What happens is simple. While families see fit to abandon public education, public schools come right back after them in the form of virtual charters luring in families under the guise that they are still "home schooling". Virtual charters do not count as home schooling, however. Virtual charters are simply mini public schools in the home. By using virtual charters, parents once again lose their voice in the educational process and begin to rely on others to teach their children. This fact has the potential of being exponentially detrimental to black homeschoolers.
The factors that account for the dismal performances by large numbers of black children in today's public schools are vast, varied and many. Two of the key reasons rest on schools and parents. Some black parents claim schools are not doing enough to ensure their children learn and progress effectively to the next level. Collectively schools and teachers, on the other hand, complain black parents do not adequately provide the proper preparedness their children need to succeed in school. Without a doubt, there are a lot of blame games and finger-pointing going on, while black children continue to fail.
To counter this, black parents have chosen to take action via home schooling. Taking action suggests personal accountability, which goes a long way in pushing forth more well-learned children with a penchant towards excellence and not metiocrity. Black parents stretch out on their own -- with faith and trust in their abilities -- and leave traditional education in their wake. These parents take responsibility for their children,( something public educators complain about) undoubtedly a contagious step in the right direction for black families all across the country. Black homeschoolers can no longer blame any individual, institution, system or even history for the potential failure of their children. They have to rely on their own abilities, resourcefulness, dedication and creativity to ensure their children matriculate through all levels. Virtual charters, on the other hand, seek to erase this attitude of self-reliance and educational independence by black homeschoolers.
While free resources, such as computers and textbooks, teacher support and a hand to hold seem like the best method for black families to home school, all of these things come with a costly price: losing black children once again. This time virtually.
Jennifer James is the Founder and Director of the National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance and homeschools her daughters, 5 and 2, along with her husband in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She has been featured on Fox News.com and interviewed by Reuters, Newsday and The Christian Science Monitor.
