<p>A homeschooler in my town was named valedictorian two years ago. He did not come to school other than to take the annual standardized testing, but yet, he beat the other hard-working, school-attending senior for the top honor because his GPA was just slightly higher. However, we have no way of knowing what his mom teaches him, or much grade inflation affected his GPA. They come from a strict Christian family and I don't believe they studied what our biology students did - evolution. Now his brother is set to follow in his footsteps, and I don't think it's fair because they are not actually with the other students and taking the same classes. Valedictorian should be reserved for those attending school. Any opinions?</p>
<p>I have never heard of a homeschooler being named valedictorian at a high school he didn't attend. But then I am not that familiar with how homeschooling works in California. It doesn't seem right to me, but, as I said, I really know nothing about the situation. Are homeschoolers in California, perhaps, considered to be home study students of the high school?</p>
<p>My son attended high school part-time and was very involved in the high school, including varsity tennis, band, choir, Academic All-Stars, etc., and yet he was not even allowed to participate in graduation. And I think our experience is much more common than yours.</p>
<p>I think your son, who sounds extremely involved, should have been at the graduation. That seems almost like a dual-enrollment sort of situation. However, this student was not involved with anything other than the baseball team. We don't exactly have any other clubs or anything, but still. I don't think the family is on a home-study program because they don't follow the school curriculum or receive homework packets or anything. Walking at graduation, sure, but valedictorian, no.</p>
<p>Wait--he was named valedictorian based on the grades his MOM gave him? What's wrong with this picture?</p>
<p>It doesn't seem right to me either, unless the school approved his study program and grades or something. If he was not involved in any way with the school, other than baseball, I do not think he should have been valedictorian. As you said, it really isn't fair to the other students.</p>
<p>It sounds to me as if there is more to the story than we know.</p>
<p>There's really nothing more to the story. A homeschooled student was named valedictorian of a public school, and his brother is number 1 in the graduating class. I'm a junior, but many of my senior friends are upset.</p>
<p>Maybe they should just give him a special recognition of honor or something, but valedictorian should definitely be reserved for others. I can't imagine a mom giving bad grades to their own kid.</p>
<p>I've been on homeschooling boards with literally thousands of other parents for six years. I have never heard of a homeschooler being given a class rank in a public school. It just doesn't ring true.</p>
<p>I just looked up California and it does have the option for a public school independent study program. This would be AT home, but it wouldn't be homeschooling as commonly understood, because the school would presumably have approval over what is studied, the grades, etc. The OP claims it isn't a home study program, though, so I haven't done any more research into what a "public school independent study program" is and how it works.</p>
<p>I think if the OP wants us to condemn something, it is his/her burden of proof to explain exactly what the situation is first. None of this "I don't believe" and "I don't think" stuff. How are these kids educated, who grades, who reviews, etc. in reality -- not speculation.</p>
<p>At least around here, for a teen schooled at home to represent a school on an athletic team, that teen has to be getting academic supervision by that school or be taking correspondence courses with an accredited school, which courses the team school accepts. If you had a completely homeschooled competitor on a school team, the other teams would be screaming bloody murder and that would show up in the press. </p>
<p>How could a real homeschooler be named a valedictorian of a public school? Such a student is not a student at such a school. If such a bizarre thing had happened, the press and NEA would have trumpeted it. Parents would have picketed. My attempt to google to find this situation has failed. Any antihomeschooling news article immediately gets posted and makes the rounds. No such situation has been identified.</p>
<p>So I remain skeptical that the situation is as claimed. Give me a link to a local newspaper story saying this happened and I will reconsider.</p>
<p>I am also skeptical due to the gratuitous comment about not believing the students studied "what our biology students did - evolution." Given the state of public attitudes about evolution and the fact that the overwhelming majority of them were in public schools, I am not surprised at the studies showing how poorly evolution is covered. My children were in public schools until 7th and 9th grades and the word "evolution" never came up. The teachers always "ran out of time." My oldest went to a private boarding school and took AP Biology. Again the teacher "ran out of time." My son only knows evolution because I gave him Darwin to read on his own. My daughter is the one who got a thorough grounding in evolution -- she was the one who was homeschooled.</p>
<p>There is no grounds to fault the education that homeschoolers get or to think it is inferior from what public school students get. The former score substantially higher in standardized tests. There is also no reason to believe in grade inflation for one rather than the other. I don't know how many times I've seen people agonize over how to grade their children fairly. (Not me -- I didn't grade.) Yes, bad grades do get given BTW</p>
<p>Just for the evolution thing. We covered that first in Bio and it was the longest unit by far (Or maybe biochem was but w/e) and we had to memorize the entire Homonid family tree with the scientific names and all. We spent a lot of time studying evolution..just to get it out there.</p>
<p>If the poster would reveal the school then perhaps a Google search might reveal something. I also have a bit of skepticism regarding the post.
My son took the AP's, SAT1 and SAT2 tests at our local HS.
He would have been an "AP Scholar with distinction" if the district wanted to include him in their press release.
Funny though, they use his scores to boost the district's average in their yearly reports.</p>
<p>Anyway I really have a hard time believing this....sorry.</p>
<p>I'm glad you studied evolution in such depth, logisticswizard. Good for your school. Sorry to say many schools don't do as good a job ...</p>
<p>This is a subject I complained about to my local school system, without effect I might add. Just as I got nowhere in trying to get them to teach grammar or a number of other things.</p>
<p>At my school, where the science department consists of one former nuclear engineer, we covered evolution EXTENSIVELY, as did our textbook. The family in question is strictly Christian; my brother used to work with one of the sons and found out that they do not teach evolution in their household. They were taught by their mother and did not seem to be doing any "correspondence courses" through the school. They merely showed up to play baseball in the spring and take the STAR test at the end of the year. I posted this to get opinions on the situation. Even on the off chance that I'm wrong about the situation, it's still an interesting topic for debate. </p>
<p>I can't find any articles, by the way. This happened two years ago and neither my school town or school has a newspaper Nor does my school. The nearest one is about 15 miles away and I'll have to see if they have any mention in the archives.</p>
<p>In our school district the kids are allowed to compete on the teams, even if they don't attend classes there. Actually the kids are a lot more accepting than you would think, as well as the parents (as far as I can tell) (Mine pretty much go all year round so they do have time for sports) We do have to turn in curriculum reports to the AD, but it doesn't matter what you study. We also have an "international school" (which doesn't have sports, the "running start" where the kids go to the CC, kids attending private high schools, as well as the home schooled kids. (all on the team together) Frequently they are elected captain from what I've heard. It made it really fun for mine, and they had a lot of energy to put into the team, as I'd say homeschoolers probably average more sleep. (a good thing) However, you must compete for your neighborhood school only, no shopping around for a good team. I think it's great for the kids to mix it up with the different educational backgrounds. As far as an "approved curriculum" our district did not accept one class from Indiana University (even college) Distance education. So you would have to start all over if you wanted to graduate from there. Trust me, the Indiana curriculum was much superior to that of the regular high school, having a comprehensive midterm, and a comprehensive final(totalling 60-70% of your grade) (the parents would scream if that went on in the high school) ( BTW,That's what's helped her in college) Her books had fewer pictures and more print. Her Air Force Liason Officer usually presents the plaque at graduation for the kids going to the academies so we just went to his house. The other funny thing is that the school kept trying to get her to file for graduation by sending notes to her class, or catching her in the hall. She only took the AP chemistry there, and then came home. (you can't graduate with only 4 credits!) That's all she's allowed to do, unless you want to go full time. It worked out, and she did get a taste of high school. She was quite busy taking finals up until she had to leave for the academy, and I was thankful not to be involved in the non stop graduation party rat race we have around here!!!</p>