We bloggers are residents of Alaska. Here in the Great Land homeschoolers have a good relationship with the education establishment. In fact, the state or district of choice will pay for non-sectarian materials and instruction for a homeschool family. This has been an evolving relationship and a very good result of the state trying to meet the education needs of families in remote areas.

We founded Frontier Charter School in the Anchorage School District that enrolls only homeschoolers. The function of the school and its staff is to help a family provide an excellent education for their kids at home. Frontier offers learning profiles and the assistance of staff teachers in putting together an individual learning plan (ILP) for each student. Our kids participate in extra-curricular sports and fine arts at local schools, and in standardized testing (that’s actually been a good thing. I know, hard to believe) and earn diplomas and scholarships just like any other school kids.

Point of Clarification: While the district will not purchase sectarian (read: religious) materials they do not prohibit or discourage families from using them in their learning plans. Also, state statute does not require a home-educated child be enrolled in one of the many schools that exist for homeschoolers. If a family chooses to homeschool and not to be associated with a local school that’s OK, too. There is no reporting requirement.

So, that’s our perspective. We are always looking for clever and innovative and fun ways to improve our kids’ education and this most often leads us to the internet and computers. Web 2.0 offers incredible opportunities to bring the world to a child’s desktop. As we discover cool stuff we’ll pass it on; instead of calling one another or emailing, we’re blogging.

We’re convinced that learning profiles, assessments and college or workplace readiness are very important. And they are very much interrelated. Many useful tools can be used at home to measure a student’s abilities and progress with an eye toward his interests and ambitions.

Among us we’ve graduated four kids who’ve all been homeschooled and still have four to go. We tend to take a practical approach to accomplish the task of giving our kids a great education at home. That is, we try to keep it simple. Our blog presents the best we can find in homeschooling resources, practices, and learning. We keep learning so our kids will.