eggs I can serve? Also, I routinely eat peanut butter tandykakes for breakfast.Must I refrain, if my home is a designated public school, and per chance another homeschooler drops by and my "nut free zone" was not established? Lastly, what is the time frame Inspectors will be checking my kitchen? Just a heads up please, so they don't catch me serving leftovers, or making French Toast w/stale bread. Oh, I get it. This is just a big gubmint plot to take my kids huh? And your Home School Performance Fund is just a trick sweepstakes to get my credit card numbers so you can "award" me. Oh, and btw, where am I supposed to fill out my HR paperwork for payment, because I am HIGHLY QUALIFIED, being Little Lucky's mother. And think of all the $ I save the state using my property. You are giving pro-rata property tax relief, I assume? I figured you would. Thanks Governor Markell for this new option and alternative in learning. Remind me to report out.Later.As in 18 years since it was legislated the original charters were to have done such. I just know people will want to replicate my model. So, just hit me with some minor cap money now. The driveway needs paving, which will double as a 4 Square Court. Sorry, but I am already submitting a change order to have that driveway heated too. Thinking about it, Ice and snow could interfere w/ winterplay. Just trying to be pro-active w/ the state dollars. It would be unfair to expect DELDOT to clear the area, and not timely to bring in an on-call custodian. So let's just handle it now, and call it wise, wonderful, and innovative. If you can just give me 10 minutes, I'll debrief Little Lucky, the UPS man, and the meter reader. Then we can announce our stakeholder group. Revolutionary.
pandora said…
Makes scary sense. And I'm bracing myself for this to happen. I'm beginning to think we've always been on the Voucher road.
Nancy Willing said…
FYI - more critique of the NCTQ report ~

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/06/21/linda-darling-hammond-responds-to-nctq/

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