State funding for homeschoolers?

Well.. we're one of those low income families that wouldn't be able to afford any books or supplies without money from the state so we are enrolled in a charter school called IDEA that is based out of Galena, AK. For kindergarten we get an allotment of $1400. We can spend it on any secular curriculum or books, art supplies, musical instruments, sports, music or other lessons.. a long list of things. The charter school is quite flexible and does it's best to fight any kind of regulation by the state over what is required of homeschoolers. The only thing we are required to do is turn in a lesson plan for the year, quarterly samples of the student's work and 2 assessment sheets a year. There are no consequences if the work or assessments don't live up to a certain standard. Starting in third grade, students are required to take the standardized tests that all the kids take in public school.. but again, it's not like they have to get a certain score or anything.
It's really a minimum amount of hoops to jump through and for us, totally worth it.
Although, I completely understand why people would choose to avoid having anything to do with the state being involved in the education of their children.

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Ouch. I don't really think all public schools are bad. I think the one I am planning to send my ds to is pretty good. The test scores are a little better than the state average. He is in pre-K this year, and "his school" has a pre-K, on another campus. And next year I plan to send him to the public school. I don't see anything wrong with that.

but this year, I cannot get him to or from the school, as I have no car. Therefore I am homeschooling him. This was not something I'd planned on doing, so I haven't done the research, and I would gladly accept some money if it pointed me towards a few different ideas for a curriculum, books, and supplies. Especially if I could get a litte extra for "feild trips". I'd love to take him to the zoo, aquarium ect, but don't have the funds for that. So, I don't think it's really a bad idea to have some guidelines. Mama's who may feel lost may feel like me about it, thankful to have a point in a direction. Afterall if you don't like the 'requirements' you don't have to take the money.

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That sounds awesome! Seriously I would sign up for that if they offered it here. Our budget is around $500 for homeschool. I don't know what I'd do with $1400!

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Well, it's not really that simple. Legislation tends to get stricter as people accept more and more non-mandatory regulations. That is one of the reasons that many people are unhappy with the cyber-school thing: people are afraid that the regulations that those public school students must function under will eventually become the regulations that all homeschool students must function under if cyber-schoolers are thought of as homeschoolers (and this is NOT intended as a debate about whether cyber-schoolers are homeschoolers; it's merely what some people are concerned about). Similarly, if lots of people accept state money for homeschooling and agree to follow the guidelines that come with it, it's very possibly that legislation for all homeschoolers could go that way, because people will point to those homeschoolers who are functioning under those regulations and say "Those are reasonable regulations for ALL homeschoolers."

Home Education Magazine (a magazine of which I am actually not overly fond) writes frequently and much more eloquently than I do about this issue.

Namaste!

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Well, many public schools are failing around the country. My dd is going to public school for K this year and I am seriously freaked out. At this school, only 42% of kids read at or above grade level in 3rd grade. That is scary. Expecially when the other county schools have at least a 80-90%. There is also a huge crime problem. But you can't pick which school you go to here unless you have the $900 a month for private.

SO I would jump at the chance for a little financial help with buying stuff when dd decides she wants to stay home for K rather than send her there. But this is her choice for now.

And NC does not have assistance, I just looked it up.

We are also IDEA participants here in the great rainy north! While I agree with the opinion that public schools stink, and that the less government involvement the better, I couldn't resist $1400 to buy "supplies". I could never afford this myself, and they really are nice and lenient. Having said this, I would withdraw immediately if they ever pulled anything too authoritarian. Going to the IDEA orientation a few years ago, I was impressed when the representative even mentioned unschooling as something that was a positive option. Which is pretty much what we do...
I use the money to buy my son lessons of his choice, toys (we even ordered a lego set!), etc... Very little cirriculum if you will.
I also see the danger in these sorts of programs. Like if the State of Alaska is using programs like these (there are quite a few up here) to get people used to the idea and eventually require all homeschoolers to do so under a government blanket. So there is good and bad to things like this, and I sometimes wonder if it is good at all. But for the time being, we are poor and accept the spending power...I will probably re-evaluate my participation when he hits third gradr and they require standardized testing which I do not like.