Homeschooling families persist in hard times

Andrea Farrier sits at her kitchen table with her children Rachel, 8, left, Rebecca, 4, center, and Sarah, 2, right, as they do schoolwork in their home, Friday, Feb. 20, 2009, in Kalona, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

By DAVID CRARY

AP National Writer

When hard times reached the Schneider household in La Pine, Oregon, the longtime stay-at-home mom took action — getting a job at Subway to offset a drop in her husband's earnings.

What she didn't do was also notable: She didn't stop homeschooling her three teenage children.
Colleen Schneider works evenings so she's home for her favored morning teaching hours. The family scrimps — more frozen pizza, less eating out. But an inflexible 9-to-5 job that would force her to quit homeschooling was not an option.

"I would fight tooth and nail to homeschool," said Schneider, 47, a devout Roman Catholic who wants to convey her values to her children. "I'm making it work because it's my absolute priority."

Other families across the country are making similar decisions — college-age children chipping in with their earnings, laid-off fathers sharing teaching duties, mothers taking part-time jobs — with the goal of continuing to homeschool in the face of economic setbacks.

Before the recession, the ranks of homeschool students had been growing by an estimated 8 percent annually; the latest federal figures, from 2007, calculate the total at about 1.5 million.

'We're going to see continued growth," said Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute in Salem, Oregon. "The reasons parents home-educate are not passing, faddish things."

Christopher Klicka of Warrenton, Va., senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association and co-teacher along with his wife of seven homeschooled children, says hard times enhance homeschooling's appeal as private school tuition becomes unaffordable and some public schools contemplate cutbacks.

"People are looking to homeschooling as an alternative more now in light of economic circumstances," he said, citing its low cost and potential for strengthening family bonds.

At Allendale Academy in Clearwater, Fla., which provides resources for homeschoolers, enrollment has risen 50 percent over the past two years to about 900 students as families desert private schools, says academy director Patricia Carter.

"Often one parent has been laid off," she said. "That makes private school tuition impossible, and they don't want to send their kids back to public school."

Her academy charges $65 per year to support students through 8th grade, $95 for high school students, compared to private school tuitions often running many thousands of dollars per year.
For frugal families, homeschooling can be a good fit. Used academic material is available at low cost; free research resources are on tap on the Internet and at libraries.

Michael Marcucci, of Middlebury, Conn., is president of the Connecticut Homeschool Network, which has about 1,500 member families — including 34 who signed up in January alone.

"During difficult times, people tend to go back to basics," Marcucci said. "I know a family with five children — the father's been out of work 18 months and they're still homeschooling."

His own family, with three homeschooled children, got a taste of that challenge last year when Marcucci, a banker, was out of work for six months. His wife continued homeschooling, rather than seek a job, and he supplemented his job-hunting with teaching stints of his own.

"It was a chance to reconnect with family, to get to know your children in a different way," he said. "I was excited about the opportunity to teach Greek history, to help out with algebra."

Andrea Farrier, a mother of three girls from Kalona, Iowa, does double-duty — homeschooling her daughters and working part-time for her school district as a supervisory teacher for 23 other homeschool families. Several are struggling financially — in some cases because of a father's layoff — but abandoning homeschooling so the mother can find a job is not their response, Farrier said.

"These families are already sacrificing — when times get tough, there's no belt left to tighten," she said. "These are families who homeschool because public education wouldn't serve the needs of their children — it's the last thing they'll give up."

Among Farrier's colleagues — both as a homeschooling mom and as a part-time teacher — is Crystal Gingerich, 44, of Kinross, Iowa.

Her husband, Joe, used to be a self-employed electrician, but business dwindled and he's now a truck driver whose routes across the Midwest keep him away from home except on weekends. That leaves her single-handedly running the household on weekdays, and teaching her four children.

In Michigan, among the states hardest hit by recession, April Morris, 44, of Auburn Hills remains committed to homeschooling even though she's now working full-time at Target — a job she started after her husband was laid off from his computer job.

The three oldest Morris children have moved on to college, but 13-year-old Ben continues to homeschool, getting help from his father and older siblings as well as his mother, who works evenings and has Thursdays off to maximize her teaching availability.

In Southfield, Mich., mother of eight Abbey Waterman says she's able to continue homeschooling her four youngest children thanks in large part to support from the four oldest, who've been willing to chip in with earnings from caddying, guitar playing and tutoring.

So far, her husband, Kevin, has been steadily employed with a financial printing company, but the family takes nothing for granted.

"His company laid off two entire departments — so we're not sure he'll be laid off or not," Waterman said. "If he was, my college-age kids offered to get jobs so we could continue what we're doing."

Shelly Mabe, a coordinator for a group of 250 Christian homeschooling families in Michigan's Macomb County, said she hasn't heard of any of them giving up homeschooling — but some have moved to other states where laid-off fathers had better job prospects.

In La Pine, Oregon, Schneider is still trying to adjust to the challenges that arose when a booming local real estate market collapsed and her husband's earnings in drywall work plummeted.

Schneider hopes to leave Subway soon to work as a caregiver for the elderly, but she's intent on continuing to homeschool.

"I've seen too much good come out of it to change now," she said.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Ex-NBA star gears up for Detroit's mayoral race

Mayoral candidate Dave Bing speaks to supporters at a primary election night rally in Detroit, Wednesday Feb. 25, 2009. Voters were deciding Tuesday in the special, nonpartisan election, which two of 15 candidates will advance to a May 5 runoff to replace the former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, sent to jail last year. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

By COREY WILLIAMS

Associated Press Writer

DETROIT (AP) — Dave Bing made a smooth transition from basketball great to manufacturer and auto supplier. He is looking for a similarly uncomplicated path to becoming Detroit mayor.

With a little more than two months to go before a May 5 runoff for the city's highest elected office, the 65-year-old NBA legend and businessman said he'll work on his game plan as he goes up against incumbent Ken Cockrel Jr.

Despite finishing first with 26,327 votes, or 29 percent, in Tuesday's special nonpartisan mayoral primary, "a lot of work has got to be done," Bing told The Associated Press in an interview.

Cockrel, a former city council president whose roots stretch deep into Detroit's contentious political soil, came in second with 24,665 votes, or 27 percent. Cockrel and Bing, both Democrats, beat out 13 other candidates seeking to complete ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's second term.

Cockrel has had five months of on-the-job training after moving up to the mayor's office from his council post with Kilpatrick's resignation in September. He's been tasked with correcting a budget deficit that could approach $300 million, rampant home foreclosures and unchecked unemployment.

Bing knows that if he is elected, the city will look to him for solutions to the same problems. Part of his plan to save money could include consolidating or axing some city departments.

"It's not an easy decision," said Bing, who was responsible for about 500 employees as founder and chair of The Bing Group.

"Whether it's business or whether it's politics, you do it with empathy more than anything else," Bing said of layoffs. "But on the other hand, I think you've got to be straight with people. People can understand even though they may not agree with you."

Cockrel has proposed 10-percent pay cuts to city workers and minimal layoffs as part of his plan to reduce the deficit. Bing said Cockrel has taken too long to take action. He expects to make decisions on such issues within 30 to 90 days, if elected.

"We are where we are because nobody was willing to make the hard choices," Bing said. "Are you better off trying to find the cancer, cut it out and save the patient, or do you just let the patient do a slow death? I would prefer to cut the cancer out."

While the city's fiscal troubles did not begin with Kilpatrick and partly can be blamed on the swooning auto industry and national economic malaise, the problems deepened during the Democrat's six-plus years as mayor.

Kilpatrick was released early this month after serving 99 days in jail. He pleaded guilty in September to obstruction of justice and no contest to assault. He admitted he lied during a civil trial to cover up an affair with his chief of staff, with whom he exchanged sexually explicit text messages.

Cockrel has said Bing's high-profile basketball and business background does not intimidate him. Cockrel has been elected three times to the city council. His late father, Kenneth Cockrel Sr., was a longtime city activist and served on the council.

Bing spent 12 seasons in the NBA after the Detroit Pistons drafted him second overall in 1966 out of Syracuse University. He played nine seasons in Detroit before being traded. He founded Bing Steel in 1980 and was elected to basketball's Hall of Fame in 1990.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Taj Mahal to be inducted into Blues Hall of Fame

In this July 23, 2005 file photo, Henry St. Claire Fredericks, known as Taj Mahal, performs on stage during his concert at the Blue Balls Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Keystone, Sigi Tischler, file)

By JAKE COYLE

AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Taj Mahal, the blues legend whose vibrant, worldly music encompassed African-rooted sounds of all kinds, will be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Mahal, born Henry St. Clair Fredericks, has been selected along with New Orleans soul singer Irma Thomas, Chicago bluesman Son Seals and ragtime guitar player Rev. Gary Davis to join the Blues Hall in Memphis, Tenn. They will be inducted in a ceremony on May 6, which will be followed the day after by the Blues Foundation's 30th annual Blues Music Awards.

"I'm very happy that a group of my peers think it's something I deserve after the years I've put into the music," said Mahal, 66, speaking by phone from the San Francisco Bay area.

California is one place Mahal has spent a lot of time, though the nearly nomadic singer-guitarist noted: "I pretty much move around wherever I like."

The same could be said of Mahal's music, which has for four decades dug deeply into sounds of many places, particularly Africa, the Caribbean and Hawaii.

"He was into globalization long before the rest of us," said Jay Sieleman, executive director of the Blues Foundation.

Mahal was raised in Springfield, Mass. His mother was a schoolteacher from South Carolina and his father, of Caribbean roots, was a jazz pianist. Later, his stepfather came from Jamaica.

"As a youngster, my parents made me aware that all that was from the African Diaspora belonged to me," said Mahal. "So I came in with Caribbean music, African music, Latin music, gospel music and blues."

Mahal, a two-time Grammy winner, in 1968 released his self-titled debut, which included contributions from Ry Cooder, an early collaborator. It included the great "Leaving Trunk" (in which he sings "I ain't never seen no whiskey, but the blues made me sloppy drunk"). One of his most famous tunes is "She Caught the Katy (And Left Me a Mule to Ride)," which ended up in the 1980 film "The Blues Brothers."

His international influences, Mahal said, aren't from his constant travels, but from always being fully invested in such music. He sees blues as running far beyond the Mississippi Delta and back through music.

"I was always taught that Latin, Caribbean people were cousins to me, as well as blues was a cousin to me, as well as Africans were direct relatives to me," he said. "It was all a part of my language."

Still, Mahal's music was always blues at its foundation: "Sometimes the blues is like the whole meal. ... Other times it's like a spice that's thrown in there."

Mahal, who last year released "Maestro" and is touring this spring, doesn't know yet if he'll perform at the Blues Hall of Fame induction. But if he does, he — as always — would hope to see people moving in the audience.

"Most people that play blues don't dance do it! It's a listening music and a music they have a lot of knowledge about it," said Mahal. "They got country line-dancing down there in Nashville. Why can't we do some blues dancing down there in Memphis?"

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On the Net:
http://www.tajblues.com
http://www.blues.org

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Rhode Island activist is go-to man for immigrants

By HILARY RUSS

Associated Press Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Juan Garcia's cell phone is rarely idle.

While in meetings, at rallies or even in bed, immigrants are calling him, asking for help with everything from paying rent to handling immigration agents at their doorstep.

Garcia, who came to the United States in 1977 in the trunk of a car to escape a bloody civil war in Guatemala, his homeland, has been especially busy in the year since Gov. Don Carcieri signed an executive order that targets illegal immigration.

Garcia has emerged as the go-to person for immigrants unwilling to work with police or state agencies for fear they or someone they love could be deported.

A community organizer for the Immigrants in Action Committee, a nonprofit group with about 550 members, the 56-year-old Garcia has become one of the most public faces of opposition to Carcieri's March 2008 order. It requires state police and prison officials to identify illegal immigrants for deportation and mandates state agencies and contractors use a federal database to validate employees' legal status.

Garcia believes the order is confusing and has led to racial profiling. He believes illegal immigration should be treated as a civil — not criminal — violation, a view that rankles people like Terry Gorman, who wants immigration laws tightened and strictly enforced.

"I respect that he fights for what he believes in, even though I totally disagree with it," said Gorman, founder of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement.

Garcia educates recent immigrants on everyday concerns: They must have a license to drive a car off a sales lot, he tells them, and they can't walk around with open beer containers or play loud music into the night.

Garcia's activism dates to his childhood. As a 10-year-old, he and other kids threw rocks at Guatemalan troops storming into their village to kill students during the country's 36-year-long civil war which began in 1960.

Garcia sneaked into the U.S. in 1977 — "without documents, without anything," he said — and settled in San Antonio, where he later married a U.S. citizen and raised two children.

He gained legal, permanent residency through his wife but after a divorce moved to Rhode Island, where he had two brothers he barely knew. He found work welding in Pawtucket. But his face bears the scars of a brutal assault that led him, inadvertently, back to his religious faith and a renewed sense of activism. In 1992, attackers stabbed him a dozen times, nearly killing him, during a robbery.

"I felt I hated the people who did this," he said. "I didn't want to feel hatred against anyone."
Searching for peace, he wandered into St. Teresa of Avila, a Catholic church near his Providence home. He began going regularly, and started working in 1998 with Immigrants in Action, which is housed in the church.

He relishes his role as an activist and adviser for new immigrants, but he knows the limits of what one person can do.

"Every day it's the same," he said. "People think I have a magic wand, that I can resolve everything. But no."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Water aerobics teacher still making a splash at 89

By DARIN FENGER

The Sun

YUMA, Ariz. (AP) — Jannet Shumate hasn't discovered the fountain of youth, but she has found a magical swimming pool.

Five days a week Shumate dons a swimsuit and jumps into the pool at Sunny Sands RV Park for her beloved water aerobics classes. But this water lover isn't a student. Shumate is the much-loved teacher, and she swears that keeping active in the pool shaves decades off her years — all 89 of them.

"I think the water is my best friend," she said, beaming. "I just feel wonderful when I'm in the water."

Shumate's water aerobics classes are famous at Sunny Sands RV Park, which was recently the site of a celebration. Shumate's students threw her a party to celebrate her 25th year of making waves at Sunny Sands. About 30 people showed up to play bingo and eat her favorite meal — pizza.

"We just love her. She's one in a million, that's for sure," said aerobics student Rita Girard. "To be moving like she is at 89 is pretty remarkable. Sometimes we have a hard time keeping up with her."

Shumate gives all the credit to the water, which she said really does feel like her natural habitat.

Shumate grew up in Michigan and always lived near Lake Michigan or Lake Huron. She started lifeguard training with the Red Cross at age 12 and went on to teach swimming at her high school and at summer camps.

In addition to her education work in the pool, Shumate also taught in various schools. Her career in education spanned 30 years.

"I taught everything from kindergarten all the way through English 101 at two universities," she said.

Shumate and her husband started spending their winters here in 1982. She moved to Yuma for good after her husband died in 1994.

Between 15 and 20 women show up each morning for water aerobics with Shumate. All are residents of Sunny Sands.

"I think I gain so much from this because I've made so many good friends," Shumate said.
She stressed that keeping busy is the secret to feeling good at 89, an age she said she never honestly thought she'd see.

"My family are all very short-lived. My mother died at 63. My father died at 74. So I never thought I would reach this age," Shumate said. "I just think that as long as you keep doing things you'll be fine. Just take the best you can get in life and enjoy what you've got."

She lived at the park for 19 years, but has since moved in with her daughter, Jannet Banks.

Banks marveled at her mother's ability to keep going strong despite having arthritis in both knees and having broken a hip a while back. But Shumate shrugs off those physical challenges as long as she's got a swimming pool around.

"I am limited on land," she said. "Only in water am I free."
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Information from: The Sun, http://www.yumasun.com

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.