Steffenhagen, Janet. (2004, April 22). Religious materials banned for B.C. home schooling. Vancouver Sun. Retrieved 4/23/04 online (Article no longer available).  (This is not research. Clearly explain facts that state-run tax-funded school at home programs will not tolerate parents choosing and purchasing “religious” materials with tax money for educating their children and many parents who use these programs are realizing that they have invited government control into the education of their children that they wish they had not invited. “Home-schooling parents are fuming after the B.C. Education Ministry ordered thousands of them to stop using faith-based materials — or any other “unofficial” resource — when teaching their children at home. Many parents, including some who aren’t religious, say they will cut their ties with the school system rather than obey the directive. “They can’t tell me what to do in my own home,” said Pamela Nagle, whose son is home-schooled but attends a Langley school one day a week. ….. Nagle is one of many home-schooling parents lured into the public school system in recent years through an electronic distance-education program. After starting as a pilot project with 2,200 kids, the program ballooned to 6,800. ….. To encourage the electronic programs, the ministry boosted its per-pupil funding of distance-education students in public schools to the same level as regular students ($5,408 in 2003-04). Cash-hungry districts responded by aggressively courting home-schooling families. ….. “I’m definitely not going back and I don’t know anyone who is,” said Anita Kosovic, who has two children in U-Connect. Although her family isn’t religious, she said she doesn’t want to be held to B.C.-approved resources, some of which she says are awful. “I don’t think anyone should be able to tell me what I can do in my own home and that’s what they’re telling us.””) (Descriptors: home education, cooperation, public school, philosophy, politics, policy)

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