The game warden knew that John Jones was  shooting ducks when it was still dark, while the ducks slept.  Totally illegal.

 

The warden hadn't been able to catch him in the act, but devised a plan.  It was a cold November in Maine, but the warden decided to do a stakeout through the night from the bushes.  He fought off the cold and shivered all night.

 

About 4 am, the ca

 

I worked with a family whose son had Tourette’s Syndrome.  He was easily agitated and had significant excess energy.  During middle school, his teachers allowed him to go outside and run the track a few times; he became less aggressive and did better on his work. This worked well for three years.

 

But at the high school, sports are the reward for conformity, not a treatment for a disease.  So, when he became aggressive or agitated in class, he was denied the opportunity to run the track, the resulting behavior kept him from being on the track team.

 

In my opinion, it does NOT make sense to suppress athletic excellence because of an academic problem.

 

But, public high schools hold out athletics as a “holy grail” -- available to only those who make a certain academic achievement, leaving many good athletes OFF the team, bitter and resentful toward school.

 

In other fully developed countries, high school athletic teams are sp

 

It seems to me that we learn as individuals.  But it takes teamwork sometimes to get the jobs done that we cannot do alone.

 

Back in the 1970’s, before the big box stores and malls, Main Street was the real shopping center.  Thursday night the stores were open until 9pm and it was an important day for the merchants.

 

One city in Western Massachusetts decided that those pesky motorcycles were avoiding parking meters by putting four motorcycles in one parking space.  They passed an ordinance that allowed only one motorcycle per space.

 

The bikers were so upset, they banded together and all went into town about 3:30 Thursday afternoon, parked one motorcycle per parking space, and fed the meters until 9.

 

In most states, when you are a legal, official homeschooler, you’ll be dealing with institutions or some kind of bureaucracy.

 

When dealing with the bureaucracy, opinions DO NOT matter.

 

For example: I walk into the town hall hand-in-hand with my fiance, stroll into the town clerk’s office, and apply for our marriage license.  We give the clerk the fee, the completed paperwork, and everything that’s required.

 

What is the town clerk’s responsibility?  To give us our marriage license.

 

In 1991, I was a featured speaker at the homeschool convention in Washington State.  At that event, two men approached me and said, “Mr. Moitozo, we wondered if you knew about our program?"

 

They told me they were recruiters for the San Diego school district. Recruiters?  Yes, they recruited families to encourage them to begin homeschooling. They did the work to set up families as homeschoolers, part of their “d

 

Average per pupil cost for public education in America hovers around $7,000 per student.

 

That’s about what each school district receives for every pupil enrolled in their public schools. When a student goes to a private school, they lose the money for that student.  When a student is homeschooled, they lose the money for that student, too, because that student is not on the public school roster, not counted in their “invento

 

In my naive early days of dealing with the Maine bureaucrats, I could not understand their resistance to me teaching my own child.

 

If my wife and I wanted to help out by doing our own job ourselves, why would they object?  At first I reasoned that they must be offended -- that we should think we could teach our own children without any formal education. How dare we think we can do it better than they can!

 

Then I learned about the money.   I learned how school districts got their money -- how they got paid.  School districts receive a certain amount for every pupil enrolled in their public schools.  When a student goes to a private school, the public school loses the money for that student.  When a student is homeschooled, they lose the money for that student, too.

 

Parents express anxiety over their child’s learning when it is not exactly where they are told it “should” be.  Panicked parents report, “2nd grade and can’t do subtraction!”  “He’s 8 and struggles to spell two-syllable words!"

 

Some parents have actually quit homeschooling because they could not get past these artificial timetables they’d heard about.

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