A burger is a burger, is a burger? by Sue Duncan

When you make a hamburger at home, you can select the quality of meat you use, cooked to the correct doneness, placed on a bread-product of your choosing, appointed exactly the way you like it with condiments from a broad spectrum, served with potatoes: mashed or fried, on your finest china, or tossable paper plates. And, you can eat it whenever you’re ready. You can even decide you’d rather have an omelet.

We all know the difference between that hamburger and McDonald’s. Can we also see the distinction between: Our burger and the one at Mom and Pop’s local teen-hangout? How about the one served at L’Elegante Ristorante? Ah, but what if they put it in a bag and you get to take it home? Is it still YOUR burger?Just because you eat it at your table instead of theirs? Did you get to tell them “No BGH beef, please. I’d prefer veggie/soy-beef. And, if you don’t mind…please use Hunt’s instead of Heinz.”

Are homeschoolers being “purists?” Please, freely choose eCOT*. But don’t try to convince me that it is home education. Because I eat my store-bought burger at home, doesn’t make it home-cooked.

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*FYI: eCOT is a publicly-funded online school located in your home. Students enrolling in eCOT are public school students, subject to all the imperatives of public school such as: enrollment requirements, including provision of academic records, state-mandated curriculum objectives,state-mandated outcomes, Ohio Proficiency Testing, required testing to demonstrate learning objectives, grade level placement, immunizations, mandated in-home teacher visits, logging of instructional hours, maintainance of a Student Electronic Profile for monitoring and tracking. Students choosing eCOT receive a computer terminal, phone line and peripherals, curriculum, teacher support and an accredited diploma.

eCOT is not home education, either legally or in accordance with public perception of the terms. When enrolling in eCOT, you do not: file a notification, receive an excuse from compulsory attendance, provide an assessment of your choice, or have ultimate control over what and why your family learns. When one thinks of home education, a traditional model comes to mind, that of a family learning at home in accordance with their own decisions, having control of the materials, methods, goals and outcome-assessments, without the intervention of the state or imposition of its rules and requirements on the process, and without state monies. eCOT is a government school; it is required by virtue of its charter, the “community”school statute and Ohio law to be accountable to the taxpayer and responsible for the education of its enrollees.

Families choosing eCOT are struggling for their place; neither fish nor fowl.The challenge for homeschoolers is to maintain their own educational freedoms and autonomy, to be careful about the blurring of the lines and distinctions, while supporting educational choice for other families.

Sue Duncan (please do not reprint for publication or distribution without prior permission)

Hsalerts@aol.com

April 24, 2008 | Filed Under Home education, Ohio, Sue Duncan's HS Alerts