Scout - Everyone can homeschool. We all make choices in life that set us on different tracks. Large homes, private schools, new cars is a track that many take and the cost of this is two working parents to sustain it. Many parents also have highly successful careers that are incredibly important to them and this is their choice in life.
Homeschooling of course isn't for everyone and it never will be.It is one of many life choices like vegetarians and non-vegetarians. Both are great. That is the beauty of diversity. We all have the choice to persue the things that are meaniful and important to us! We can also choose to change any time we wish! Life continually evolves!

Jolanda

You seem to have tried quite hard to do the right thing. However writing a letter to the P&C is hardly an effective way of getting parental involvement and awareness of an issue. For this you have to actually go to the meetings - preferably get on the committee - move that the issue becomes an agenda item and that the P&C recommends that the issue is formally reported (I assume this is the case) and therefore has to be dealt with by the school OHS committee. You can insist that all minutes of OHS committee meetings are available. Failure to carry out these procedures can be reported to WorkCover in your State and you could also contact the ACTU (hotline 1300 362 223)who might be able to help. It is also a good idea to make friends among the parent community and get them to attend the meetings too. Oh - and I suggest you don't make it a race issue as you will find the barriers will go up very quickly. OHS is an issue that P&C can take up and ensure that procedures are followed. One word of advice - this will all work much better if it is presented reasonably and accurately without unnecessary anger and blame and with the confidence that you expect something to be done. I do however wonder if there is not a lot more to your problem than you are letting on if, as you say, there is no support among the parent community. Parents at my own children's school stick together when they want something changed. This is also why a class action is more likely to succeed and make headlines than individual lawsuits.

Lyn, please take no offense, but not all people make good parents and not all parents make effective teachers. Not everyone CAN homeschool.

I am all for home education - for those who can and for those who need it, but not at the expense of the majority who attend public schools.

I know for myself I would've gained from home schooling - had I parents who had the ability and concern to provide it; but I didn't. I also know that my sister is doing an exemplary job of raising her children - however she does not have extensive education herself, but is actively engaged with the local school.

We need both: home education and public schooling and neither should be promoted at the expense of the other.

Sajo, I am glad that your experiences have been positive at your school, however this is not the case for many parents. I think it is unfair of you to suggest Jolanda is not telling the ‘whole story’. If you had a wider experience of education, you would realise that Jolanda’s experience is not rare. In regards to this being nothing to do with race, well I am afraid that racism is alive and well and existing in our schools. Some of the comments I have heard in staff rooms have been some of the most appalling examples of racial vilification I have ever heard.
You obviously are at a school that works for you and your family, and I am pleased for you. However you should not be so quick to judge those many parents whose experience with the school system has not been so positive. Mass education can not and does not work for all people. We are lucky that home education does exist to provide an alternative for the many that the system fails. Home education works, the research is there to prove this, and there is no need for negativity towards parents who have made a different choice for the education of their children. As a society we need to respect and nourish diversity, and this is as true for education as it is for anything else

Scout, that’s the great thing about our society. Everyone CAN home educate. I have known many working single parents, lesser educated, even disabled people who have been successful in educating their children at home. Our society gives us the CHOICE and everyone can choose to make it or not according to their own circumstances. I firmly believe that the only times that institutional schooling is necessary is for higher education due to the societal demand for degrees, and in situations of family violence and severe mental illness. Many of these children end up in Foster care anyway.

It is a choice that we can all make. Many people seem to deny this right of choice out of fear that they may have to look at their own lives, see that maybe the outcome could have been better, had they made a different choice. Or worse still, perhaps they might have to sacrifice their own needs to do what is in the best interests of the child(ren). Do not try to tell us that you have not a choice and that others do not, because, this pattern of thought is fundamentally flawed. It is sad that so many well meaning people have been fooled into believing that the only choice is institutionalised schooling. To be continued…..

I do not condemn anyone who, due to their own personal lifestyle preferences, choose to educate their children in the system. But everyone needs to be aware that there is the option and they government is not being forthright in allowing the public their right to choose. In Tasmania, where recent law changes have been made regarding home education, it is illegal to print any pro-home education material, articles or radio/TV segments on home education unless they have been cleared with The Home Education Advisory Council (THEAC) before appearing. THEAC answers to the Minister for Education and has a policy of ‘no publicity for home education’ and therefore no such articles appear. How is this a way of ensuring that neither home education nor public schooling is promoted at the expense of the other? It is a scary example of the government unfairly exercising the right to censor to suit their own agenda.

The laws have been changed in every state to slowly put harsh restrictions on home education and prevent the freedom of speech and the right to choose. We cannot let this bullying by the labor government continue.

P.S. You have my support Nicola, on your very apt comments in regards to diversity as well as Gen in regards to the 'choice' to home educate being for everyone.