EDUCATION

I Was a Public School Teacher and Now I Homeschool My Own Kids

These are the parts of public education I was glad to leave behind

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By all measures, I should be a public school success story. After 12 years of public education, I attended a prestigious, private liberal arts college and then went on to earn my Masters in Teaching. I returned to public school as a teacher, teaching for a decade at three different grade levels.

I taught elementary-aged children in a reasonably well-funded school district. Parents in our small university town were largely involved and supportive. Our schools were clean and bright. There were many days that I loved my job and that I was proud of the work we were doing as a school community. Even so, I didn’t want to send my children there.

Although I haven’t seen statistics about the number of public school teachers who turn to homeschooling for their own families, I can tell you that I run into former teachers frequently in the homeschooling community. Of course, not all former teachers who homeschool do so because of concerns about the state of public education. Many of us simply love children and want to spend as much time as possible with our own. And yet, I think there is something to learn from a population that dedicated our early…