Charter Schools

An independent studies program. They aren't completely common or widely available yet but it is definitely worth looking into. It's a homeschool program for middle schoolers and highschoolers that allow them to still graduate with a high school diploma. Right now I cover my US History credit through a sheet of 40 short essay questions, have a basic english curriculum in which I will be doing various projects on various books mostly to do with American Literature, and possibly a few essays, I also have a series of vocab questions to go through to prepare me for the SAT, any book I read in my free time I can count down as long as I do a small report on it, I go in to the public school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to cover my language credit and take a french class with the local public school kids. I audit a math class which basically means I follow the precalc curriculum at the local public school without being required to attend those long tedious lectures (I'm pretty good when it comes to math, those lectures are just a waste of time) but still coming in for the tests. Gym and art credits you may ask? I dance and then volunteer for theatre projects. Any other conventions I attend such as a young Writer's convention that I attended not far back, I can log too. My transcript won't appear as a normal highschool transcript and I will have to jump through some extra hoops when applying to colleges. Next year, rather than take classes through the highschool, I will very likely take my classes through a community college nearby. This is a perfect fit for me. Under my current condition I have no problem researching and doing work. I mainly have a problem going into school and have both social and academic expectations of me on a daily basis. But I can go into the Charter center and use those materials there almost as a study hall. I'm accountable to them so I don't just sit at home and play video games every day without ever working on my graduation requirements. But yeah. I'm pretty smart...looking into becoming an author. But the highschool attendence life just never worked for me. We are invited to the prom and theatre productions down at the local public school, but I doubt I'll do either.

The magic of charter schools. I just happened to be surprised they haven't been brought up yet. It's that homeschool alternative without the smock dress conservative stereotype. I mean...my Mom isn't really involved in teaching me at all. I just research and teach myself. I do wish I had this alternative earlier on.

Articles about Charter Schools

The Charter School Wars - Why Public Schools Hate Charter Schools by Joel Turtel
Charter schools embarrass local public schools because they often do a better job educating children, for less money.
2008.Jul.10