With homeschooling growing at the speed of light, the industry of homeschooling is growing just as quickly. There are old established homeschool curriculums competing with new curriculums. Unfortunately, some of the old curriculums are outdated, and some of the new ones are not up to par. For this reason, it is important to thoroughly investigate a new curriculum before handing over any money, and/or presenting it to your child.
The reason I am bringing this up is because there is a bit of murmuring in the homeschool community over a certain curriculum which goes by at least 5 names that is essentially the same curriculum presented in different ways. If you were to do a BBB search on the older curriculum names, you would see a great many customer complaints. The owners are accused of bad customer service, unchristian behavior (while distributing Christian Curriculum), and just plain nightmarish issues.
Here are some steps you should take before joining an online, (or other ) curriculum:
Read the about page: Find out who started the curriculum and why. Find out what other curriculums it is affiliated with. Find out if the founder of the curriculum has founded other curriculums.
Read the curriculum information: Find out exactly what is in the curriculum, such as is a different curriculum the base of the one being offered. Are they using materials you can otherwise get on your own? Are they using a program you have heard of before? Research those base programs as well.
Look for customer reports: Search homeschool boards for reports of either loving or hating a curriculum. Of course you should not listen to the first report you hear on a program, but if you see a pattern of dissatisfaction, you should be concerned. If you can’t find any reports on a curriculum you are interested in, ask others who have used it. There are several places online you can go to do this research. To make it easier for families.com users to evaluate a new curriculum, I am starting a new thread for curriculum reviews.
*Have a question about homeschooling? Just ask.
* Have you seen the homeschooling curriculum glossary?