We Will Not Conform: Portrait of a Home School Family

We will not conform.  We will not conform.  We will not conform.  No, it isn't a chant or a mantra.  It's a statement of fact.  Something that we as grass roots activists should be used to by now.  How about another group of folks who could be considered full-time protesters?  Another group of people who might be used to not conforming for even longer than the tea party groups have been around.  How about a group of dedicated home schoolers?  This is the portrait of a home school mom and dad.

The home school mom and dad are those parents who decided to throw off the yolk of traditional education and have already chosen not to conform.  They decided to keep their children at home, for whatever reason, but  no matter if you publicly educate your children or privately educate them, we all ultimately want a well educated child.

A home school family consists of parents who decided to go against the grain and took their child's education in their own hands, quite literally. I should know, I'm one of them.

I am fortunate enough to live in the great state of Texas, where home schooling is still legal.  Home schools are considered a private school, and we aren't regulated by the state or required to take standardized testing.  We are free to purchase our own curriculum or to design our own.  Then, we are free to choose our own path to graduation.  In other words, home schoolers have freedom in Texas!  Cool, right?

So, what am I getting at?  I'm saying that all of that could change.  Not through state standards, but through the introduction of Common Core.  Since its introduction into mainstream schools the move has begun to change ACT and SAT tests to meet the Common Core standards.  This means that home schools may be forced to teach according to those same standards.  Here is proof from one of my previous blog posts that this can and will happen:

The Common Core will impact home schools and private schools in at least three ways. First, designers of the expanded statewide longitudinal databases fully intend to collect data about home school and private school students. Second, college admissions standards will be affected: Common Core standards for college readiness will be used by institutions of higher learning to determine whether a student is ready to enroll in a postsecondary course.¹⁰ Third, curriculum and standardized tests are being rewritten to conform to the Common Core.   

Unless we act.  Home schoolers, like grass roots activists are usually at the ready when called to action.  I was fortunate enough to be one of five bloggers that were invited to attend the Glenn Beck event called We Will Not Conform: LIVE Making Common Core History that was held last night in theaters across America.  

We Will Not Conform was put together by the Glenn Beck team and hosted with other big names in politics and national grass roots leaders, who are no strangers to not conforming.  Names  such as Michelle Malkin, Dana Loesch, David Barton and Matt Kibbe of Freedomworks.  The event was held in an effort to taking one of many 'first steps' to raise awareness and ultimately defeat Common Core.  

So what now?  The Glenn Beck folks put together a plan for any activist to initiate and employ in their respective communities.  For the link, click here.  We need to start a discussion with your neighbors and friends and your families for that matter so we can stop the march towards common kids and Common Core.  We need to recognize the strength of our own voices and our own actions.  Listen to Matt Kibbe's words of encouragement for us all when he said, "Parents represent a voting block that is unstoppable."  To be unstoppable, though, we have to get started.  As one of the grass roots leaders said last night, "How to defeat Common Core, get the facts, get organized, show up."