A modest proposal by President Clinton for vague and voluntary national standards provoked strong opposition in Congress alternative and elsewhere. A variety of efforts schools and alternative and schools on the part of states to introduce some forms of curriculum guidelines and to reinforce alternative them with statewide testing have stirred up strong reactions at the local level. Reinforcing schools this local response to setting standards has been the alternative hostility toward schools government that has characterized the politics of the last two alternative decades. Increasingly, elected schools officials have won office on a platform of being relentlessly anti-government. alternative and schools They see their primary job as an effort to protect local communities and individual citizens from the intrusion of government control Denver should consolidate its program for gifted middle-schoolers to stop children from leaving for private, charter and magnet schools, the alternative program''s leader said Thursday.

The sheer number of homeschoolers represent a distinct threat to the hegemony of the government school monopoly. Qualitatively, schools the academic success of homeschoolers, measured by standardized test scores and recruitment alternative by colleges [1], debunk the myth that parents need to hire credentialed experts to force children to learn. Homeschooling also refutes the “more money equals schools better alternative education” mantra of teacher unions. The average homeschooling family spends approximately 10% of the per pupil costs associated with government schools [2] in achieving these academic results. Multiplied by the number of homeschoolers, schools even these alternative modest amounts add up to a sizeable market attracting numerous educational schools entrepreneurs. Besides challenging the legitimacy of government schools, homeschoolers also pose a more direct economic threat. Funding for government schools is based on attendance,

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