My Charter School - Part 6 (Administering Education)

    I have a simple idea for my future charter school.  One that I think will make every teacher ever agree wholeheartedly.  One that I think many will think or say is implausible in administration.  I know little about administration of a school.  One day, maybe someone who is an administrator will read these and tell me where I've gone off the rails.  Most of this idea is for secondary, but may be able to be applied to elementary.

Idea: All admin have to teach one class.  

    Before pulling out a stack of reasons why this can't work, let's go through a little mountain of values that this provides.  Sometimes, not everyday, but a lot of the time the admin of a school gets an idea that most teachers know won't work in the classroom.  Now it is not a bad thing for admin to innovate, but if they aren't in the classroom then they do not know how best to innovate.  Yeah, all admin are former teachers.  It doesn't matter.  Since Covid all former skill in the classroom are obsolete.  An admin from the campus trying to innovate for the teachers is like engineering fixes without input.  Surely, the way to improve on an existing invention or process is to take feedback from those using it in the field.  And the admin may get some input from teachers, but it would be naïve to assume they get the input from their teachers that they would get if they were teachers.

    If the admin is teaching it is an opportunity to try all the innovations.  Louis Brandeis Supreme Court Justice popularized the phrase laboratories of democracy when he extolled the worth of federalism.  Principals and Assistant Principals could be trying things out with their classrooms.  If you want to have stations in all classes; try it out.  You may find stations works better in Math than History.  You want versatile seating?  Try it out.  You may find that some classes are mature enough for it and others aren't.  You may find that it is a bit dangerous in Science labs.  A while ago, writing down definitions of new vocab and using them in a sentence fell out of fashion.  I think that was a terrible failure of modern education.  I wish that more people were trying these innovations in the classroom.  My first two years in education we were getting a new innovation called Strategic Instructional Models.  The admin, including the SIM Coach (also an admin) kept teaching us how to use the models.  They didn't always think about whether they should be used.  What if they're teachers, they no how to model all innovations to the faculty.

    If the admin is teaching a class everyday then there is tons of time for modeling correct behavior.  I'm getting pretty good at teaching in my estimation.  I see a couple of new teachers every year who have no idea what good teaching is.  It is a balance of finding your own personality and rhythm and enfolding that into a lot of learned best practices.  It can be daunting.  If they're not quite getting it, a strong solution is to send them to observe a seasoned teacher.   Last year's teacher of the year?  How about the principal's math class?  How about the Assistant Principals Geography class?  What about the art class that is taught by some administrator who...you're not really sure what they do.   The number of options for that teacher to observe can only be a good thing.  

    If the admin is teaching everyday, they know what needs discipline in the class room and what needs discipline as an admin.  Teachers know that there are teachers who send kids to the admin too much.  We are not surprised when that teacher's write ups come back with less consequences than the teacher would like.  But many teachers have had admin that lose their sense for what needs to be given consequences and what doesn't.  Teachers are trying to create an orderly classroom and if admin is failing to offer consequences then the classroom atmosphere can severely deteriorate.  If admin is teaching the kids we all teach then they have a better sense for what is good behavior, what the students are capable of.  I don't want my admin to only spend time with the bad apples.  They'll spoil the whole bunch of admin.  I want my admin to meet the honors students, to have them in their classes, to have them passing their tests, so they know what they can expect from any of them.  

    If admin is teaching a class then their criticism will be more adroit or expert.  Some teachers really hate sitting down with admin to talk about data.  The students all scored a 60 on the benchmark science test.  They need a 70 to pass.  What did you do wrong?  How are you going to fix it?  Better yet, 'here's what you did wrong and here's how you're going to fix it.'  Number one, I would love to see some teachers held up for improvement, but more than that I'm going to say that without a cultural shift of excellence some teachers cannot fix the problems in some schools.  You go into a high school in an urban area and the kids aren't studying. Why would they, they have a job waiting for them.  They're not planning on college.  They have no objective reason to get their degree.  Go in that school and the average last year was maybe a 30% on the standardized tests and you raised it to a 45%.  Now the admin want you on a growth plan because passing rate wasn't achieved.  Well, can the admin do it?  

    If the admin can, then that means we all can.  Admin teaching 10th grade algebra might really have a profound impact on the campus.  If that admin can come into an on-level class and get them all to succeed in an underperforming school then there can be a cultural shift.  The leaders are leading not just describing where the rest of us should go.  They aren't describing the map, they're leading us where they've been themselves.  There is a culture of excellence among the faculty because the admin are our advocates.  They are our teammates and not just the coach.  They act like they've been there because they have been.  

    If the admin is in the classroom then the students are getting advanced degree teaching.  The admin are the best trained, highest qualified, highest motivated teachers in the school.  Their skills as teachers are wasted.  The connection to students that they may have is non existent.  Think of the opportunities to reach the students that the admin have in the classroom.  This is another opportunity to change the culture of the school from mediocre to excellent.  Because if the admin really are master teachers then they're helping create that atmosphere hands on with all the students in their care.  The students also get a sense of continuity from the class to the administration.  This device would ensure that the students are treated the same way by admin that they are by the teachers because they are the same.  

If the admin teach then they are cognizant of the teachers' feelings.  Have you ever sent a student to the admin and had the admin send them back with no consequences AND some candy?  If that hasn't happened to you, you haven't been teaching very long.  Teachers know what that feels like.  Give the admin a taste, or make it never happen to anyone ever again.  Admin teaching helps them to know how much time it takes to prepare, they know what it means to ask extra of their faculty.  They know how much prep goes into class plans.  They know how much anxiety can come from being observed or going over their plans in a Planned Learning Community.  All of these are reasons to get admin back in the classroom.

But wait...Admin literally doesn't have enough time for this.  That is because they do too much.  I've had over 10 admin.  They are over worked.  The amount of work is unethical, unGodly, and unwise.  The district usually has so many things for them to do, so many trainings to take that they're hoping will trickle down to the teachers.  It is idiotic.  They need to cut the number of things they do.  That means if the district, state, or federal government is asking too much they need to cut it back.  Admin should be finishing their work in 50-55 hours max.   If they can't do the work in that time they need to have more help.  Our society should demand that our admin does no more, no less.  We have an interest in our admin having families so we have an interest in asking only that which is possible based on time constraints that make sense.    

My Charter School - Part 2 (Music School)

    I haven't decided if I'm going to make my son read this.  Actually, I haven't decided if I'm going to ask my son to read this and have him tell me no.  He is awesome.  He plays multiple instruments.  He plays violin, harp, marimba, and piano.  The fact that he plays so many sometimes makes it hard for him to excel in any, but I think his skills and talents are amazing.  But I think Band sucks. 

    In my opinion Band sucks, but he loves it.  It does though, it sucks so bad.  First, band costs too much.  I'm not talking about the musical instruments, but the program.  The competition that the students are going to be involved in is too much damn money.  My son's school's band program cost a million dollars and 500 ish students also ponied up $600 dollars a piece and there are multiple fundraisers.  That's too much damn money.

    I know that there are people who sort of shmack talk about whether it's more difficult to be in band than in say football, for me they're both too difficult.  But football get more praise.  So the band spends hundreds of hours putting together this really expensive show.  It takes too long.  They used to do it for the football team only.  Now they have massive competitions that cost too much money no one but the band knows who won unless it's was your team.  Band has taken on a mind of its own which is good, because they shouldn't serve the football team, but they still kind of do.  

    Band is art, it makes you smarter, attention to detail, discipline in skill building, some athleticism; these are all reasons why band should be practiced in school.  But in my charter school things will be much different than they are at your normal 5A or 6A school band program.

    These days Band lives for marching season.  Marching season is the program that they do at halftime.  The band is practicing at the game and usually only doing part of their program.  The real competition is the multiple competitions they do on Saturdays after the game.  12 hour long competitions.  They're trying to make their program perfect by about the end of the football regular season where they'll probably go to state band competitions.  During the week, the students practice in double blocks, that means an hour and a half everyday.  Then they have multiple after school practices.  Then they have Friday morning before the game and they're at the game 5-10:00 or later.  It takes as much time as a part time job.  20-30 hours.  It takes too much time.  And the program they're perfecting, is usually only three or four songs.  This is why I hate it.

    Band stopped being about being really good at music and started being about the competition.  Band members devote so much memory their marching and aren't spending enough time learning the notes to more songs.  Some band members do band only for marching band season.  I think that is a problem and so far I haven't seen any limiting principle.  How much practicing for these competitions is too much.  There are rules and laws about how much time should be utilized, but it doesn't seem that many top notch schools follow these rules.  I know my son's school doesn't.  Sometimes, the rules are purposefully vague.  

    I think those rules should be clear and concise.  I think there should be an hour long class in school everyday.  I think there should be no more than five hours outside of school for that.  There would be no reason to get ready for football games.  There should be no marching competitions because there isn't enough time.  Band could produce shows but not buy them.  Schools could have simple uniforms, but cheap.  And emphasis should be placed on exceptional play and music library rather than expert steps.  One goes with the musician after school one doesn't.  

    Band after marching season and after football season is for competitions and shows.  So it should be still.  

    Band can play at smaller sporting events that are intramural, but they should create these halftime shows themselves and with the help of faculty.  They don't have to be professional productions.  Why should they be.  They AREN'T professionals.

    Orchestra should be the same as band.  Learning a large library of songs, pressed to play with greater talent and skill on a limited basis in school and some out of school.  

ANTS SPECIALIZE

    Athletes who are good enough to play intramurally for the school should have enough time to play in either band or orchestra.  Band members should have enough time to do band and orchestra.  Or they could be part of a musical club/class and another club instead of athletics.  If students are in two things outside of school they should be able to do them both in 10 hours.  NO more.  Limiting principles.  If the students and their parents want the student to achieve some sort of professional grade athleticism or musical talent then they should do that at home.  Their parents are responsible for that schools are not.  Schools shouldn't be.  

MISSION CREEP

Schools all over the US are getting confused thinking that there purpose is to produce students who are professional grade in high school and starting them on the path in middle school.  NO.  Schools are preparing students for LIFE.  The talents that they achieve should be introductory.  If they're doing something seven years of secondary education I think they should be good enough to go to any college music program because they're more focused without competitions.  If not, their parents should be the ones who have stronger expectations at home, not at school.  I think athletes in my school can do the same a varied capability in many sports may make them a more all-around athlete.  If the parent thinks the student needs more time in basketball or tennis, or whatever, they can see to those needs themselves or go to a school with bad priorities.   

Cashing in on Education

"Why can't I just quit school and go to work?"

Ever hear that from your high schooler?  Maybe your 3rd grader?  

The national average price paid per pupil across the US is $12,612.  That means each kid costs that much every year.  This starts out at the upper end where New York spends $24,000 per pupil including a ton of money for pensions.  Utah is in last place, or is it first place?  They spend $7,628 per student.  *Stats from educationdata.org

America is not getting its money's worth.  Nope.  In large cities like New York, New York where students are costing $24,000 per student per year 80% are graduating and 80% of those can read.  Wow.  You know I'm actually surprised it's that high.  Maybe there is some statistical...creativity.  Maybe there are affluent schools bringing the average up.  Maybe there are some really good charter and private schools that just get it done.  Then again, exclusive private schools shouldn't even effect those statistics.  Maybe if the US used vouchers and we SHOULD use vouchers.  

Heck, maybe the numbers are fudged.  I'd believe that.  I just read 13 Ways of Going on a Field Trip.  Seems like there are some heroic and idealistic teachers in New York fighting a tsunami, but the tsunami is winning.  I've heard horror stories from people who work at Title 1 schools, and movies, and articles, and my own experiences these past five years at Title 1 schools.  

My personal assessment is that students and parents lack motivation.  Some students will do well for themselves.  Some students will do well for their parents.  Some students will do well to play sports or do the arts.  All of that adds up to maybe 50% and still few of those have an intrinsic motivation to retain knowledge rather than to score well on the test and dump their knowledge.  Still even that doesn't deal with the other 50% ish who aren't motivated by parents, sports, or anything else. 

Here's one idea.  Let's pay the students $500 a year to get A's and B's and good attendance.  Say $80 bucks per six weeks if they get A's and B's and only 2 absences, no more than 5 tardies.  They can lose out one or two Marking Periods and fix it in the others.  What about paying parents the same amount?  Now moms and dads are motivated to send their kids to bed on time, and get to school on time, and encourage them to do homework each night.  Maybe parents could even sit down with the kids regularly and look at their grades to hold them accountable.  

There does seem to be something perverse about paying students and parents to succeed.  After all we're already giving them something that has the ability to really do amazing things. Just go look up quotes about the value of education and you'll see Erasmus said, "The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth."  "Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. -Fredrick Douglas.  "A child without an education is like a bird without wings."  "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."   So should America pay its people to take this great thing?  Yeah.  

We already pay kids the price of the school building, team sports, pensions, teacher's salaries, counselors, and admin. We pay too much to try to grow their motivations instead of just trying to pay them to be motivated.  Let's buy their motivations.  

I often think, 'I could teach 40 students at a time in all of my classes IF each student was as good as HN, MI, or DS (initials used to protect identities).  You've had students like that, right?  What if they all were?  What if they were pressing you for all they might incidentally need to know instead of asking if they'll really need all this?  What if they self-regulated class and other student's behavior so that they could all hear and succeed?  What if they tried to butter you up, but were also conscientiously trying to not look like they were?  What if they all vied to be the teacher's pet?  Would teachers need as much pay and as much support staff?  Nope.

Could this lead to cheating?  For example, a teacher offers a good grade for part of the cash?  Yes.  But would you want to trust a student to keep quiet about that?  I wouldn't.  Could students and parents make a scene and argue?  Could rotating teachers and standardized testing be used to back up all teacher data?  Yes.  

It wouldn't have to be every school or even every school in one state.  It would just have to be a couple of charters to create the experiment.  I know there would be tons of teachers, parents, and students titillated by the opportunity. Then again, I didn't even ask Google if it was legal.

Substituting as a Civic Duty

You know those blogs that you see on the internet sometimes and they’re really pretentious.  They think they know everything about anything and they have very few facts, studies, and statistics to prove their points.  You read the blog and you know all the stuff in it is more or less true, but the writer acts as if they’ve discovered the wheel.  You know a thing or two.  You have lived in two centuries.  You got a lot going for you and you even read blogs and articles about education and parenting on the internet so how on earth does this writer think they’re telling you anything?

You know what schools need?  No, this isn’t a trick question and it should be the most obvious answer; many times it isn’t.  It isn’t materials.  We have a lot of those.  It isn’t smaller class sizes although I’m sure that could help.  I like the idea of teachers being allowed to Taser students.  But that isn’t it either.  It's parents.  

Now before you go getting a big head and start thinking that you’re the most important person in your kid’s life, you should know, this sucks.  By the way, there are a bunch of studies that show a parents influence over the lives of their children are decreasing.  My own belief on this topic is that an orphan's parents don’t have much influence over them.  By that I mean, that parents can have as much influence as they want to have. 

Parents can know what’s going on in the lives of their kids.  Parents can pay attention.  Parents can sit down every evening and talk at the dinner table.  Parents can make it their business to know who their kid’s friends are and what music they listen to.  Parents can check their kid’s homework and help them decide where to go to school and what classes they should take in middle school and high school.  Parents can have a ton of influence over their kid’s lives.   You can be one of the most important things in the world for your kid.  And let’s face it, if you’re the kind of parent who reads blogs/articles on the internet about parenting and education you probably are.  Odds are you do some of the stuff listed above.  You might neglect some of them, but you also, probably did it consciously to teach your kids responsibility.  You’re likely, to have a bunch of things listed that I haven’t even thought of.  You’re more likely to be a helicopter parent than an easy going one.  You’re conscientious. 

So what about the people that aren’t?  What about the people that can’t tell you what grade their kid is in?  What about the people who are really mad about their kid getting suspended because they’ll have to stay home with them rather than angry because they did something bad?  What about the parents who AREN’T mad when their kid does something wrong? 

As a teacher I know there is a huge difference between a struggling student and a struggling student who has an involved parent.  The one with the involved parent is getting a B the last week of the six weeks and EMAILS to find a way their kid can get an A.  The struggling student with no parent involvement doesn’t email me and they get a C, a D or an F which isn’t even based on the child’s talent or knowledge because without effort supplied by the parent, the student’s talent and knowledge really doesn’t come into effect.  If a parent is withholding television and or a cell phone in order to get good grades and enforcing a bedtime in order to make sure the student is calm and well rested/level-headed then the student can show off their talents and capabilities.  In my class it doesn’t take much effort to get an A.  It takes even less intelligence.  Parents who are involved are fulfilling a tough job.  But how can we, you and I, those people who are engaged, invested, and adult bring along the people who forgot to take their birth control pills?  How can the upright people bring along the Darwin award recipients?  How can the white collar and blue collar workers bring along the unemployed by choice and the collarless? 

I think there should be a law that everybody has to work in a school as a substitute like Jury Duty.  I don’t think they should be the teacher of record although I’m not opposed to that.  I much more simply think that parents and even non-parents should go to school once a year and take the pulse of our future society.  Everybody, after passing a background check, could go to a school their kid goes to and go with their kid to class. 

In elementary, we’d all see how hard the teachers work.  Maybe we’d know how difficult it is to give a kid personal time even when the teacher only has 15-20 students.  Maybe we’d see how easy it could be to give our own kid fifteen minutes of personal time every night, something that would drastically improve reading and writing in the lower primary grades.  We could play tag with the kids at recess and then maybe we could advocate for longer recess than the kids are getting because kindergartners don’t need to study 6 hours a day.  We could see our kids interacting with other kids.  We could try to help them practice this at home.  We could find out which kids we’d like our kid to be friends with.  

Maybe you don’t have a kid.  Why should you have to substitute?  Our schools are sometimes understaffed and we need help.  Our schools, as the founders agreed, and as most political philosophers believe, are more than just a service or a utility.  Our schools create our future generations assisting our parents.  That’s why we pay for them with our taxes even if we don’t have kids of our own and sometimes we need to pay time with our taxes (sometimes more important than money).  By the way, what about the people who aren’t paying any money into the education system through property taxes, but are being served with their kids in schools?  They should have to serve twice a year.  Adults without kids, properly vetted, could be a valuable asset for individual help, directed encouragement, clerical or manual support. 

In secondary schools, we’d see who the kids are in our schools who are the biggest problems.  We may see how our child is part of the problem.  We may see how hard our teachers work and how much support they really can use.  We could see how the kids talk.  The vapid language of the American secondary school student is a society-wide dumpster.  Would 10-15 extra adults walking around our halls everyday help that?  Maybe.  If it was YOUR mom would it clean up YOUR language?  If it was your friend's mom sitting at your table at lunch would it clean up your table’s language even if just that day?  Could it help papers get handed out quicker, could it help adults remember some of the incredible amount of stuff we’ve forgotten from our school careers?  Could it help us with our gym classes?  Gym is incredibly unimpressive these days.  No weights, no push-ups, no hurdles, no climbing the rope.  I think back to my gym class and remember with fondness the physical intensity that children scoff at today.  Could we remind them?  Could an insurance salesman who is over 50 and completely bald encourage our kids to run an extra lap because it’s good for them?  Could a single mom convince a bunch of apathetic high school girls how lucky they are to play basketball or soccer or lift weights and that they should take full advantage because adulthood doesn't offer many of these opportunities.

This brings more adults into the lives of our kids; a good thing, in my opinion.  I know there are going to be so many laws and lawsuits along the lines of, ‘I don’t want so and so, blah blah blah, hanging out at a school, infecting kids.  Okay, in jury duty there are challenges and dismissals why not substitute/assistant challenges and dismissals?  This also helps create adults who have to be a little more involved in their kid’s lives.  They have to be better advocates for education in the public sphere, they have to be better disciplinarians of their children, and they have to be better advocates for their child’s effort in class.  They know what the districts and schools need.  They know what the parents and administrators need.  They know what their kids and the world needs.

Now, I’m not saying that everybody should do this.  Doctors don’t have to serve jury duty.  They might not need to do this either, but doctors would be really good substitutes for science classes and probably jury foremen. 

I’m not saying everyone needs to be in a classroom or everyone needs to be with their kids if they have a kid.  I’m sure district or school employees could give you a list a mile long of things parents and non-parents could do that would be valuable, effective, safe for children and adults, and tailored to different personalities, interests, and capabilities.

I’m sure some will have a problem with using the force of law to compel work (sounds like the healthcare mandate).  But systems could be devised to get out of these expectations or we could decide to fight hard to make sure that something like this happens that makes our schools AND our communities better.  Could a small town do this?  Could this be a municipal ordinance in a small town with a few thousand in population?  Yes.  Could a school board and a city council make it a referendum and have the community vote on it?  Yes.  Has this world veered too far from the good?  No. 

Without a big city-wide program to get every adult, within reason, to be a substitute at a local school can you and your church small group go through the annoying process to get certified to be a substitute and go substitute on one or two off days a year?  No.  Your church can have an initiative to have half of the members serve as a volunteer.  Your golf team can all make a pact to follow all your kids to each class they have once a year.  Your kid’s soccer team’s parents, or your drinking buddies, or your political party, your book club, the moms of your Boy Scout Troop, or Girl Scout Troop could all make a pact to go to each of your kid’s schools and ask if they need help and how.

Open Letter to Parents Considering Homechool

Open letter to the imaginary parents I know considering home school,

            You know I teach at a public school right?  How could you even consider taking important funds away from society’s schools and taking your child out of an environment that makes presidents and patriots?   Hahahahahaha.

            The truth is that now that I’ve seen the system on the inside I can say without reservation the following:  All parents should strongly consider doing some home schooling.  All parents who have faith in God or conservative values aren’t being served in public education.  There are very few good Godly examples of how to live life in schools.  There aren’t many other students who children can look up to or will look up to even if they are some.  There are very few teachers that I think are so laudable that I would request their morals and honor as my students teacher.  The vapid nature of student talk and student behavior in secondary schools is worse than any foul mouthed movie you’ve ever seen.  Sailors talk much nicer than 7^th graders. 

I once remarked that I heard the ‘N-word’ more in one week at Connally High School than I had in my entire life previously.  I was including all the gangster movies I had ever seen.  Mind, this wasn’t said by students to inflame each other.  The word, from each race to all others, was without power.  The only people it humiliated and disgusted were the adults.   The language is ubiquitous.  There are no sensitivities in your child’s ears.  It isn’t clever or martial; it is word vomit.  It is mania. 

The disrespect and behavior are terrible as well.  All students lie and cheat.  I caught two dozen cheaters this year.  I may have caught more but some don’t have anyone to copy off of because my assessments are so easy; dumbed down, weak tea.  I may have caught more, but some do not care enough to cheat.  There is fighting.  There is gossip.  There is a level of depravity that I assure you is worse than anything I saw while I was in my school and it is NOT seeing with rose-colored glasses.  

And the values you share, they do not.  It is just nigh-impossible to out-number all their negative influences by being good parents and taking them to church.  And their teachers very rarely, share your values either.  I was surprised.  I mean this is a state so Red with republicanism that we voted against the Barbie doll for Governor and voted for Trump for President.  I thought teachers would have some conservatism here.  Wouldn’t teachers be a good cross-section of our state’s make up?  No.  75% claim Christianity in the state, is it that high in the school?  No.  They do not share your faith or your values.  Some might.  More do not.    

So do I, a teacher who makes my living teaching in public schools, think anyone close to me ought to seriously consider other options like co-ops or private schools or home school with curriculum online?  Yes.  Do I think you have to do it a while for it to make sense?  Yes.  Does it have to be K-8, or 6-8, or K-5?  No.

But…

Reasons you might not want to do this:  If your child is being bullied.  Look, I know it hurts to see your baby get bullied, but if you take your kid out of school it is telling them that if they aren’t enjoying something then they can change it.  That isn’t always true.  That can be one of the worst lessons to teach subconsciously to our children.  If they don’t like a teacher or a class or a club or a sport it might be the best opportunity to teach that, ‘those who endure get a crown’ rather than, ‘if we don’t like it we can always quit.’

Maybe you shouldn’t quit because a public school can offer you something you can’t otherwise achieve like sports, fine arts, or clubs.  I know some homeschools have sports and band and orchestra and whatever else but clubs in a school are a special thing that aren’t well reproduced all the time.  I’ve been a part of a homeschool co-op drama and it didn’t make the transition well.  I’ve also been a part of playoff football team and a nationally recognized men’s choir.

Maybe your kid is wild about God and needs to be challenged to see the school as his/her mission field.  Look, I didn’t.  There is a level of maturity that I don’t think God demands from 15 and 16 year olds.  But now, I pray every day to let me be a good man and let students get a little God out of me.  I need to do better at it, but there’s always next year.  If you can take a student who is special in a way, I admit, I was not and make them focus their zeal for Christ Jesus into their public education then God be praised.  If this can be their Catechesis, then the Gates of Hell shall not prevail.

But…

If you decide to take the plunge:  Don’t go halfway.  Don’t say this is a measure that only needs to last a year until a growth spurt comes in or until his peers grow out of bullying.  Don’t pay it lip service.  Look up project-based-learning.  Have the student design the curriculum.  Always be expecting more than the school did, and more than you did last week.  Homeschool should be an opportunity to trounce the public education system.  Homeschool should look the public school in the face and laugh at its edifices.  Education costs a library card; they’ve got computers, and books on tape, Audible.com, Youtube.com, projectGuttenberg.com, Think through Math, IXL, Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the DBQ project, Project Based Learning, blogs, heck Netlfix and Amazon Prime (documentaries, brain games, How Things are Made, Dirty Jobs, and Mythbusters) encyclopedias, Wikipedia (watch Jeopardy, get the clue, pause it, look it up online and answer it before unpausing, then afterwards watch it at full speed and see how many they remember), History.com, the Biography Channel, History.gov the list could go on for days.  A person who is incentivized to become an autodidact hasn’t even needed a teacher for the last 20 years.  Scratch that, probably didn’t need one before the internet when we had libraries.

If you decide to take the plunge:  Get weird.  Do a ton of field trips to actual educational places.  Have them write in different styles and Genres.  Have them read and write book reports in different styles and genres.  Have them take some instrument lessons in several different instruments and then have them practice like an hour a day if you ears can stand it.  Have them learn to whistle, to juggle, to skateboard, to dance, fence, sing, speak some vocab in like ten languages.  Have them learn the Korean alphabet.  Have them learn to identify art but only up to the Impressionists.  Have them listen to symphonies and operas and arias and Hank Williams and Elvis and Bach and Brahms and New Kids on the Block and Fats Domino and Motown and Italian Rap and Russian Folk.  Have them sow and macramé and wash dishes and write poetry and learn first aid.

If you decide to take the plunge:  Do not let them do it without you.  There is a cheap way to do it and that is to give them a book and ask them to read it and write a report.  Total time for you 10 minutes.  Total time for them 15 hours.  No.  Have them read something to you.  Discuss it afterwards.  You know Cliff’s Notes?  Those actually have challenge questions at the end of each chapter summary to help spur discussion.  Look up a lecturer on Youtube who can talk about the themes.  After they write the report don’t just mark it for spelling and grammar.  You should really teach them about introducing an essay.  If I get another essay starting, “Let me tell you about…”  Really challenge them that 5-7 paragraphs, 5-7 sentences is only barely good enough.  Beg friends to read it and offer notes.  Have the student represent the book in multimedia:  A picture, a poster, a board game, a 3-D element, outfits for a play, etc.  Have the student blog about it.  Have the student read their essay and share it with former students.  Engage with everything they do.  You must invest in this yourself.  It is no small task to be a good teacher.  (Side Note:  I’m not saying that a parent can’t leave their kid home alone and work Tuesday and Thursday if the parent needs to work part time.  Though the state might have a problem with this.  Kids just need guidance all the time even when they don’t, in my opinion need supervision.

So long story short:  Do it, or not if you can’t or don’t want to, all the way in or all the way out, make it worth it, be weird, go with your student, and bring God with you.  It isn’t a question with a right answer just a right for you answer.