As many of you know, Stefanie’s mother, Cari Orr, had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in April. As her health slowly degraded, she moved to a nursing home on our side of town. She was there for about two months as the disease and other complications slowed her down considerably. We were able to visit her virtually every day and knew she was getting the best of care. Even so, Cari passed away early on the morning of Wednesday, August 22. We don’t have all the plans made, yet, but we wanted everyone to know what had happened.

Oddly enough, I have known Cari longer than I’ve known Stefanie. She was working as an admin at West Linn High School while I was a student there. She was always very warm and helpful when I had to interact with her then. A few years later, when Stefanie and I were preparing to get married, she and Stef’s dad, Jack, were very supportive during our somewhat bumpy ride from engagement to our wedding date. She even made Stefanie’s wedding dress and did quite a bit to make it the special day it was for us both.

As the years have passed, she loved visiting with us and David. She was very proud of her children and, especially, her grandchildren. She was equally proud of how her mother brought Cari and her sister from meager beginnings to living a full life. Cari never lost her passion for strongly-held opinions. I enjoyed the occasional verbal jousting with her when the topics would range through politics, social issues, and our faith. There was never any question, though, that she loved us all.

Cari will not be forgotten as her legacy lives on in her children and grandchildren. Something that, I think, she’d be very happy to know.

Several years ago, Scott Adams wrote this Dilbert cartoon that mocked a misguided management practice that was supposed to minimize software defects. It made the point that paying someone to reduce a undesired behavior will lead to the obvious conclusion of first increasing that behavior so there’s more to reduce. Evidently, the framers of the Kyoto Protocol don’t read Dilbert.

Pardon me while I chuckle at the junk scientists tripping over themselves. Based on this Reuters article, it would appear that the Kyoto Protocol is actually making some things worse. It’s all because of an idiotic carbon trading scheme that was constructed as part of Kyoto.

You see, after lecturing the industrialized world on how awful carbon emissions are, Kyoto then gave them a way to buy their way out. Instead of forcing those countries to change their emissions, it offered them a way to pay another country to lower their emissions so as to balance out. Somehow this seems an awful lot like buying indulgences in the middle ages. The poor countries don’t have this option, but the rich countries can simply pay someone else to cut back for them and they can continue on producing just as much as before.

This is embarrassing to begin with, but it gets better. Now, those poorer countries have figured out how to work the system. They are artificially producing too much carbon just so they can be paid off to cut back. Despite the questionable ethics, the entrepreneurial sprit seems alive and well! Here’s the punchline:

The most popular type of project has been to destroy a potent greenhouse gas known as HFC 23, one of a family of so-called hydrofluorocarbons, in China and India.

The problem is that HFC 23 is a waste product in the manufacture of a refrigerant gas which damages the ozone layer, called HCFC 22, and chemical plants have used their CDM profits to ramp up production.

So, let’s get this straight: Kyoto allows rich countries to pay poor countries to cut back on carbon emissions. The poor countries begin increasing processes that generate easy-to-destroy chemicals so they can get bigger payoffs. And, to make matters worse, that very process is increasing chemicals that attack the ozone layer (the environmentalist boogeyman from the 70s and 80s).

This is becoming self-parody.

I apologize if I sound annoyed by this, but this is a hot button for our family. We are proud to be homeschoolers and we think it’s the best choice for David’s education that we could make. It’s not just an acceptable alternative. We are not substandard teachers. We teach David because we believe he will learn more and learn better in this environment. So, you will understand if we get a little put off by the condescension implied in this story about Oregon’s virtual public charter school by KCBY Channel 11 in Coos Bay/North Bend, Oregon.

One of the parents interviewed describes the extra effort needed to be both a mother and a “learning coach”. This is deceptive. What would any good parent do if their child were in public school? Wouldn’t you help them with homework and “coach” them with their learning? How is being a “learning coach” any different? It’s different because what they really are doing is being an assistant teacher. But, public schools can’t bring themselves to calling anyone without a teaching certificate a teacher. Guess what, gang? Stefanie and I are teachers. Deal with it.

Even so, this quote really got me:

Laura Howard, a kindergarten through second grade teacher for the academy said, “It allows people the opportunity to work with their kids from home, but also have the structure and the accountability of a public school.”

Wow. I’m so grateful that the public school system has given me permission to be involved in my child’s education. Notice that I don’t get to control any material aspects of it, though. I just get to help out with their system.

Also, don’t miss the subtle dig at homeschoolers with the bit about structure and accountability. It’s the faulty structure of public schools and the failed accountability that I’m glad we don’t have in our home. Those are precisely things we’re trying to avoid.

The bottom line is that this is a ruse. This is a sweet deal for public schools because they can tell parents they are homeschooling (which they aren’t). They are just doing public school at home. They can claim public school students and collect the funds, but there is much less overhead when these students stay home. The public school curriculum is still used. These students take the same high stakes tests their public school cousins take. There is no difference in the education.

If public schools want to offer this up as an alternative for special needs children or other cases of extenuating circumstances, that’s fine. But, to claim this is homeschooling with better structure and accountability is misleading at best. I happen to think this isn’t accidental.