A Site for Home Schoolers

Hi everyone, and welcome!  My wife and I have schooled our children at home for about 10 years, and Scotto's Place has grown out of this journey. We exist here on the Web to prvide encouragement and resources for home schools.

Check out the free stuff on my Homeschool Resources page, and have a look at our online store. (Links to the right.)

May God bless your home schooling efforts!

Scotto


Thought for the Week

Child Rights Forces Align Against Us!

Did you hear about the study that was released in England this month, a report on home education in that nation? The report states that the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) demands that the views of children be given due weight, and therefore the government should have right of access to the home, the right to interview homeschooled children alone, and the right to ensure that curriculum is "sufficiently broad and balanced and relevant" within the context of home education. On June 11, this report was accepted in full by the British Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. It is now only a matter of time before legislation is introduced and voted on by the British Parliament.

Could this ever happen in the United States? There are people working hard to make it so. Madeline Albright signed the U.N. Treaty for the United States back in 1995, but it has yet to be ratified by 2/3 vote in our Senate. Now there are possibly 60+ votes for it, and the pressure is mounting on the U.S. from both outside and inside our borders. There are only 2 nations that have not ratified the treaty - the other is Somalia, which has no functioning government. The U.S. is the only civilized nation still holding out against the world leaders at the U.N.

Here is some alarming information I recieved from ParentalRights.org. On June 1 and 2, Georgetown University Law School hosted a two-day symposium entitled “The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC): Why It Is Time to Ratify.” This well-funded conference was held to organize a new coalition effort by American internationalists to seek ratification of the UN child’s rights treaty.

It is important to remember that under our Constitution, a treaty with a foreign nation - once ratified by the Senate - becomes supreme over any state or local law, and must be enforced by our federal courts and laws. Currently, education laws are handled at state and local levels. Ratification of the CRC would move oversight of all matters concerning children, including education, to the Federal level, and demand that the U.S. follow the dictates of the CRC. We only need to look at what just happened in Great Britain to see where the CRC leads regarding home education: full government oversight.

One sure protection against the CRC is to pass a Constitutional Amendment which clearly states that parents have a fundamental right to direct their children's upbringing and education. Once such language is in our Constitution, foreign treaties such as the CRC would not be able to empower governments to gain control of our children. Such an amendment has already been proposed in the House of Representatives, and currently has 95 co-sponsors.

To learn more, and to support the efforts to defeat the CRC, please visit ParentalRights.org today!



Going to Homeschool Conventions in 2009!!

I am very excited to announce that Scotto's Place will have a vendor booth at the following events in 2009! We will have our first 2 Essential Computer Skills workbooks for sale.

We hope to meet some of you at these events!

Scotto



Link to prior Thoughts of the Week

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