TO THE EDITOR:
As a former home-schooler (K5-12), I find it hard to believe that my and many of my friends’ pre-college education was nothing but free A’s and inflated grades against Mr. Levy’s (“Home-schooled athletes play by different rules,” Apr. 13) supposedly superior public school education considering we are all currently attending the same high-ranking university.
In North Carolina, homeschoolers are required to take the same end-of-year standardized tests as public school students for review by the state, and must fulfill the same basic state academic and attendance requirements.
During high school, they choose to dual-enroll at local community colleges and universities, and participate in the same (if not more) extracurricular activities as public school students through various community organizations.
This means that, while homeschoolers do have more flexibility in regards to when and how they do their schoolwork, they are in no way unmonitored or unregulated, and tend to challenge themselves academically. So, if home-schoolers were to participate in public sports, they would be fulfilling all the academic requirements on par with the public school students on their team, and be held just as accountable for their attendance at any team practices, scrimmages or games.
Considering all this, it seems logical that home-schoolers should be allowed to participate in public school sports, although they would no doubt opt out if all public school students had Mr. Levy’s prejudice.
Home-schoolers at UNC would have appreciated it if Mr. Levy had abandoned the ignorant stereotype of the jean jumper-wearing, unsociable, uneducated home-schooler when thinking about this issue.
Lisette Stone
Senior
Linguistics and Philosophy
