Why Fair and Square Is Best

The Baltimore Sun reported on December 11 that a 15-year old homeschooled student in Howard County was arrested and charged with "making arson threats, telephone misuse, harassment, second-degree assault, making a false statement about a destructive device and disturbing school operations." According to a Howard County Schools spokesperson, the young man was enrolled at Oakland Mills High School earlier this year. A female, as yet to be identified, was also involved in the phone calls that were placed to the Board of Education and the student's former high school using spoofing software.

Members from my homeschooling community in the Baltimore area, normally quick to post links to homeschoolers' success stories, have remained conspicuously silent on this current event, which is not the kind of attention homeschoolers care about. Put that in the same category as Jerry Weast's defeat on the issue of attempting to close Monocacy ES. Or Jerry Weast's anguish at not having one MCPS school make the list of the 100 best high schools in the nation. Or the embarrassment at all the "toilet" stories that have leaked in the press. I could go on, but you get my drift.

So why do I bring up the arrest of a homeschooled student? Because I believe that fair and square is best. For about a year now, I have been asking, and asking, and asking that MCPS provide the kind of supervision that is described in the pertinent COMAR regulations. Not regulations that they invent. Not regulations that Nancy Grasmick creatively derives from the intent she contemplates [see Patricia's comment] and which has the funny effect of contradicting their stated purpose. Just regulations as they are written, plain and simple -- the purpose of which is to ensure that homeschooled students actually receive an education when their parents assume the legal responsibility for teaching them. End of story.

Using the DEBUG system [page 4] that school officials have perfected over years and years of practice, MCPS and MSDE officials respond to my letters. They just ignore the questions and arguments I raise in them, choosing instead to pursue their intimidation campaign.

Homeschoolers who opt for supervision from MSDE-approved umbrella groups do so for a variety of reasons. One frequently mentioned is the desire to have nothing to do with their public school system and thus avoid portfolio reviews with school personnel. Were MCPS and MSDE to treat homeschoolers in a reasonable and respectful manner, in accordance with the law and the core values described here, they would actually know more about the homeschooling community. Homeschoolers would benefit as well because they would stop being perceived as strange figures lurking in an underground culture. Then, when a homeschooled student makes the headline not because he has won the Spelling Bee, but because he is charged with despicable acts, all parties would agree that this incident is a freak occurrence, in no way representative of the homeschooling community. Fair and square is best.