A friend used this term recently: Michael Jordan Education. He used it to describe Michael Jordan’s game strategy of holding off until the last quarter to give it his all, perform at his peak, and make an impact. Why squander valuable energy in the first quarter when the last quarter is where games are won or lost?..

"Let me get this straight. You see the same people every day for 13 years by going to school here?" (Long pause) "Yes..." How many of you have had this conversation?!?

So you’re on the homeschool train, chugging along and enjoying life when someone asks you, “Which camp are you in when it comes to standardized testing?” Now, you’re doing the homeschool thing in the first place, so you’re probably a bit of a rebel. You may be the kind of person who says, “What can standardized testing tell me that I don’t already know?” Or perhaps it’s more like, “Standardized testing is a poor tool to evaluate my child, along with 50 million others. I pulled him out of school to avoid this kind of mass evaluation.” 

So why should I even consider putting my child through standardized tests? 

Homeschoolers in Virginia experienced a bit of a setback this week when Virginia's Senate Education and Health Committee rejected a bill that would allow homeschoolers to participate in public school sports and other activities. Dubbed the "Tim Tebow" bill due to the namesake's participation in high school sports as a homeschooler, this shift in policy brings some interesting sources of conflict to light from homeschool critics...

Always sad to hear how America is continuing to fail in math and science, but still, this is a pretty bleak outlook, state by state. What will it take to get us back on top? It's not going to be NCLB or Common Core State Standards. Homeschool science allows that curiosity to grow, unfettered by a timetable, and completely tailored to your child's interests. Engineering? Computer programming? Climate change? Sure, take some time and explore! Homeschooling provides an environment rich with freedom that's hard to find elsewhere...

Teenagers today are moody, bipolar, full of angst, disrespectful, and lack any sort of impulse control, from binge eating and drinking to watching TV when they feel like it instead of preparing for a life-changing test. 

Or are they?

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, authors of NurtureShock, point out that all the above characteristics that we typically associate with adolescence are in fact also symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation. Interesting. That certainly might explain why an apparent switch is flipped once teens enter high school. Suddenly, they become mere shadows of what they were earlier, with no explanation. Some striking discoveries of these authors included the following:

• One hour less of sleep pulls students back two grades (ie. a sleepy sixth grader will perform on par with a fourth grader).
• Catching up on sleep on the weekends isn't the answer. One hour of "weekend catchup" will cause a student to perform 7 points poorer on IQ tests.
• Tired people can't access long-term goals so impulse control is lessened in times of sleep deprivation.
• Odds of obesity go up 80% for each hour of lost sleep.

Further, public schools are "forced" to start their school days earlier than is necessary for high school kids due to bus schedules, sports practice, and commuting teachers. However, data presented in NurtureShock indicates that bumping back start times for schools have enormous gains for students: fewer car accidents, increased levels of motivation, fewer instances of depression, and increased academic performance.

With homeschooling, parents can set the start time for their children based on what's best for their children, not what's best for the school. Here's another argument for why homeschooling just... works!

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