tommyrot, I think have access through work. Remind me monday and I'll see if I can grab the text for you.

Most of the homeschooled kids I knew were such because their parents were off-the-grid hippies living in the middle of nowhere in the Gila or something. Or rather militant pacifists living in a military town.

There comes a point in autumn when you have to trick yourself into uncoupling the equation of dark with night, or else you never, ever get your errands done.

Yeah, I don't do this so well. Errands end up on weekends.

Freakin' little early bird. I have no idea where he gets it.

wait 'til he starts school

and speaking of . around here there is a bunch that do it for religious reasons. and I have met some that do it because the school system is not good. Idealy , if some one was going to home school - I think there is a lot of value to going to school in the earlier grades. and as the child doesn't fit for some reason ( Laura's situation is a good one) and learning isn't happening - it sounds like a really good idea. I think in cases like my DH. he was way ahead of the classroom, almost before he walked in. and to this day -he tends to be pretty self disiplined when it comes to learning anything. So he could have done a self- study thing and gotten a lot more out of it then he did in the formal classroom. For me - that would have been bad.

Thanks, sarameg. Will do.

OK, here is the really important issue...

t smooches up on Laura in a way that says "Spouses? We don' need no estinking "spouses"

Actually, the worst reason I saw for parents to homeschool - is that both had a terrible time when they went to school. and I got to say though their kids are smart and nice - the two girls I know best - are just a little too sheltered from the real world. R- the oldest hasn't realized she can stand on her own. S is a little better. Sadly, I think they have caught mom and dad's fear of people without the experience to back it up.

Random observation: sparrows are vicious little suckers. Outside the store, two of them had a third down on its back, and they were trying to steal whatever was in its mouth. Dang. Little sparrow muggers.

So what are the religious reasons for home schooling? Is it just to keep the kids out of the secular cultural environment? They don't want their kids learning about evolution? They want their kids to have a religious education (Biblical history, etc)?

sarameg is depressing me.

One year growing up in New Jersey, I noticed that every single church in town suddenly had a religious school, when only the Catholic church had one before.

Years later, I realized it was because NJ had passed a (the first in the country?) mandatory sex education law.

tommy, I have access to Nexis and Science is part of that. Which issue/articles do you want and I can email them to you.