Of Expos and Carnivals

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is a well known resource in the home schooll community. Moreover they have a strong presence in the on-line community as well. Among other things they host an al on line home school convention presented from a Christian persspective each year called The Old School House Expo. The Expo will be held this May from the 16th to the twentieth. May is a long time away, and as my loyal readers know I am a professional procrastinator (A proprocrastinator), so why I am talking about it so early? Because I am a frugal procrastinator. And in my case the frugal comes before the procrastination.

All that to say is that there is an early bird special that ends very soon. How soon? less than 48 hours from now. Tickets are now available at $19.50. But only until Wed Feb 9th at 11:59 p.m. (ET). At Midnight the price increases to $29.00 through the 26th of this month. On Sunday February 27th the full rate of $39.99 goes into effect.

The speakers for this years event seem to me to be an extraordinary group. They are Susan Wise Bauer , Janice Campbell, Dr. Brian Ray, Diane Craft (whose idea we talk about in this post and video), Kim Kautzer, Diana Waring, Malia Russell, Carol Barnier, Maggie Hogan and Tyler Hogan, Dari Mullins, Carol Topp, Jim Weiss, Norm Wakefield, Mary Jo Tate, Terri Johnson, Molly Green, and Deborah Wuehler. There will also be a myriad of vendor workshops for a c list of all workshops click here.

Speaking of vendors, what home schoool convention would be complete w/o a Vendor Hall? The Old School House Expo has a vast virtual vendor (vliteration can be very vexing) hall. Click here to check it out.

Did you ever take one of those job aptitue tests in school? I am pretty sure that my 1st sourt election was Court Jester, which was just a bit ahead of Infomercial announcer. With that in mind, I must get back to the Expo pitch and say:

"But, Wait! There's more."

If you buy a ticket in the next 2 days will receive virtual goodie bags valued at > $200.00. Plus each ticket includes an MP3 download of the entire convention. They call this neat little doohickey: The Expo to Go.

Hey do you hear that? I think I hear my alter ego Crazy Dave of Crazy Dave's giveaways coming over here. Yep I would recognize his ruggedly handsome silhouette anywhere. He tells me that the fine people at TOS are making available a copy of The Expo to Go from the October 2010 conference available to one of our readers.

Here is how you can enter to win it. leave a comment on this post. You can earn another entry by going to the event's facebook page and clicking that you like it. You will have to return to this post and leave a comment saying you had done so. You can win an additional entry by liking my facebook page and telling me so. If you already are a liker of either page just leave that in your comment.

You can enter through the end of the month and I will announce the winner sometime in the first week of March.

Click here to find out more information on the conference and to get in on the early bird rate.



The Carnival of Homeschooling is being held this week @ Bugs, Knights and Turkeys in the Yard. Check out the "keeping it simple" edition which includes my post on SB 136.

Volkswagen Commercial: The Force

Haven't got into the 6 word Saturday swing yet this year. I usually don't steal post ideas from my 9 year olds blog but this was too good to pass up.

My 6:

This is the best commercial ever!










If this is not the six words you seek click here.

If we ain't broke don't fix it.

I am a sign reader. I especially like reading signboards over local schools. The ones that say things like Book Fair Tuesday through Thursday, or Congratulations to our students who were just in the state robotics tournament. Recently these signs have been more about money than merriment. Signs like Illinois owes our district 10.6 million dollars.


Yes, wherever I am in this great state of mine, I see signs outside schools telling passersby that they can't do the job educating their students because the state ain't showing them the money. I often joke with friends and family that I should put a sign outside our home/school that the state of Illinois doesn't owe our school any money.


So the fact that our state is broke and can't afford to educate the students they now have in the public system should be a problem that our lawmakers in Springfield to sink their teeth into. Instead one state senator , Ed Maloney (D-Chicago) is taking a different approach. He is trying to cost the state more money.

Maloney introduced SB 136 on 1/27/2011. The gist of the bill is to have all non public schoolers register annually with the Illinois Board of Education. Illinois law currently doesn't mandate any
registration annual or otherwise.

Home Educators in Illinois are considered private schools and pending this legislation, Illinois is one of the least restricted states in the country to home school. Last year my local state representative came by for a visit and wanted to know how he could help me. I told him that Illinois was one of the least restricted states for home schooling. I told him that if he wanted to keep me happy he should keep Illinois that way (Guess who's getting a phone call tomorrow?).

In Illinois my taxes go to public education. I am fine with that. On top of that I pay for all the materials and other learning (co-operatives, lessons etc.) for my students out of my own pocket. Home school families aren't the only ones, parents who send their children to private schools have to pay tuition on top of the taxes they pay for public education. I imagine that most private schoolers don't mind paying double as long as they have the freedom to educate their children the way they see fit.

I said earlier that State Senator's Maloney is trying to cost the state more money. What I meant by that is that overseeing the annual registration of all the privately educated children in Illinois is going to cost the state money. Money, they currently don't have. Money that could be going to pay all the school districts what they owe them. Money that could be used to hire more teachers, fund more programs and decrease class sizes.



But instead of using tax dollars for the job of educating the public, it seems that Sen. Maloney would like some of our tax money to regulating the private and that frankly is not a sign I'd like to see.



Note: I am certainly not the only one blogging about this issue. Click here, here or here for more views.

To return to the carnival of homeschooling click here.

Obligatory Blizzard Post

Yes it snowed a lot and yes I took pictures and videos; it's what I do. No, I didn't see my shadow. I haven't even seen Green Hornet yet.

Sledding

Sled Ride at Grandma's 1
Originally uploaded by Liz & Wally

Went sledding today. Not nearly as cute as the kid pictured here. But still a lot of fun.