Out of my limited income, I have to choose what is most important and leave the rest—otherwise I will go bankrupt, sooner or later. Out of our limited tax funds, the school system already makes up 60 percent of the budget ["Shortchanging Ourselves" by Jesse Fox Mayshark, Vol. 8, No. 22]. Maybe the question should not be "Why won't Knox Countians pay for better schools" (I find our local school excellent as it is) but rather, "How can we make the most of our school budget?"

Metro Pulse could play a role in this by interviewing parents from school systems across the state and finding out what works best (or worst) for them. Or, even farther afield, you could interview people who went to school overseas and find out what schools are like elsewhere. A former coworker of mine—a Jewish girl from Florida—has lived for some 20 years now in Frankfurt, Germany, where her son is about 10 years old and attends their public school system. I was interested to read in her e-mail that their schools only run from 8am-1pm (unless a teacher is absent; in that case they let school out early, they do not have a budget for substitute teachers). Their "gymnasium" (equivalent of our high school) had only $500 for building repairs allotted from public funds each year. Parents had to come in and supply the rest—sweat equity. Note that this Frankfurt school teaches immigrants from some 20 countries, most of them refugees from war or poverty—and they are all doing quite well on a shoestring, thank you. Over there, tax money goes generously into public health and welfare programs, but not so much into the educational frills that we take for granted.

No, I wouldn't want to adopt their system, but I do think we have a lot of strong prejudices at work about how schools are "supposed to be." For example, last year my daughter brought home a "science fair" project that met every definition of homeschooling. Parents were to buy a "triptych" cardboard foldout display; then supply and in most cases supervise their children while doing various science projects. Children whose parents are seriously ill or otherwise absent in some sort of family crisis would be—well, out of luck. All the same, they were all graded as though there were a Soccer Mom with Minivan and Disposable Income handy to fetch the goodies.

All those Soccer Moms are a major reason why I am so satisfied with my local school, though. There is enormous, capable parent involvement, and that helps everyone.

Homeschooling, though, is one of the most economical forms of education available, yet we have laws that discourage homeschooling and make it inaccessible to many who could benefit with a little bit of school system support. If our number of homeschoolers went up (education with the lowest teacher:child ratio), it would relieve some of the overcrowding in our schools while providing many children with economical, flexible, effective education.

There are three other reasons to question the necessity for cooping as many citizens as possible into classrooms:

(1) Tornadoes have flattened schools, most of them out of session when demolished. If the weather continues to be as weird as it has been this year, children in cinderblock buildings are at risk—do any of them have storm cellars? I don't think so.

(2) School violence. What happened in Oregon, Kentucky, Mississippi, and elsewhere can just as easily happen here. I understand some of our schools have had drive-by shootings also. How can parents be required to send their children to schools where they are likely to be shot?

(3) Epidemics. Schools can spread infections throughout a community, and families with a sick parent or grandparent—someone with cancer, for example, and compromised immune system—are very vulnerable. Epidemiologists have speculated that we are about due for another influenza epidemic like the one that hit following WWI, the one that the Calvert Homeschool curriculum was designed to work around.

Why don't we have effective homeschooling plans that make it easy for any willing parent to participate? There are probably other ways to reduce costs while obtaining maximum benefit. We should be looking for them. The most costly education is not necessarily the best one—look at Washington, D.C.

Mary BenAmi
Knoxville