Tuesday 25 September 2012

Why the Welsh proposals make logical and legal sense




I shall probably regret doing this, but I think that the time has come to consider the proposed legislation in Wales which would require parents to register home educated children and allow their education to be monitored. I fully appreciate the opposition of some to the idea, but even so, the people fighting against the idea of registration and monitoring are almost certainly wrong and labouring under a fundamental misapprehension. The misapprehension is the very same one which gripped many of those who also campaigned against Graham Badman and his ideas.

The law makes certain assumptions about ordinary people. It assumes, for instance, that the default setting of normal citizens is not to be stealing, murdering or torturing their children to death. This means that unless evidence emerges, the police will not come knocking on your door to check that you have not harmed your child or are storing stolen goods on the premises. We have a general duty to avoid doing these things and so it is taken for granted that unless there is reason to think otherwise, we are not doing them. Society could hardly function if the police and authorities were constantly fretting that we were breaking the law in some way; it has to be assumed that we are not. This general assumption has been mistakenly thought by many home educators to include the fact that we are causing our children to receive a suitable education. In other words, if the police are not checking our homes regularly for stolen goods, why should the local authority check our children regularly to ensure that we are educating them? It is an ingenious idea, but unfortunately it is quite wrong-headed and confused.

We all have a general duty to avoid breaking the law. This largely consists of refraining from doing things. We must restrain ourselves if we feel like stealing, we must avoid starving or mistreating our children. In the case of children, the law takes it as given that parents voluntarily undertake to ensure the wellbeing of their children. Unless evidence of cruelty or neglect comes to light, we believe that parents look after their children and protect them from harm.

We have been talking so far of various assumptions made about citizens by the law; that they will not rob, rape or murder, that they will look after their children and so on. There are however additional and positive duties which are from time to time laid upon us. These are things which the law does not just expect us to refrain from doing as a matter of course, such as stealing or mistreating our children, but activities in which we must participate. These are things that we are compelled to do; not merely refrain from doing. One of these is jury service. If I am summoned for jury service, society is calling upon me to do something, to fulfil a duty. Because this is something thrust upon us, some of us will try to evade this duty. We will pretend to be deaf or have various commitments which prevent us undertaking this active duty. This happens with all duties which are pushed on us without our volunteering for them; some will try to get out of them. Another case is if a constable calls for our assistance while making an arrest. We have a legal duty to go to his aid. Some will not want to and try to evade this duty. From time to time, prosecutions result from this reluctance to undertake such duties.

Now the law might assume that in general people will avoid evildoing and obey the law by not going out of their way to commit crimes, but this is not at all the case with duties which are pressed upon them. In these cases it makes perfect sense to assume that some people called upon to perform a duty will try to get out of it. They have not freely chosen to undertake the duty; why should they do so? I am sure we all know the efforts that some people go to avoid jury service! In this case, enquiries may be routinely made into the reasons people claim to have for not accomplishing whatever the duty requires of them. We know that some people will wriggle out of undertaking a duty and since this is a very small section of the population, it is quite in order to look into the case closely, to make sure that not too many of us are evading our duty.

The situation which I have described above with respect to duties which some people will try and evade is precisely what is happening with the duty to cause our children to receive an education. The law may very well, and indeed does, take it for granted that we are not starving or torturing our children; it does not and should not assume that everybody is cheerfully undertaking the extra legal duty laid down by statute to provide the child with an education. Just as with any other duty imposed upon us, there will be those who seek to shirk it. This is simply human nature and it would be odd if this were not to happen. Because of this, it makes perfect sense to check that the duty is in fact being performed; that is to say that the parents are providing their children with a suitable education.

The ideas currently under discussion in Wales, amount to no more than this; that society will check that parents are fulfilling a duty which has been forced upon them. It is entirely possible that most of them are already doing so. Inevitably, there will be some who are not and the aim is to identify these and get them to realise that they must either provide an education for their children themselves or delegate the task to others.

27 comments:

  1. but those that will be wanting to do the checking hate home education and want to wipe it out.plus most of them judge via a class room standard education this is all these LA officers know along with the fact that many of the LA officers may have been the reason behind why the child was home educated.Parents has problem with school LA side with school after all it is never the school fault is it Webb?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Another interesting mash up of the English language..
      This time without any punctuation and random symbols.

      Delete
  2. Simon wrote,
    "We all have a general duty to avoid breaking the law. This largely consists of refraining from doing things."

    There are many duties that we are required by law to carry out, such as to use car seats and restraints appropriate to the size of our child, submit correct tax returns, apply for planning permission before building or most extensions, have certain electrical or gas work carried out by qualified fitters, yet despite the potentially lethal consequences of a failure to fulfil some of these duties, they not routinely monitored.

    Simon wrote,
    "These are things which the law does not just expect us to refrain from doing as a matter of course, such as stealing or mistreating our children, but activities in which we must participate. "

    Yes, we are required to provide our children with suitable medical care as the need arises. Again, this is not routinely monitored, despite it being far more important than provision of education. Your argument makes no sense.

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  3. For me this would be a more convincing argument if LA's or the Government actually checked that schools were carrying out their duties properly and took responsibility for those that don't. The recent fuss about the pupil premium being subsumed into general budgets and the mess that is the SEN system suggests that this is not necessarily the case but I'm not hearing widespread calls for schools to be closely monitored to ensure that they spend the money properly.

    Once LA's have ensured that EVERY child in EVERY school is receiving an education appropriate to their age, ability, aptitude and SEN then it would be fair for them to expect the same standard from home educators. Otherwise, it's a nasty case of double standards that looks to me like grandstanding so that the ptb can say 'something has been done' without the messy need to tackle the underlying problems with the education system and child protection (Ie, exams, syllabus that's on the banal side of dull, bullying in schools, opinions being taught as fact, social workers overloaded with work and political correctness stopping them intervening on 'cultural' grounds.)

    You seem to feel that close monitoring is okay because we're a minority group so we must expect to be viewed with suspicion. Would you feel the same way if we were talking about any other minority group?

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  4. "These are things which the law does not just expect us to refrain from doing as a matter of course, such as stealing or mistreating our children, but activities in which we must participate. "

    Yes, we are required to provide our children with suitable medical care as the need arises. Again, this is not routinely monitored, despite it being far more important than provision of education. Your argument makes no sense.'

    I dare say that the fault is mine, for not making myself sufficiently clear. We are assumed in law to have voluntarily taken it upon ourselves to provide and care for our children. Thus, it is taken for granted that we will feed them and arrange for them to have medical treatment. There is no law which specifically lays upon us a duty to register our child with a doctor or see that she gets treatment. This is assumed. The duty to educate is in a different category; it is an extra duty which has only been around for a hundred and fifty years. There was great opposition to the imposition of this duty and some parents still do not approve of it. That being so, it is quite justifiable for society to check that this duty is being fulfilled. I am sorry if you feel that this makes no sense.

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    1. Did you miss the other examples of legally required duties that are not routinely monitored? I'll repeat them again,

      The use of car seats and restraints appropriate to the size of our child, submiting correct tax returns, applying for planning permission before new builds or most extensions, having certain electrical or gas work carried out by qualified fitters, yet despite the potentially lethal consequences of a failure to fulfil some of these duties, they not routinely monitored.

      No doubt there are many more.

      Delete
  5. 'You seem to feel that close monitoring is okay because we're a minority group so we must expect to be viewed with suspicion. Would you feel the same way if we were talking about any other minority group? '

    Of course I would! Home educators are indeed a minority group; a group upon whom a duty has been laid and who have chosen not to fulfil that duty in the same way as everybody else. If I was called for jury service, this would put me at once into a minority group; the minority group of those who had a duty to sit on a jury. If I said that I did not want to do it or gave an excuse, then I would be expected to prove that I could not undertake the duty.

    All parents have a duty to cause their children to receive an education either by ensuring that they attend school, or otherwise. Once your child is attending school, no matter how poor the school, you have fulfilled your duty. I agree, this seems a bit much; after all, many schools are truly terrible. Never the less, by the simple act of sending your child to school, you can be seen to have performed this duty. This is not the case with those of us who chose not to send their children to school. We may be undertaking the duty or we may not.

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  6. Simon wrote,
    "I dare say that the fault is mine, for not making myself sufficiently clear. We are assumed in law to have voluntarily taken it upon ourselves to provide and care for our children. Thus, it is taken for granted that we will feed them and arrange for them to have medical treatment. There is no law which specifically lays upon us a duty to register our child with a doctor or see that she gets treatment. This is assumed."

    Not at all, a parent's duty to support their children has been written into law since the Poor Relief Act 1598. Legislation since then has established that a parent or other person, legally liable to maintain a child or young person, must provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging for him, or if, having been unable otherwise to provide such food, clothing, medical aid or lodging, must take steps to procure it. Section 78(6) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 states:

    "(a) a man shall be liable to maintain his wife and any children of whom he is the father;

    (b) a woman shall be liable to maintain her husband and any children of whom she is the mother."

    The provision of food, shelter and medical aid to children are required in law in exactly the same way as education is required. Parent's have a positive duty to ensure they are provided.

    ReplyDelete
  7. 'Poor Relief Act 1598'
    ' Social Security Administration Act 1992 '

    This is actually quite interesting. There was a big debate about this very question in the 19th century, when the new Poor Laws were brought in. The aim of all these laws was to prevent children becoming 'chargable to the parish'. We see a hangover of this in the fact that the statements about parents being responsible for the upkeep of their children today is to be found in the Social Security Act. In fact of course, the aim of such laws is to save money and prevent responsibility for a child from falling upon the parish, or today the local authority. It is only when this seems likely to happen that anybody would invoke this particular sort of law. The intention is to save money, rather than protect the welfare of a child.

    Despite this, you are technically quite right about these laws imposing a duty of this sort. However, the general duty of which I wrote is far wider than simply maintaining a child in this way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's probably how it began, though I'm sure the desire to help and support the poor played a part too. After all, in 1598 they could just have decided to ignore the poor if they wished.

      The aforementioned Acts define who is liable to maintain who. However, the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 interprets 'liability to maintain' as, the provision of adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging. This Act states that a person who is liable to maintain a child, and who fails to provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging, is guilty of an offence, just as parents are guilty of an offence if they fail to provide a suitable education.

      The statutory 'liability to maintain' children is the equivalent of the statutory duty to provide them with an education. The statutory description of what the liability to maintain means in practice (provision of adequate food, clothing, medical aid and lodging) is the equivalent of the description of the required education (suitable to his age, ability, and aptitude, and to any special educational needs he may have). Yet the provision of adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging is not routinely monitored.

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  8. I wonder whether inspection regimes are very successful when it comes to improving standards in education though. OFSTED inspections in schools seem to be a sort of bizarre game - very much resented by teachers and I suspect they really do little more than scratch the surface when it comes to uncovering how a school really functions. I'd rather see 'inspection'money spent on support and advisory services, whether in schools or for home educators.

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    1. Good point. Shouldn't those who wish to spend taxpayers money have to prove both that there is a problem that needs to be solved and also that their suggested solution actually works? The only evidence we have (from New Zealand and America) suggests that routine monitoring visits serve no purpose.

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  9. "There are many duties that we are required by law to carry out, such as to use car seats and restraints appropriate to the size of our child, submit correct tax returns, apply for planning permission before building or most extensions, have certain electrical or gas work carried out by qualified fitters, yet despite the potentially lethal consequences of a failure to fulfil some of these duties, they not routinely monitored."

    Actually, many of those things are monitored. Just ask anyone who has paid the wrong amount or missed a submission of a tax form how much their fine was.

    Their are often incidents in local papers about people having built extensions without planning permission and having to apply retrospectively, and even then it is not always granted and sometimes extensions have to be removed.

    When you do have planning permission to build the Building Control Inspector will come out at various times to make sure that you are keeping to the agreed plans and can even ask you to make changes. They also have to sign off building work before a house or conversion can be lived in.

    And electrical installations are now monitored, because only electricians specifically trained and registered can now sign off on new installations or rewiring of houses. Those electricians are also inspected and have to go on training courses to order to do the work.

    Anyone working with gas is also required to be registered with Gas Safe and their work is inspected regularly by Gas Safe.

    So yes, where there is a positive duty people are monitored. Its just that we don't always realise it either until we get involved in one of these areas, or until we do something wrong and get caught.

    Electrical Engineer's Wife

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    1. Electrical Engineer's Wife wrote,
      "Actually, many of those things are monitored. Just ask anyone who has paid the wrong amount or missed a submission of a tax form how much their fine was."

      It's also entirely possible for someone to work or run a business without registering for tax, yet all households are not routinely monitored for non-declared employment/work. We have been submitting self assessment tax returns for 20 years and they have accepted our word that they are accurate every time. None of our figures have been checked for accuracy.

      Electrical Engineer's Wife wrote,
      "Their are often incidents in local papers about people having built extensions without planning permission and having to apply retrospectively, and even then it is not always granted and sometimes extensions have to be removed."

      Of course. Members of the public report extensions if they believe they were built without planning permission, just as people are reported to Local Authorities for not providing a suitable education. Sometimes SAOs are issued (there were 77 current SAOs when the 2009 Freedom of Information enquiries were carried out), the two systems are currently comparable. The introduction of routine annual monitoring for home educators would be the equivalent of the planning officer visiting all homes annually to check that they have not been extended.

      "And electrical installations are now monitored, because only electricians specifically trained and registered can now sign off on new installations or rewiring of houses."

      But this is not routinely monitored in the home. I could carry out the work myself with very little risk of discovery. They do not routinely send people out to monitor people's electrical systems. That was my point.

      Delete
  10. Nice as it would be if those who wished to spend our money had to justify it, that isn't actually how the system works. As a principle, I agree with you, I'd imagine most British taxpayers would. However, my personal feeling is that though truly the Welsh government must be quaking in their boots after seeing some of our number on ITV news outside the Senedd, reworking the entire British political system might be a little ambitious. Lets pace ourselves.

    Re the New Zealand and America examples. I'm afraid I don't agree that they support the idea of monitoring serving no purpose. The system in New Zealand is very different to that of the UK, as I understand it. In order to HE in New Zealand, you have to FIRST satisfy them that you will be providing, as I understand it, an equivalent or superior education to what the kid would expect in school. So yes, because, effectively, New Zealanders have to jump through stringent hoops to be able to HE in the first place, to them routinely monitor them might well be a bad use of resources. My feeling is that even the system proposed by the Welsh Assembly (which will probably come in for the rest of us) is still far better than that in New Zealand and I kind of wish HErs would stop bandying about the greatness of the New Zealand system because I don't want our government to get any ideas. Even for structured homschoolers like us this could be a nightmare if they started insisting that particular subjects were studied at particular times (the Welsh proposals do not do this, though I do understand why autonomous educators are concerned as they do seem to want kids to learn to read and count roughly on track).

    As for America, its an incredibly diverse system, 52 states and each one with its own laws! Some states monitor heavily, some are light touch, some, I think, require exams, some offer financial incentives for registration. Some have yearly inspections. It is really not a country you can generalise about, I'm afraid.

    The reality is that British HE laws are extremely liberal, probably the most liberal in the world. I'm not in favour of using country x as an example to support our case because I think that could so easily be turned on its head against us.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous wrote,
      "In order to HE in New Zealand, you have to FIRST satisfy them that you will be providing, as I understand it, an equivalent or superior education to what the kid would expect in school."

      Well yes, you have to complete an application form in writing, and there are many examples of successful applications available online to help with this. I've seen an autonomous education sample that I would happily send to my Local Authority. It appeared less comprehensive than the report I sent to our LA in response to informal enquiries. But I'm not suggesting that we should use the same system.

      The point is, the same number of problem cases were discovered both with and without routine monitoring visits in New Zealand. The problem cases were brought to the attention of the authorities by members of the public, just as they are in the UK and just as cases of abuse and neglect are in both countries. This does not happen as a result of registration, so there is no reason to assume that even registration is a good thing. Registration may even give members of the public a false sense of security and make them less likely to report a family they have concerns about, since they will assume any problems will be picked up.

      Anonymous wrote,
      "I kind of wish HErs would stop bandying about the greatness of the New Zealand system because I don't want our government to get any ideas."

      The Welsh system is effectively the New Zealand system with the addition of annual monitoring visits and without the state funding (for which no accounting is required) to parents! Also, before they were cancelled, the New Zealand annual monitoring system revolved around the provision of education, not outcomes or progress, They could not insist on interviewing the child, nor could they insist on meeting in the home. The Welsh proposals are far worse then even the old New Zealand system.

      Anonymous wrote,
      "Even for structured homschoolers like us this could be a nightmare if they started insisting that particular subjects were studied at particular times (the Welsh proposals do not do this, though I do understand why autonomous educators are concerned as they do seem to want kids to learn to read and count roughly on track)."

      They don't demand this in New Zealand. Autonomous Education is alive and well in New Zealand.

      Anonymous wrote,
      "As for America, its an incredibly diverse system, 52 states and each one with its own laws! Some states monitor heavily, some are light touch, some, I think, require exams, some offer financial incentives for registration. Some have yearly inspections. It is really not a country you can generalise about, I'm afraid."

      Of course we can't generalise, but there's no need to dismiss evidence from other countries out of hand. A comparison between outcomes in different states shows that the degree of regulation has no impact on outcomes. I fail to see why this information isn't useful, even in the UK.

      Students’ scores were examined according to the degree of state regulation (definitions below) in their states at one point in time, the Spring of 2008, close to when most of the data were collected. Table 19 shows that there is no significant relationship between degree of state regulation of homeschooling and test scores (F=3.113; df=2,10410; p=.045, n.s.).

      http://www.academicleadership.org/392/academic_achievement_and_demographic_traits_of_homeschool_students_a_nationwide_study/

      Anonymous wrote,
      "The reality is that British HE laws are extremely liberal, probably the most liberal in the world. I'm not in favour of using country x as an example to support our case because I think that could so easily be turned on its head against us."

      Only if evidence suggests that monitoring and state regulation has positive results, which it doesn't. If the new laws are brought in things will be turned on their heads for Welsh home educators. They will no longer have a liberal system.

      Delete
  11. With great respect, I don't think that study actually does show that test scores are unaffected by regulation. To my mind it shows that test scores in families prepared to administer tests to their children are unaffected by regulation. In other words, the sample was almost certainly not representative of the population as a whole because, I would suggest, families schooling in a structured, academic way would be far more likely than those submit data.

    The authors do kind of acknowledge this issue but are not specific enough about the limitations of the study, IMO. It comes down to the old problem of seeing us all as a homogeneous group. I would be stunned if autonomous types were as represented in the study as highly structured, religious homeschoolers. Looking at the lists of participating organisation, certainly a majority are membership groups for Christian homeschoolers and in America, from what I understand, homeschoolers who identify as Christian are disproportionately highly structured and likely to follow a curriculum.

    To be honest, I suspect that the WAG might be kind of relying on the same self-selection. I'm guessing that they hope autonomous homeschoolers will give up and send their kids to school, or perhaps leave the area. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of it all, I really don't see that they can be planning to monitor them. They don't have enough staff as it is, they are cutting posts all over the place. I just can't honestly see how they are going to monitor homeschoolers in any serious way as well. To be honest, in a time of cut back and austerity, its a downright odd piece of legislation to bring in.

    Actually, now I've looked into it a little further the New Zealand model does have one small advantage which is the stipend for the children. Its not loads but I reckon would more than cover most families HE-specific costs (assuming things like music lessons would probably be done anyway).


    ReplyDelete
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    1. "Anonymous wrote,
      "To my mind it shows that test scores in families prepared to administer tests to their children are unaffected by regulation. In other words, the sample was almost certainly not representative of the population as a whole because, I would suggest, families schooling in a structured, academic way would be far more likely than those submit data."

      Possibly true, yet even within structured families, wouldn't you expect to see higher scores in states with higher levels of regulation? After all, a structured education does not automatically equate to a good quality education. I must admit that I was surprised that it made no difference.

      I would certainly not expect children of less structured, unschooling educators to score as highly on these tests as they, by definition, do not teach to the test in the way that more structured families might. Out of interest, I've just checked what the study has to say, and as I thought, there is a significant, though small difference.

      "Parents were told, in the survey instrument, the following: “The ‘degree of structure’ in the practice of home education varies greatly. It ranges from a very unstructured learning approach, (e.g., centered upon the child’s interests or the eclectic nature of the teaching parent) to the use of a preplanned, structured, and highly prescribed curriculum.” Parents then rated their own practice, with their student, on a 7-point scale from “very unstructured” (with a value of 1) to very structured (with a value of 7). There is a significant relationship between degree of structure and core z-scores (r Spearman=.058, n=10417, p<.001). That relationship, however, is very small and explains only less than one-half of 1% of the variance in scores."

      So the level of state regulation was checked in both unstructured home educators and structured home educators and was not found to make any difference to outcomes (though the degree of structure made a small difference). This agrees with the experience in New Zealand.

      On a slightly different note, why do you think education should be routinely monitored whilst other parenting duties required in law, such as provision of food, medical aid, and lodgings, are not? Why should education be given priority above and beyond problems of parental neglect and abuse of children? The evidence from New Zealand suggests that community monitoring works as well for this as it does for abuse and neglect, so why the need for change?

      Delete
    2. "Actually, now I've looked into it a little further the New Zealand model does have one small advantage which is the stipend for the children. Its not loads but I reckon would more than cover most families HE-specific costs (assuming things like music lessons would probably be done anyway)."

      But that's not likely to happen in Wales, is it? If you think they will struggle to resource monitoring despite making it a legal requirement for Local Authorities they are hardly likely to hand out cash to parents!

      Delete
  12. Actually, to add to my last comment, the lack of financial incentive for home educators to register is the main reason I think this is a political move rather than one based on genuine concern for kids welfare. Quite a number of countries seem to have them so the precedent is certainly there, and the Assembly almost certainly has or will consider it as an option. The sad truth is I reckon if they introduced a smallish payment, possibly in a form that had to be spent on education, for registered home educators they'd find most of us did actually sign up. I'd love to believe that we'd hold out and spit in the face of their dirty money but I think the reality is that most of us would, actually, after much hand wringing, cave in. A kid's school place costs something like at least £4k a year, so even with the admin costs there would be a decent saving. Plus as a rather important side benefit, it does actually mean we can spend more money on our kids' education-I believe some countries do require the money to be spent on educational things. With more of us registering, registering would become more normal and they would be far more able to monitor us. Hopefully having less of a ferreting-out role would lead to better relationships with the LEA. Also, looking at ways that the LEA could help HErs would, again, make us more visible and our kids better educated, and so everyone is a winner-helping us with exam entry fees/centres, and allowing HE'd kids to participate in council/schools sports and music services would be examples.

    Now please understand I'm not necessarily advocating payments to HErs, I just think that its the logical and clever thing to do if you are genuinely interested in having as many HErs come forward for monitoring. Possibly payments tied to the legal requirement to register would be most effective-iron fist, velvet glove. Even if it makes me ideologically uneasy, the fact is I think that this would actually work to achieve their stated objectives, and more cheaply. That they are not doing this does make me suspect political posturing rather than true concern.

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