I gotta agree that that was in no way about suppressing anyone's rights except from the slanted spin of the story itself. And if the kids' achievement isn't being tested and measured or if there's even a slight suspicion that any abuse might be occurring, that's enough cause for concern in my book.

The 7 kids at different grade levels in a class doesn't worry me very much. I've taught as many as 38 kids in a class at three different grade levels. It can be done fairly easily, as anyone who knows the history of education in this country (one-room schoolhouses) realizes. But good home schoolers--and in this Bible belt part of the country they're everywhere--allow their kids to be tested so their achievement can be measured. That's the part that sounds awfully questionable to me. We had two families in our last neighborhood. Both fundamentally religious types. One had 12 kids and the other had 10. Both had home-schooling mothers, and the kids did amazingly well. Scored way above grade level, in fact, on the tests they periodically took.

Somehow, Pissy, I rather doubt you've ever visited any schools. If you had, you wouldn't be so fast to throw out the word "Communist."