Opinion: I’m an Alaska homeschooling parent. I welcome oversight, but we also need support.

I’m writing In response to Principal Eric Waltenbaugh’s opinion essay of March 11, “Funding for homeschool programs lacks accountability, due to absence of state standards.” The essay was a depressing, disturbing and truthful-yet-not-entirely-complete portrait of homeschooling families. While Mr. Waltenbaugh does concede that some homeschooling families are diligently educating their children, he seems to imply in his article that the majority are not, due to his experiences re-educating homeschooled students at his elementary school in Homer.

I would like to humbly provide an example of homeschooling done right and what, I hope, the state can be proud of as a sound investment, and also to offer some solutions to the problems he has raised. With limited funding, we are providing our son Gus a top-notch education that would cost tens of thousands of dollars a year at an elite private school. I should know. With a graduate degree in Elementary Education from one of the top education departments in the country, I know what high-quality elementary schooling should provide. But here’s a little secret: Do you need this fancy degree to homeschool your young children? Absolutely not. Do you need a high school diploma? Absolutely yes. Do you need training to evaluate curricula and how to adapt the appropriate one to your children? Yes, but although it does not require an education degree, it does require guidance from those who are trained to evaluate programs. One issue I have with Alaska’s correspondence programs is that the extreme latitude they permit parents in their choice of curricula means they end up funding some very poorly constructed ones. Parents should have a choice, but they should not have unlimited choices between excellent, good, bad and truly despicable. There are some splendid curricula out there and the state should be paying for only the best.

Principal Waltenbaugh’s issues at his Homer school are truly challenging, but here’s a different sort of problem: due to family circumstances, we are looking at enrolling our child in an elementary school for next year. And as we have actually looked at relocating to Homer, I would like to ask Principal Waltenbaugh: what would you do about Gus? The result of his 1:1 schooling is that he is so far advanced in his coursework that no school I have researched thus far is proving to be academically rigorous enough. Gus is above grade level in every academic subject. Will his future school attempt to “dumb him down” so he’ll fit in, or will they be able to meet him where he’s at? I think we all know the answer. When you have high-quality 1:1 schooling, quality being the key word, students will be far ahead of their contemporaries in 1:28 or 1:36 teacher/student ratio classrooms. Many of our 20% population of homeschoolers should be far ahead, instead of behind, as Principal Waltenbaugh so unfortunately has seen.

The question is: how do we achieve this? Most homeschooling families we know are diligent educators with a keen interest in providing a high-quality education for their children. I have, however, also run into some who have been doing poor jobs and I think a key underlying question is: why are these lax parents not sending their kids to school? If they are not really interested in educating their children, why in the world are they choosing the homeschooling route? They are doing a great disservice to their child, to our state, and to our country, and they should not be allowed to do it. If you choose to homeschool, you should have the same enthusiasm for learning and enthusiasm for educating youth, as do the best public school teachers. I do wholeheartedly admit that homeschooling can have major issues and yes: I do wish there were more oversight, mandatory testing, mandatory qualifications, and delinquency consequences for lax parents. Homeschooling takes work- a lot of work – and if you can’t do it right, you should be fired.

But are Alaska public schools the panacea? Alaska consistently scores in the lower stratum in national evaluations of student achievement scores. Waltenbaugh writes: “Stop writing a blank check to 20% of our education system that has no measurable educational outcomes.” But should we instead write a blank check to 80% of our education system that has poor to middling outcomes? Unfortunately, some of our public schools are not doing their job either. I think we need more accountability for both. Simple internet research can reveal the percentage of students in particular schools who are achieving at grade level, and often the majority are not. These poor scores cannot be attributed only to the small number of homeschooling students entering the system.

Do not misunderstand: I am adamantly supportive of high-quality public schooling. I am a product of public schools, I was trained to be a public school teacher, and I want to find the best possible public schooling option for Gus for the upcoming years. But I am losing faith in public school systems that increase class sizes to the mid-30 student range and that eliminate gifted programming for the brightest minds who will be solving our problems of the future. I also lose faith in states that do not invest funds wisely in their education systems.

As a homeschooling parent, I welcome oversight! I welcome mandatory testing! Why? Because we will blow your socks off. Our situation, with my training, is admittedly not the norm, but it doesn’t need to be. With the right curricula, the right enthusiasm, and the right guidance, I truly believe any homeschooling family can recreate a top-notch public or private school in their home. But blank checks are a problem: both the homeschooling system and the public schools need more accountability for how they spend their dollars. I hope the state can be proud of Gus as an example of its funds well-spent, as should be the case for all of our public school and homeschooled students. There is a place for both models of education in our great state, and both should be supported financially and have equal evaluations for training and outcomes.

Jennifer R. Rodina of Paxson is the long-time co-owner of Denali Highway Cabins and a homeschooling parent.

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