I’d posted an article about the Anthony family of Hopkins Park and their successes in a previous post.  Texan Susan Frederick of TAFFIE had pointed out another article from the Daily Journal about the Anthonys that explained more of the reasons they started homeschooling.   The original reason being that Louise Anthony felt she could do better for her children:  "What would have happened to Marcus if I would have left him in public school?" she asked. "He certainly wouldn’t have come along as far as he has."

Following that, Spunky’s piece In Loco Parentis had this question with many comments from others following:

What kind of country have we become when a potential first lady boasts that her children don’t care where she is during the day, while she’s out campaigning for our government to spend more money to help take care of the family?

It’s a good question which carried more significance 30 and more years ago…. even 10 years ago, than our society’s seeming current mindset and gargantuan funding demands from both major political parties for government programs to pull in younger and younger children.  Pulling them in for what?  Success for the children or the bureaucracy? 
Dana of Principled Discovery followed up with her thoughts and research in her post Educating “other people’s children:

”Public education has always been about educating “other people’s children.” The poor, the immigrant, the minority. And always with a goal of “reforming” them, or “engineering” them, if you will. When the society is fairly homogenous, no one objects because the overwhelming majority shares the same religious and social values. An extended public education system was viewed as a way to spread this virtue. Unfortunately, American Protestants did not really begin to vociferously oppose state involvement in education until the state’s involvement no longer reflected their values. On the contrary, we did a lot to set the foundations of what would become the current system.

If governmental programs work, I can support it with my money and very often, my time, as in 4-H (Cooperative Extension Service).  Today at the 4-H Fair, my Natural Resources Department (I am the Superintendent) will be judged.  With my sons’ help as Jr. Assistants, I’d better make sure my i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed or there will be utter chaos and disappointed kids at the awards program tonite.  Their hard work should be rightfully recognized.  That  is a role of powerful consequence that I do with the help of the extension service staff. 
Maybe those programs work fairly well because private citizens or volunteers are permitted to volunteer their services and ideas to make it successful for the population it is serving.  Government as a servant seems to be the key.

I wrote something more up in the Illinois Review about what  Public Education labels for children might do to children.  I’ll include some of it here about those "at risk" labels. Do they help? Do they hurt? What are the consequences of expanding formal schooling with a national universal preschool trend, or as it is known in Illinois: Preschool for All? 

The same groups pushing cradle oversight for all and benefiting from the Preschool for All craze are also pushing mental health screening for all children. Those groups have great influence in Illinois now under the Blagojevich/Democratic party regime, even as many Republican representatives don’t seem to contest the issue (or the funding). 

One significant and pragmatic aside is acknowledgment of Senator Lauzen’s very logical questions during the 3rd reading of a bill to fund Early Learning transportation to Illinois public schools (SB 2352).

He asked the sponsor (Wilhemi) about the physical consequences of putting little ones (4 year olds) on a bus. Those concerns seemed very practical to me. I’ve cringed as I’ve watched little ones literally crawl onto bus steps to get on.  He asked about the use of car/booster seats on the bus. The lackadasical response by Senator Wilhemi that seatbelts and booster/car seats are required for private citizens, but are exempt from government responsibilities seems to be a given with many legislators now.  Senator Lauzen asked the right questions in these unfortunate obstacles to limited government and citizens’ natural rights. (Senators Lauzen and Burzynski were the only nays on 2352.)

I am seeing private preschools and day cares close as more state requirements and demands are too difficult to compete with for the "free services" of public schools.  Those "free services" are provided with some of my tax money. Demanding that little ones just out of diapers be involved with institutional schooling is very sad to me. The push for universal preschool even lurches out to the law enforcement community with the message that No Preschool=Prison.  Really.

Follow the money.

The Anthony family lifestyle does seem to be working; particularly for a very young and very shy boy. Marcus wasn’t deemed "school ready", but appears to have a very bright future as an adult. 

Senator Obama says this about children he considers "at risk":

"What you see consistently are children at a very early age are starting school already behind. That’s why I’ve said that I’m going to put billions of dollars into early childhood education that makes sure that our African-American youth, Latino youth, poor youth of every race, are getting the kind of help that they need so that they know their numbers, their colors, their letters. Every dollar that we spend in early childhood education, we get $10 back in reduced dropout rates, and improved reading scores."

What does "already behind" mean?  How hard is it to catch up in school?  How hard is it to overcome that label attached to a young child that says "already behind" and "at risk"?  Marcus Anthony will never know.  He’s planning on studying computer engineering at Wright State University.