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My name is Camille Rodgers and I am the mother of seven children.  My oldest is in college.  I have been around and through the public school scene for a long time-some 16-plus years.  Until two years ago we lived in Florida where there was an array of school choice options for my children’s education.  I was so excited when my children were able to attend a private school through a corporate-sponsored scholarship program.  It was such a blessing! The education my children were receiving was far and away superior to anything my children had experienced in the public school realm.

My husband took a job offer in North Carolina and two years ago we moved here.  I began searching for the options available to North Carolinian school-aged children and was horrified at the absence of choices.  Not only are there no scholarship opportunities nor vouchers for poorly performing schools, but even the magnet and charter schools were few and far between.  We live in a rural area, and our only options are the public school or homeschooling.  That’s all I can find.  

I wrote the elected officials for my area and asked for their assistance.  They essentially told me I didn’t have any options, and they weren’t interested in making any available.  They told me they fully supported the public school system and would only be interested in promoting that agenda.  I guess the education unions have deep pockets around here.

I went to enroll my elementary-aged children into the public school system here.  I met with the principal and asked specific questions in regards to why the school’s math scores were going down and reading scores were remaining flat on the North Carolina School Report Card.  She acted floored and said she didn’t know anything about such a report card.  When I showed her the information I had printed off the Internet, she said her school’s grades were going down because they had been exceptionally high and they were just leveling off.  I determined that was a bunch of hogwash (I’m from the South, but I’m not stupid). 

I also asked specifically about the curriculum for reading, as I was going to have a child entering kindergarten and it has been my experience that if children are not taught to read through the use of phonics then they don’t learn to spell.  She explained they used an approach that didn’t include phonics.  (In Florida it was called “whole language” but that is not the wording she used.)  

After that meeting I went home and explained to my husband I just could not in good conscience send our kids to that school.  When I first drove up to the building it reminded me of the elementary school I had attended in Florida, with the same overall architecture design and layout.  The school in Florida that I had attended has been added on to, remodeled, etc.  The private school my children attended was brand-new when they started attending–they were there the first & second year in that building so it was much nicer than most of the public schools in the area.  It was certainly way beyond what the school here in NC offered–it was run down, it didn’t look like it had had anything done to it other than layers and layers of paint.  I don’t think every school has to be state-of-the-art, but there were window air conditioning units in the roll-out-type windows and in several of them I noticed mold growing behind the Styrofoam in place behind the window units. The paint was peeling and it just looked totally outdated! 

But what was going on inside the school was of greatest concern to me.  The curriculum that was used in the private school was aggressive in teaching children to follow the rules in grammar and spelling so children knew why the words were spelled the way they were. I also found much smaller classrooms, much more teachable time because discipline issues were few and far between, and I felt valued as a parent and an important part of my kids’ life. The public school teachers had a tendency to say they wanted parental involvement but when you actually were involved they made it a point to try and keep you in the dark or let you know they were the professionals and you were nothing more than a mother. I remember my oldest son saying he felt slighted because he didn’t receive a better education, when my son in private school in the 6th grade was studying something he was taught in the 10th grade.

So for the two years we have been here I have homeschooled most of our children. Our oldest is in college.  Our next oldest, a high school freshman, does attend the local public school but I am not happy about it.  I am homeschooling our kindergartener, along with our fourth, third and first grader.  Our 2-year-old has started learning the alphabet.  

It would seem to me that a state which is looking to be a progressive member of the United States of America would be interested in and actively looking into all of the possibilities for education excellence, not just continuing to throw money at a system that has proven to be a failure!  As we watch the news and see the dilemma Wake County is facing, I am left wondering: why not turn the state funds over to the parents?  There is no legislation that requires the state to spend education funds ONLY on state schools-that’s a façade the unions would have us believe.  The funds are collected for the education of North Carolinian children.  That doesn’t limit it to just public schools.  If they were really concerned about educating North Carolinian children to be the best and brightest they can be, then they would be handing out money left and right to parents who are ultimately responsible for and the best judges of what is the BEST education for their individual child!  Parents need to be given the ability to choose what is best for their children.  It is a dictatorship that rips control out of the parent’s hands and hands it off to some union that is only interested in promoting their own agenda!

I believe Governor Bush has gone out of his way to make a way for choices as best he can.  I, on the other hand, am looking for total choice!  My tax dollars are being allocated for my child’s education and I feel my children have every right to every penny that is allocated for them.  As the parent, I should be allowed to channel that money to what is going to be THE MOST beneficial option for my individual child.  I do not believe the state has the right to limit my children only to public school. 

I wrote one congressman and explained that my children were school-aged now, and I didn’t have 20 years for them to try one thing and then another before they found what still didn’t work.  I must make choices for my children today; I’m losing ground every day.  It’s amazing to me that a teenage girl can make the choice to abort a baby without parental notification but a parent doesn’t have the ability to choose which school will garner their child the best education and cause them to grow up and be the best they can be.  It’s a shame!

Camille Rodgers can be reached at rainbowbutterflies at yahoo dot com.