Parents should protect their children -- in Littleton, Colorado in Los Angeles, California or in Limestone, Maine.

To provide and protect, those are my jobs as a parent. When there is a dangerous place which threatens my child, it is NOT my primary responsibility to change the dangerous place. My FIRST responsibility is to protect my child. When I'm certain my child is safe, then I might choose to go back and mitigate the danger. Or, I might choose to just keep my child away from that place. Schools are becoming more and more the dangerous place.

Homeschooling can offer safety for families. Before the bomb threats which now plague high schools, before the mass murders in the high school library, before the shooting spree by some deranged adult who visited the school playground during recess, parents began homeschooling. What do the homeschooling parents know that the rest of us are discovering? Homeschooling works.

Homeschooling works on the parent's terms, not some stranger's terms. When a parent decides to keep their child home, the parent is in charge of the child's education. Not the system, not the peers, not the who-knows-what morals of some classroom malcontent. Whether the children are 5 years old or 17 years old, homeschooling can prepare them for adulthood, for college, for careers, and for life. Safely.

There was a time recently when we were appalled at the thought of even a fist fight in the classroom. Then to have teachers physically attacked by students, how could such a thing happen? The stakes kept getting higher. Street drugs in schools was a terrible thought, but what next ? A junior high student bringing a gun to school ? Unthinkable! Did I really hear the news correctly, was it about a student killing his classmates in the school ? Do you mean to tell me it happened again? And again? And again? And now it's gone even farther, with bombs of mass destruction being brought in to the schools. This is all heading in the wrong direction. Do I really want my children there? What choice do I have? Homeschooling.

Homeschooling looks better all the time. There are no "peer pushers" offering drugs to my children in our homeschool. There are no threats of rape in my homeschool. There are no armed police in the hallways of my homeschool. There are no metal detectors at the entrance to my homeschool. And none of the students come to their classroom armed with guns in my homeschool.

Detractors try to site socialization as a down side to homeschooling. Really? Think that through and you'll soon discover the myths about school-based socialization. By not being in school with the other kids, they say, homeschoolers will miss out on so much. Isn't that the point!

When children spend more waking hours of the day with their peers than with their parents, they acquire the morals and values of their peers. The peers become their confidants, the peers become their moral compass, the peers become their problem-solvers. Instead of bonding with the parents, the children are banding with their peers. The consequences are becoming more bizarre and more risky year after year. Parents need to take charge again. And they are, in ever-increasing numbers.

When we began homeschooling our children in 1984, there were 25 families in our little state who homeschooled. Today there are over 5,000 families here who homeschool. When the Auburn, Maine based Homeschool Associates began in 1988, it served 35 local families, and today it serves over 70,000 families nationwide. Parents are no longer helpless. Homeschool support groups are widespread, workshops and seminars are readily available, used textbook stores are open every business day to serve homeschoolers.

Parents have a choice. They need to know about the homeschooling choice. Homeschooling works. Can it work for you? Shouldn't it be considered ? I never thought I'd be reflecting on the safety issue as a reason to homeschool, but it looks like we've come to that. I feel deeply sorry for children who are threatened and bullied and tormented every school day. There is hope, however, in the under-used, legal, and effective schooling available for any family to try: homeschooling.