Homeschooling's Liberal Judge and Other Piece's of Interest

The news in the Boston Globe was interesting:

Margaret H. Marshall, the first woman chief justice of the state’s highest court and the author of the landmark 2003 decision that made Massachusetts the first state to legalize gay marriage, announced yesterday that she will retire this fall to spend more time with her ailing husband...

But it was an email from a friend about Justice Marshall that made me smile at the complex relations we have as we learn and grow in America. My friend noted that Justice Marshall isn't just the Massachusetts "gay marriage" judge, she's also the Massachusetts "you-can't-do-home-visits-to-homeschooling-families" judge! It is a poignant reminder that no one political party has a monopoly on protecting the rights of homeschoolers, and that friends and allies of freedom can be found everywhere.

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The Indian Express wrote an article about how the "teach 'em and test 'em" methods of Indian schooling are burning their students out and creating a new class of students, "school leavers," and "gappers." Now homeschooling, gap years, and alternative schools are finding more interest and support from Indian parents. Shikshantar: The Peoples' Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, is featured in this article.

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Seth Godin has a great blog entry about the coming demise of higher education. Though predicted decades earlier in work by Paul Goodman, Ivan Illich, and John Holt, among others, the commodification of degrees has become as out of control as the commodification of health care (which Illich also addressed in the seventies in his book Medical Nemesis). In a nutshell, turning education and health into products that must be administered more and more by licensed professionals leads to a cost-spiral that creates further classes and divisions in our society.