Genius: taxpayer-funded homeschooling (plus perks!) for your kid.
Add this to the list of reasons to feel just super about paying property taxes:
Rebecca Maykish is 17 and dreads school so much that she stopped going regularly.
In fourth grade.
Those days off have come at a price to her school district and the Palmerton taxpayers who support it. Since 2004, the Palmerton Area School Board has authorized payments of more than $45,000 to help Rebecca make up for her missed school days. Rebecca’s mother, Barbara, has used the money for at-home tutoring and education software purchases. She has also spent it on modeling classes for Rebecca, subscriptions to teen magazines, and travel to New York and Toronto with a summer camp.
All of the expenses were approved by the district.
In 2004, a special education hearing officer with the state ordered the district to set up a compensatory education fund for Rebecca, according to Fred Stanczak, Barbara Maykish’s attorney. Maykish and Palmerton Area school officials agreed in a private meeting to compensate Rebecca for 1,000 hours of missed instruction, at a rate of $45 an hour, Stanczak said.
The agreement allowed Barbara Maykish to spend the money on anything that would be educational, therapeutic or enriching, which gave her wide discretion, Stanczak said. The fund hit the $45,000 cap in December.
When the final bills were tallied, the fund set up for Rebecca had reached $46,361. All the money paid to her came from district funds, said Steve Serfass, Palmerton Area School District solicitor.
Barbara Maykish spent $3,892 on at-home instruction, and hundreds more on educational software. She spent $2,100 for Rebecca to take classes at the Barbizon modeling academy, and nearly $6,000 to attend summer camp in Ferndale, N.Y., and go on field trips to Toronto and New York. The fund also covered $54 for subscriptions to Seventeen, Teen Vogue and Teen People magazines, according to documents provided by Maykish and the school district.
The documents show Barbara Maykish spent $222 to board her dogs while visiting Rebecca at a California boarding school in 2007; $2,329 for her and Rebecca to fly to the school and $500 for tuition and spending from March-May.
So that’s how it works, huh? I did not know. For some reason I have labored under the misimpression that homeschooling and personal luxuries had to be paid for by parents, not taxpayers.
Is it just me, or isn’t this like paying someone welfare money because they’re “afraid” to go to a job - even if they are not afraid to go on vacation or to be around people in other social situations?
I’m just saying. I think it’s bullarkey.
WTF indeed. How the hell does this happen??
May 19th, 2008 at 4:47 pmNot to mention that she will be permanently unemployable for her entire life…
May 19th, 2008 at 4:55 pmOH MY LORD. Did ya notice that Mom is unemployed too? Wonder how she supports herself and her child. GOOD JOB MOM!
May 19th, 2008 at 5:05 pmif tax dollars are going toward education at all, they should apply without discrimination
you know, for “equality’s” sake
yay big government!
no, seriously, if homeschoolers/private schools/whatever form of education that pisses off lefties can’t have public education money or a huge tax discount, then the government shouldn’t be financing socialist indoctrination centers…ON THEIR DIME
we made our bed, now we’ve got to sleep in it
May 19th, 2008 at 5:11 pm“Wonder how she supports herself and her child.
Probably food stamps. The gob’ermant is adding to the stamp fund. Now you know why.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:13 pmThe vast majority of home-schoolers do not get this deal. Note that this began with a ruling from an “education hearing officer.” And you have to read the whole article to find it, but this comes out of California. California has some weird laws and regs - in a lot of ways, but, what’s relevant, applying to accomodation of disabilities and special needs in school. This kind of thing can apply to kids who go to school also; parents who know how to work the system have sometimes gotten money for horseback riding lessons and other perks.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:16 pmIt’s not just California–it’s called IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
This girl’s “disability” is hating school. Except when it’s a modeling academy or summer camp. That’s not even remotely one of the triggering disabilities. That $45/K is roughly two years of useful therapy for an actually handicapped kid, pissed away on this brat.
SCAM. And a shameful one. That school district should be ashamed.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:22 pm…though now that you mention it, Saladman, maybe they should, and those who have kids in private school as well. After all, they’re paying for a school system they’re not using, so the school system is getting money for nothing. Why not divert the money to where that bit of schooling actually takes place? I strongly suspect the levels of waste and so on are lower with such bureaucracy-light arrangements, meaning more is getting to the benefit of the actual children. And isn’t that we’re always told is the greatest good?
Or if this all seems absurd, maybe it’s because the system is absurd to begin with.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:22 pmIt’s possible (not necessarily probable) that they were able to take advantage of a ‘mental health diagnosis’ involving severe social anxiety or something along those lines. If that’s the case, they were probably able to use the modeling school and summer camp as “therapeutic measures” to increase self-esteem, etc. It’s stupid and ridiculous, but I can see it happening. Stranger things certainly have.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:35 pmNext time somebody tells me we don’t spend enough money on education I’m going to punch him.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:37 pm#$(%*@&!… I just can’t dignify it with anything else.
“acute school phobia” ? BS! That’s the same barrel of crazy that brought you “Oppositional Defiant Disorder” (aka when kids ‘go stupid’ and act like profane little goons).
May 19th, 2008 at 5:59 pmI can understand school vouchers if this “anxiety disorder” is actually real. But $45,000 worth in just 4 years!?!?! I’m paying less for college (state university and with grants, but nevertheless).
Most of Palmerton isn’t exactly wealthy (I live nearby). There are new developments popping up, but I’m guessing the average income is less than fifty grand a year. The taxpayers there can’t afford this. Whatever happened to parents telling their kids to suck it up? I can’t imagine how many times my parents told me that on the days I didn’t want to go to school.
A kid at my high school pulled this b.s. in his senior year. What did the school do? They said tough shit, transfer and graduate somewhere else. At least at Catholic school they can tell people that.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:16 pmI’m not sure if it’s the mother scamming the system, or the daughter scamming the mother, who, in turn, was smart enough (somehow) to profit from the misfortune of raising an absolute waste of a carbon-based organism.
Oh, naturally, the mother is unemployed. Go figure.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:17 pmUm… that’s exactly what “disability payments” do. I see them every day and the scary thing is that they are young people. In my stupid little town, the number of “disableds” is staggering. Mostly, they’re just not mature enough to handle responsibility and sobriety.
If someone had offered me that kind of money when I was homeschooling my son AND still paying for public school with my taxes… just damn!
May 19th, 2008 at 6:22 pmMan, talk about a missed opportunity…
In middle school my daughter was getting hives from going to school, not from anxiety but from allergies. I was told by her doctor and a lady in the school office that this was a disablity and the school would have to provide an allergen free environment for her. Since she was allergic to some soaps and perfumes, that would have meant the school would have had to ban all scented products.
This gave me visions of my daughter being kicked to death by her fellow students, so I opted to home school her instead. She grew out of the dumb allergies and everybody got to keep wearing AXE body spray or whatever.
I’m all verklempt thinking of the dough I coulda made.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:40 pmhey, maybe this is why she was afraid to go to school!
May 19th, 2008 at 6:44 pmyour tax dollars at work
LOL @ this:
“Because her daughter has gone the past year without any formal education, Barbara Maykish said she thinks she might need another compensatory education fund.”
Wow… just wow.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:49 pmThe nation’s public school system is broken beyond repair. It’s run by the government; what do you expect? The cure is to dismantle the entire edifice and turn it over to the private sector. I can hear the outraged howls already: “Corporations are making money off our kids!” Precisely. Because with profit comes efficiencies.
What would you do if you tried to log on to the Internet and your ISP gave you a connection only 50% of the time? Yet taxpayers shell out billions every year to school districts with a 50% graduation rate, or worse. What we’re really saying by this acquiescence is that all we expect from public education is subsidized daycare.
It’s a damn good thing that at least we get multi-culti, compassionate, tolerant, global-warming warriors for our largesse, or we wouldn’t get anything at all. Unless, of course, you happen to be conservative and view public education as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. No wonder real estate taxes are held in escrow. Would you be willing to write a check every month for education the same way you do to the phone company?
Yup. I’m just pleased as punch that the baggy-pants punk next door has a place to get stoned during business hours at my expense. So much for the reciprocal obligations of a social contract. Here’s an idea: hey little dude, know your multiplication tables by the 3rd grade or you are bounced. And stop using my share of the air. Asshole.
Entertainers rake in the millions. Ball players. Singers and dancers. Movie stars. Teachers get squat. Why is that? Because we value entertainment and distraction over learning. Turn the free market loose and see if teachers don’t benefit from competition. The best teachers will get paid fair market value. But what do I know? I teach arcane things like government and economics.
.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:37 pmMy sister homeschooled both of her children. Both also earned full scholarships to college. While the money is nice, I believe that my sister would be aghast at taking this money, thereby allowing the government to stick its nose back into her children’s education.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:39 pmI am simply speechless.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:00 pmWhat public school teacher/system gets $45 hour per child? I just don’t get this new math …
May 19th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I’m torn.
First off, my son is going into special education preschool in the fall. Right now, he is benefiting from federal, state, and county money being provided to an early education clinic. When he turns three, all the money “attached” to him automatically reverts to the local school district for his continued therapy. Because his learning disabilities (he is in need of intensive speech therapy and there may be other issues in play), all of these services are FREE thanks to the taxpayers (of which I am one).
On the other hand, I have my daughter in private preschool right now, am debating whether or not to keep her in private school for kindergarten the year after next, and you’d better believe that tuition is going up.
If I was REALLY smart, I’d figure out how to make the school district pay me for my son, and turn that right around to pay for my daughter’s tuition. Alas, I am neither that smart or that devious.
Special education services exist for a reason - real learning disabilities. I can’t see that this 17 year old girl has a “real” disability aside from her sponging, enabling mother. It is people like this that create shortfalls in school district budgets, creating the “need” for more money every single year.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:31 pmWTF!? I’m a homeschooler in California, and I don’t know anyone getting money.
We all pay taxes that go to the schools, but few people I can even think of go near one. (There are some states and areas where homeschoolers participate in some school activities, like varsity teams, or band or whatever, but the majority of the people I know don’t want to have anything to do with schools or the beurocracy or anything. That’s like, the reason they homeschool. To be free. :D)
So, be assured, this isn’t normal, and homeschoolers hate her just as much for being an idiot and giving us a bad name.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:32 pmAnd don’t be confused. This isn’t out of California, it’s out of semi-rural Pennsylvania. Check where the article is coming from. She sent her daughter to a “boarding school” in California. Although common sense would tell you that this would be California. In fact, I can’t imagine why she’d get anxiety from going to school in Palmerton…the people there are generally friendly.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:55 pmWhat Sumie said…another compensatory fund??? WTF!
May 19th, 2008 at 9:32 pmIn a time before touch-feely-ness, I was that girl. I would have preferred to go to war than to go to school. There was no scamming of the system. I stayed enrolled, and took assignments home. By the age of 15, I gave up altogether and took my GED. Fifteen years later, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. So yeah, I could see where it could be real. But what I can’t see is how the gov’t should have to pay for it. Not that much money, anyway. That’s just gross.
RG
May 19th, 2008 at 9:35 pmThis is bad and I am not going to sit by and watch my hard earned money pay for this crap. I will be contacting a lawyer tomorrow morning to find out about a class action lawsuit against the PSD and the mother.
I pay my taxes because I am required to with the understanding that this money goes to the schools and all that it takes to run them and educate my children. Boarding dogs, modeling classes and all the other ridiculous things she was given money for have nothing to do with the education of my children or any others that live in the Palmerton School District. This is criminal and I am not going to just stand back and accept this.
Any other Palmerton School Distric Tax Payers that are interested in doing something to stop this misappropriation of our money, please send an email to psdtaxpayer@yahoo.com
May 19th, 2008 at 10:32 pmJigga wha?????????????
May 19th, 2008 at 10:34 pmThis is an argument for privatizing education. Period. No government schooling, period. No government handouts, period.
Yeah, and pigs will fly first.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:11 amHey, where’s the Daily Dog?
This slack must end!!
There has been a significant downturn in the quality of this joint since the The Return of Cap’n Rupert—for which we are collectively thankful and also praise The Lord.
Yes, this providential event is cause for sybaritic dancing in fields of blue bonnets, and for drinking beer and eating grilled sausages by the pound at saloons in the Hill Country.
But as we all know from Ecclesiastes, there is “a time to dance and a time to cast away sausages”—or something to that effect.
Painful, but it had to be said.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:42 amUnlike most conservatives, I do have a problem with school vouchers… It’s just another entitlement that someone will figure out how to scam.
Under my
May 20th, 2008 at 12:53 amNo Child Left BehindHey You, Pull Your Pants Up and Pay Attention, We’re Learning Some Important Shit Here… Excuse me? Yeah, Let’s Go Call Your Mama program, things would be different.This girl isn’t even being homeschooled by her mother. It sounds like the mom just buys the softward, download the school work and says ‘good luck figuring this out’. The mom is unemployed and doesn’t homeschool her daughter, just what does she do all day?
May 20th, 2008 at 7:17 amSchool vouchers are not exactly the same as an entitlement program. You can’t just take the voucher and spend it on yourself.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:38 amSorry, but public education IS welfare. The government takes money out of your pocket and gives it to someone else for some reason they deem fit. The difference between this and what most of us consider welfare is that if you have a kid, more than likely your being forced in some way or another to take part in the pie.
It’s still socialism. Someone who has no kids, such as Rachel, would still have to pay taxes to pay for the vouchers to send someone else’s kid to school. And I can promise you, someone who find out how to work that system too.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:04 amAs a homeschooling mom from rural Pennsylvania, this story made blood squirt from my eyeballs.
True homeschoolers in the Commonwealth are subject to some of the most stringent laws in the nation. Our children’s progress is evaluated first by a qualified educational professional, (teacher, school psychologist, etc…, whose substantial fee is paid, (gladly), out of our pocket. We pay for our own educational materials, curriculum, supplemental tutoring, music lessons, etc. and we’re happy to do so. We are certainly not exempt from paying a boatload of taxes into the local public school system, nor should we be.
We are required to keep EXTENSIVE records of progress, attendance hours, exercise, health exams, and enrichment activities. We assemble an exhaustive portfolio of the children’s work and special projects.
Everything is then re-evaluated by our school district’s superintendent before we are given the green light to continue with our program.
Some days I wonder if it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Then I see a story like this.
I shudder to think what would happen to us if our curriculum consisted only of software, gossip and fashion magazines, and the illustrious Barbizon “Academy.” We’d be sitting in prison and our children would be in foster care.
This woman is NOT a homeschooler, much less a mother. Her daughter is firmly entrenched in Pennsylvania’s woeful public education system and her blatant educational neglect of her child is 100% funded and sanctioned by the government.
PSD Tax Payer, you have every right to be outraged. We should ALL be outraged.
This poor child doesn’t stand a chance.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:18 amStories like this just fill me with rage, so much so that it is hard to even make a post that is reasoned and readable.
This is exactly why the “Income Tax” needs to be done away with and why we need to revamp our whole idea of welfare. (Yes I know this is being paid for from Property taxes and not Income) The founders original intent was that only people who had a vested interest in ensuring things did not get out of hand were to be voters. There was never any intention that free loaders and people with no real financial stake in things were to have equal say to those people who worked their asses off and owned property and actually PAID into the tax system.
Seriously if you do not own property and pay property taxes, you aren’t feeling the pain of this kind of profligate waste. Welfare as it exists today needs to be eliminated completely and be replaced with something a friend of mine calls workfare. Workfare is a program to help those who are actually working and demonstrably trying to improve their lot to become productive citizens, and not to encourage them to remain home and do nothing but pop out more welfare babies….ohh god I think Im going to have a stroke…
What a freakin waste.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:23 amDid she pass? If so, good. If not, NO DIPLOMA FOR YOU!!!!
May 20th, 2008 at 8:39 amSure it is, but completely privatizing the school system is simply not feasible (at least not right now). So we should at least give these kids a chance to escape failing public schools.
Every law can be abused. Shall we abolish the entire government to stop people from abusing the laws?
The mere possibility of abuse is not enough reason to reject a policy.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:07 amErin… you have my sympathy. I’m a homeschool dad from PA, but I live in North Carolina now where there’s a little bit more of a detente between the government and homeschoolers. It’s difficult to see the fascism that reigns in my home state, but it’s not surprising. The union mentality is so ingrained there that it’s hard to get elected unless your middle name is Marx.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:24 amFor everyone else, please don’t think this is normal for homeschooling. In fact, most homeschoolers cringe at the thought of other homeschoolers taking money from the state. The powers-that-be in government schools see homeschooling as a huge threat and have taken an “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach. All across the country, governments are attempting to entice homeschoolers to take public funds. This is a Trojan horse strategy meant to get inside and destroy (i.e. regulate) homeschooling from within.
Also, if you’re a tax payer who is offended by this story, consider how much more offended you should be at the waste that goes on in the name of government schooling. It costs government schools (at least) $10 Grand per year to mal-educate a child. Good private schools can be found for about $5-6 Grand. Homeschooling depends, but is maybe $1-2 Grand per year, and maybe even less. I don’t see why I should have to pay one cent for someone else’s kids to be abused by the government for 12 years, especially in an age when government educations are becoming increasingly useless and of questionable benefit to society.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:02 amLiving in PA (not terribly far from the school district in question), and being an advocate for public cyber schools, I am angered at such a perversion of the law.
This is the kind of stuff that will be used to talk down cyber schools, as a whole, and that would be equally unfair.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:28 amSeriously if you do not own property and pay property taxes, you aren’t feeling the pain of this kind of profligate waste.
Unless you live on the streets, you DO feel the pain of property taxes. They’re part of your rent, an operating expense of your landlord, and your landlord passes that cost on.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:28 amInside dope on government schools, ed schools, and the ed establishment in general, here….
www.educationation.org
When I moved from a sociology department in Boston to an ed school in NC, my blood pressure promptly went from a comfortable 120/80 to 150/110.
The idiocy, duplicity, incompetence, intransigence, and arrogance are overwelming.
If you want to know why 25% of white and/or middle class kids can’t read, and 50% of minority and/or poor kids can’t read, just listen to a “literacy professor” tell you how to teach reading. You’ll be amazed that a person so stupid is allowed out of doors.
http://www.educationation.org/readingfads.html
May 20th, 2008 at 10:39 amRachel,
I agree! You seem to be having WAY too much fun the past several days arranging the kindling just so, flinging on the kerosene, tossing the match and then running like hell … ; )
We need a good Rachelism to make our day.
Oh, and;
May 20th, 2008 at 10:55 amDAILY DOG! DAILY DOG! DAILY DOG!
I dread so much what I really want to say about this, that I cannot. I’d like the State of California to set up a fund for me to hire someone that can post on this story on my behalf. The fund should cover any posts that my proxy will make that can be enriching.
Funds can be wired directly to my account in the Cayman Islands (Cayman, my ass!).
“Your VCR should cover it.” –Chet
May 20th, 2008 at 12:54 pmNot much to add, except that I’m not surprised to see so many other homeschooling parents here — seems consistent with the general tenor of this bunch!
Though there are many reasons to opt out of formal schooling (of which, ‘getting rich’ has never, to my knowledge, even been near the list!), I’d guess many of us have chosen to home school precisely because we want as little government involvement in our child rearing as possible? Nothing comes from the government without strings attached!
From what I’ve heard and read about other states, I’m grateful to be here in Virginia. When we first started, fifteen years ago, I’d file my NOI(notice of intent) along with a detailed curriculum, lesson plans, etc., then dutifully submit test scores at the end of the year — not any more! I haven’t even filed an NOI in the last ten years — not their business to begin with!
The only awkwardness this has created for us so far, arose when we attempted to enroll our older daughter in a driving school: they wanted proof from the Superintendent that she was a homeschooled student in good standing with the county, but the county had, of course, never heard of her — pfft! Ended up homeschooling the driving, too :). (OTOH, her SAT scores and application earned her acceptance at the college of her choice — everywhere she applied, actually — so, while we’re by no means perfect, we do well enough.)
May 20th, 2008 at 2:06 pmYES.
just kidding…………mostly
but frequently a policy comes along that is particularly useful for abuse. like public schools socialist/squirrel-love indoctrination daycare centers. so next time you get nailed with an indoctrination tax increase, you can say to yourself, “good thing i’m being forced to pay to train The Children[TM] to steal even more money from me for more indoctrination, because i wasn’t getting ****** up the *** hard enough after the CA supremes had their way with me!”
May 20th, 2008 at 2:07 pmWell, the country keeps tending toward more and more socialism. In the form of bad schools, in the form of the sense of “entitlement” for known slackers, it goes on and on.
Unfortunately I cannot totally support the idea that only parents of kids should pay for their children’s schooling - this is due to the Ponzei scheme of the Social Security system.
Ideally only parents of children should in fact pay for the education of their children - but since every childless couple that reaches the age of retirement will depend on younger workers to support them, it makes sense that those younger workers ought to have high paying jobs.
(If you want to remain childless but at the same time enjoy a Social Security check paid for by someone else’s working children - then you should have probably had some responsibility for that younger person’s education…I think. Is that not fair?)
Since we have no clear cut economic system (not true capitalism, not true socialism, but overlaps everywhere) it becomes very difficult to fairly define responsibilities. I’d like to scrap it all and start over…but ain’t gonna happen.
AT any rate, Social Security is in enough trouble without having to compound the problem by having the entire work force made up of dish-washers. You’d be lucky to get yer two bucks at the end of the month.
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have the Social Security system we have. Ponzei schemes are illegal everywhere - except when the government makes use of one. Without this system, (a different, market-based system in its place) the education of children should rest solely with the parents.
Paules - you’ve written a brilliant opinion here. I couldn’t agree more. Across the street from where I live is a community “health” center where all the young parents (un-married, of course) go to get their free medicine and formula. There are so many dope-smoking jobless parents in my ‘hood it is truly heeart-breaking to see. And we just continue to shower them with gifts, rewarding them for their bad behavior.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:10 pmCongrats, Felicity on your daughter’s great test scores!
May 20th, 2008 at 2:12 pmFor some reason this whole thing reminds me of a South Park episode I saw a while back.
Cartman: “You mean there’s a disease where you can swear all you want and you won’t get in trouble?!?”
Mother of Tourette’s Boy: “Yes, there is.”
Cartman (daydreaming, singing): “I’ve got a golden tiiicket…”
May 20th, 2008 at 3:14 pmAs much as I would have loved for the state to foot the bill for all of my son’s home school expenses, what happened with the family in the article is waaaay out of line.
Having said that, I would certainly appreciate it if the state would take at least some of that money I pay in property taxes (now in excess of $3500/year) and kick it back to me in the form of a voucher that I could use either for my son’s home schooling expenses or for my daughter’s private school tuition…and preferably both. Conservatives have been pushing for vouchers for years now. We’re not using the public schools in any way, shape, or form.
Does home schooling work? Monkey Boy’s SAT/ACT/AP test scores speak for themselves. He’s had to jump through a couple more hoops than normal in order to get into Georgia Tech, but we expected that, and he’s been accepted and will be enrolling in the summer session next week.
Felicity: congratulations to your daughter, and to you. It’s hard work, but it’s worth it. We pulled Monkey Boy from private school after 4th grade because he was bored with the pace, and they wanted to put him on drugs. We started home schooling him, and he has thrived. WITHOUT the use of drugs, I might add.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:29 pmSloan: You may want to rethink letting Monkey Boy enroll at Georgiatechistan. That place is freakin’ whacked out of their skulls. I’m not saying a homeschooled child is by definition “cloistered” but a lot of the shenanigans at G.T. are going to be overwhelmingly new to a young man who has had a good solid upbringing and a home education.
Not saying this kinda crud doesn’t come at most American universities, just would hate to see good folks not prep their good son for the hooey he’ll face on a daily basis at G.T.
Good luck and Godspeed!
May 20th, 2008 at 3:53 pmRe: Lance deB’s rant about ed school - y’all should dig up copies of the three books published by the “Underground Grammarian” back in the late 70’s.
Warning: keep your blood-pressure meds handy while reading.
(I just noticed from Google that this site: http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/
May 20th, 2008 at 4:25 pmseems to have everything he ever published, apparently both in free and pay forms.)
So she’s wasting your/our/their money at home instead of at school like the other 99% of the losers.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pmThis isn’t about homeschooling at all. This is about the taxpayer footing the bill for a health issue- in this case a mental health issue. Other (more expensive cases) include a child who was paralyzed and needed constant supervision by an RN (not an aide, an expensive honest-to-God nurse) to prevent choking on his own sputum while at school. All at taxpayer expense.
Damn. My kid didn’t do well at school either, and I homeschooled him for free. I wish I could have just kept my property taxes and called it even.
On the other hand, if the state gives you money (even if its yours), it comes with conditions. I don’t want the strings and neither does the private Catholic school he attends now.
May 20th, 2008 at 6:22 pmSorry about the bragging — really just meant to illustrate that one can get by just fine without the gummint’s help or supervision!
frigger — Thanks, but she deserves a little credit, too :).
Sloan — Thanks, and back atcha!
May 20th, 2008 at 7:15 pmAs they sow, so shall they reap.
Pennsylvania is insane about managing homeschoolers, as noted above, so that’s how this mom can game the system.
And $45,000 sounds like a lot — but it’s over nearly five years, ergo $9k per year, which is very close to the per-kid amount that PA spends on kids in the school system anyway (in the cities, anyway).
This is one of the reasons why we chose Texas instead of PA when we left Chicago with three homeschooled kids….
May 20th, 2008 at 7:16 pmTrust me, as an employee of one of those “socialist/squirrel-love indoctrination daycare centers” I am aware of how often abuse occurs.
But remember that vouchers are already in use in many countries. If there were any evidence that vouchers carried such a huge potential for abuse, wouldn’t the anti-voucher lobby be promoting that information non-stop?
May 20th, 2008 at 7:28 pmI grew up in the Palmerton District, received a great education, and was able to go on to an excellent college. I am and have been aware of this case and KNOW that the Palmerton School District went to great lengths to accommodate this student, but nothing was good enough for her UNEMPLOYED mother. That woman has contributed zero to society. In fact she has brought society down with her selfish, useless presence. And the worst part about it is that she has used her own daughter for her own needs, and now her daughter will go through life with the education of a fourth grader.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:56 pmCosmo wrote:
Thanks for the heads-up, Cosmo. I’ll show the article to Monkey Boy. Really, if he didn’t have such a good head on his shoulders, I might be more worried. But he’s not really all that isolated, as home schoolers go, and we’ve talked to him about the sort of B.S. he’ll have to put up with at college. I’m going to encourage him to just keep his head down, work on his degree in Computational Media, and ignore all the flakes. We’re very much live-and-let-live kind of people, and it’s rubbed off on him.
I still believe he can get a decent education there, so long as they don’t waste too much of his time with required courses in Women’s Studies or Polynesian Basket Weaving.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:13 pmI met a mom today at the library who was getting Natan Sharansky’s amazing book, In Defense of Democracy, for her 13 year old who she was homeschooling. He has been taking lessons from home for the last two years because of health reasons (she didn’t elaborate). He has a teacher from the school district visit him twice a week to supplement the curriculum mom was teaching.
While this, no doubt, costs more than a regular classroom, it seems an entirely appropriate use of tax dollars. Real reasons do exist for some children to receive a greater share of educational expenditures than others. This child could have cancer or a chronic illness and the parent was obviously involved (in fact, she shared that she had had to quit her job in order to care full-time for her son).
It is shameful that this woman is making all other children with unique needs look bad by her irresponsible behavior.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:49 amI live and work in Palmerton, I pay my property taxes to the school district, just like all the other taxpayers. Every year the school district demands tax increases to support our kids education, yet continue to cut school programs. It’s because of this kind of wasteful, uncontrolled spending by the school district.
This girl isn’t doing anything different than what the district has been doing for years…. treating the taxpayers as their cash-cows.
This kind of thing is fraud & the mother should be thrown in jail. The americans with disabilities act doesn’t even recognise this “phobia”. The taxpayers here out to go to the next school board meeting & demand that they stand accountable. I have my own kids to support, without having my hard earned tax dollars get sent to some spoiled mother & daughter who refuse to work/ go to school.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 amThis would NOT happen in the state of Texas.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am(Unless they were some LDS sect or something equally unusual-then the state would come barrelling in, guns blazing, and take her away.
THEN we would have to pay for the upkeep, eduacation, housing, and ensuing trial (s).
My wife and I have been homeschooling our children for 8 yrs now and we have never received one dime from the state to help with the cost of homeschooling. I can’t understand how this person was given this money. I wouldn’t take it even if it was offered because I don’t want to owe anything to anyone especially the govt. The best thing two responsible parents can do is homeschool their kids if they can afford it. The education they receive at home is better than any public school out there and if “socialization” is a big worry then being stuck in a classroom with 50 other individuals being directed by one isn’t real socialization anyway. Have your kids sign up for dance, karate, music, art, etc. Or simply hanging out with other kids, that’s socializing.
May 31st, 2008 at 10:41 pmMark,
I agree with you in everything you said sans one: our kids are in a cyberschool, and while - like you - I do not want a handout (or owe anyone), the State owes ME because of the school taxes I pay.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:20 amCharlie,
June 1st, 2008 at 5:09 pmI agree also, all I meant was that I don’t want to give the state a reason to dictate to us how to teach our own children. Believe me, if they wanted to give me MY taxes back then that would be great because after all it’s our money to begin with. When I think of all the abuses the govt uses our taxes for it makes me want to puke. Don’t get me wrong, with all of faults and mistakes our govt has made, I do believe we live in the greatest Godloving country in the world. Let’s hope it stays that way.
The school taxes we pay are not for your child to go to school so much as they are for you to live in an educated society.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:59 pmThe gumint officials who agreed to give this person our money should be charged with theft. This woman has a lotta nerve!!
OK; so why not a little free-choice in how my kid gets educated? After all, I am going out MY way to assist in the society gaining an educated kid, with no loss to the local school system.
Really, if the monies allocated for educated weren’t squandered so, I think it would be easier for me to send my kids to a brick-and-mortar school!
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:15 pm