by Lisa Fagan

Created on: January 18, 2011

I am not a parent. But when I belonged to the local YMCA three years ago to go swimming, a few women came in with their kids practically every day at one o'clock during the Open Swim period. At first, I wondered why these kids weren't in school. But after talking to these two women, I learned that they were homeschooling their kids.

One of them women, along with her husband, made the decision to homeschool their kids before they had them. She didn't like the school district that they live in. Her neighbor's seven-year-old daughter hit a teacher with her desk. The teachers spend more time on discipline than teaching. Another woman couldn't afford the tuition at a private school.

The decision to homeschool is not easy, but I have mixed feelings about this. While I do agree that there's way too much violence and drug use in the schools today, children need to learn from a fully trained and qualified teacher, and that's the bottom line. Unless they are certified teachers themselves, no parent can do the same job as a schoolteacher. What if that child has learning problems and needs special help? What if he or she doesn't understand what the teacher is saying? Besides teachers, there are psychologists and other trained professionals that parents can turn to if their child has any problems in school. Teachers also keep up with the latest trends in teaching as well.

Here in Philadelphia, several Catholic schools have shut down over the last several years due to rising costs, high tuition, and the lack of teaching nuns. These schools were located in blue collar low-income communities, and the population has shifted to the more upper middle class and wealthier suburbs. Two of these closed schools, including the one where my two brothers and my sister went to, have been converted into public schools. A lot of parents can't afford to send their kids to either a Catholic or private school. Therefore they decide to homeschool their kids.

Yes, there's going to be bullies, drugs, violence, and peer pressure in the schools. But parents can't shelter them forever. They have to learn how to cope with the pressures and demands of the outside world. I believe that parents should do everything they possibly can to see that their children go to school and learn from a qualified teacher before they decide if they want to homeschool them. And if they do, then I respect that. But let's leave the education of our kids to the professionals.

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