My Father's World to Stop Offering "Basic" Package Option

My Father's World Curriculum Company to Stop Offering "Basic" Package Option - Showing Preferentiality to Wealthier Customers?

So last night I was shocked to be made aware of this. 

I have some strong opinions, folks. Beware, strong opinions coming in! 

When I first started homeschooling my own kids, we weren't too well off, financially. It had been over a decade since I had been the homeschool student and I had to start from scratch figuring out what curriculum was available. Oh boy, was there a ton more options than when I was a kid! I didn't know how to find used curriculum or sources for price comparison shopping, I was at the mercy of whatever Google spat out for me based on whatever homeschool-y search-keywords my exhausted brain could come up with. I started down the never ending black hole of curriculum research and began sorting into 2 main lists: 
-Won't work/skeptical. 
+Might work/hopeful/appealing. 

I was flat out exhausted because I had all littles. When firstborn turned 5 was right after secondborn turned 3 and thirdborn turned 1... and I was 6 months pregnant with my fourth (dealing with some preterm labor scares) and my mom died that September, my beloved Nana had died a year before that, and for some reason all my teeth had started to become very weak and break/get cavities easily so I was in and out of the dentist's office so many times that year! I quickly figured out that because of my exhaustion and overwhelm, a "boxed" all-in-one curriculum was uncharacteristically appealing to me. I'm naturally someone who has to adjust and customize everything so this was really telling of how drained I was that I wanted something that came pre-planned. But I thought it would actually be good to start out with a boxed package and then just change what doesn't work little by little as the years go by. This was enhanced by the fact that I would find a subject I liked the looks of here and there but then some subjects I would wind up not liking anything and I would be left wondering how to fill those gaps if I did NOT go with a boxed. I mean, just fork out money for something I'm already thinking isn't going to work? That's not a thought a person on a budget wants to entertain. Did I mention we weren't living high on the horse? My husband was the only breadwinner and we had our 4th child on the way and now my boatload of dental bills and prenatal bills... We even had a neighbor who was like this underground distributor for a dumpster diving crew and she'd make sure we always had bread and bagels when the stores threw away the nearly-expireds. I would try to eat the dumpster stuff myself so I didn't have to waste the new store bought food on myself and could make sure the kids got the food less likely to make them sick. But I digress... somehow my + curriculum list wound up being dominated by boxed sets.  

From there I sorted the "+Might work" by price. There were some that, as much as I liked the look of them, were just way too expensive. My next set of lists were: 
$$ Too expensive, can't afford! 
 $  Probably could swing it if we save up and my mom did offer to help with the cost so maybe? 

I'm just going to tell you right now that if MFW didn't have a Basic package option, they would have been on a different list. Because even though my mom was offering to help this time, and Dad did make the offer again in her memory the first year after she passed, I somehow knew that it wasn't going to last. I felt guilty taking the money after growing up very poor; I felt like if they had any spare money now they deserved to use it on themselves. Then after Mom passed, anything reminding me of her just hurt for a long time. I knew that if I LIKED this company and wanted to stay with it despite my need to adjust and customize things, the Basic/Deluxe difference was likely going to be the difference between being able to stay with MFW or not. 

Not to mention I would pick up art/craft/music things for a few cents at yard sales and thrift stores and didn't need most of the Deluxe things anyway. I do hate being 'forced' to spend my husband's hard-earned money on things I already have or don't need because they are part of a package deal. 

However, since they did have the lower priced option and since I did wind up loving the curriculum, we kept with them. And now it's about 10 years after ordering that first MFW package for K for my firstborn, and I have all the packages from K to 1850TMT. I've bought some Deluxe, when the year was good and it looked like stuff we needed. I've bought Basic, when I already had the Deluxe items and when the Deluxe items weren't something I wanted and when our finances weren't up for the added expense of Deluxe. Once someone blessed us with the Adventures package second hand. Once I bought the RTR package from my sister. Other than that, we always ordered our packages directly from MFW brand new, very glad to have that Basic package option.

I'm sitting here after reading the announcement wondering how long they've been planning this. I wonder why they have come to the conclusion that a more expensive education is superior? This sounds very elitist to me. I remember perhaps 5 years ago trying to price some of the package components on other sites and coming across comments several times saying that MFW always strove to have the lowest prices and make the curriculum affordable for everyone, even down to offering no-frills Basic packages with only what they considered bare-minimum. And then this spring I was doing the same comparing and research/shopping again, when after noticing they'd added things to packages I already owned and upped prices, I thought I'd price compare and see if I could get the items that they'd added since I bought. I was thinking COVID inflation, not greed at the time. Well this time I noticed that many of the items were a few cents cheaper on Christianbook.com and most of them were about 30% cheaper on RainbowResource.com. I wondered why MFW was now charging more than competitors when I'd been led to believe one of their goals was to keep homeschooling affordable. Well here's the thing: the package discount wouldn't look so appealing if the individual items weren't so steep. That crossed out price number before the discounted price number needs to be significantly different so people feel like they are really saving money buy buying the package. The package discount is 100% absolutely the cheapest way to get every single item in it together - if you actually legitimately NEED every one of those items. But how many people actually want and need every single item in it, I wonder? The more items in the package I don't like/want/need, the less value that package has for me. 

And now they're getting rid of Basic packages because they conducted "years of research" and customer feedback leading them to the mistaken conclusion that if someone buys the Basic package over the Deluxe they will not continue homeschooling longterm or won't have MFW's idea of a good experience. On the social media post where I first heard about this, there were so many moms saying it was terrible news... obviously these moms' feedback didn't get counted. I know mine sure didn't. They never asked me. So if their entire sampling was only those who felt compelled to quit homeschooling after using the Basic package and couldn't resist laying a verbal guilt trip on MFW over it, but those of us who have been happily and silently using MFW for the past decade don't get a say, that's a faulty data sample. And after many of the long term Basic package customers contacting MFW to voice their misgivings, MFW is now reportedly replying with a CUT/PASTE message like this: We appreciate and value your feedback as a family that trusts My Father’s World. The decision to provide one curriculum package was not made hastily or without prayerful consideration of several years of customer data and feedback. Individual items will continue to be available. We are happy to help you purchase individual items at any time at 573-202-2000.

Individual items that cost up to 30% more than you can get them on Rainbow Resource. So basically, they already decided and didn't ask those who are now blindsided and upset by this, so now your voice doesn't count. Pay or don't play. The end. And the C&P thing is like salt in a wound. I can say it's obvious that IF the only way someone was able to homeschool with MFW was the discount from buying Basic vs. Deluxe, then this leaves them with the option of public school or find a more affordable homeschool curriculum that might not fit their child's needs as well. 

I'm really disappointed. 

I'm disappointed in MFW for the way they're treating their poorer customers - customers who probably feel like they are being devalued and ignored. 

I'm really REALLY disappointed in the moms who are rich enough that this doesn't affect them, or have the good health, internet service, and free time to shop around and piece it together and think that means everyone who claims they simply can't is just a whiner who sits around waiting for reasons to complain on the internet. Moms who act like MFW is a social club for those are are willing to pay in and you could be in it too if you REALLY wanted to. Moms who glibly say just pray and your curriculum will magically appear. Moms who say things like, 'oh just buy the Deluxe and then sell the things you don't need' as if everyone lives near enough a functional post office and doesn't mind dragging all the little ones out to mail this and that. Acting as if everyone ought to be totally cool with the risks of buying and selling person to person on the internet or having the market flooded with all the extra nonsense we're all now forced to buy at 30% more than RR has it for sale without the risk. Have some compassion, people! Get over yourself and realize that you aren't them and everyone has unique circumstances so yeah, for some people, this IS a deal breaker and NO they don't have to justify that to you, even if they aren't living in poverty or on their death bed or having the curriculum bought by a relative and shipped to them in a foreign country. And it doesn't mean they are faithless or not praying hard enough either so sit yourself down with your holier-than-thou routine. 

I'm disappointed that nobody seems to be able to think outside of their own circumstances and understand how this will negatively affect others. 

Another thought voiced by a concerned mom is that everyone who already has packages may be in for an unpleasant surprise too, since the TMs mention Basic and Deluxe package items and they will likely want to redo them now. I'm thinking if they're redoing it to take out all references to Basic vs. Deluxe already, they will probably want to do any other updating necessary at the same time. Which if they DO go as far as a full new edition update, devalues the resale value of our Basic-option-era Teachers' Manuals. And if they don't go that far and merely remove references to differing packages, will drive up the demand and price of used curriculum to the point where in leu of getting new materials at a discount, home educators are having to get used materials for almost the same price they'd have paid for a new Basic package before. 

Recently, in shopping for high school for my oldest, I noticed something. There are no Basic packages for high school. MFW offers one choice and that's that. Putting everything MFW deems necessary for 9th grade into the cart spat me out a subtotal of about $1,000. For one kid. For one year. Not including some required extras to be bought elsewhere such as a $40 calculator and $300 lab kit for science. Looking at the things in the package, seeing questionable items like the newer version of The Purpose Driven Life and other things that triggered a vague memory of someone warning me about them, I wondered why I'm being forced to buy these things, why they're not optional as part of a Deluxe set for only those who want them? 

And that's where I got off the MFW train, folks. (Meaning I no longer make a yearly purchase order from them nor do I consider myself a "fan" any longer.) Sure, we're in a much better place financially now, and I have all the pre-highschool packages I need so I'm only needing consumables for the younger kids, so if we used that stinking stimulus money that we were forced to receive for The Virus Which Shall Not Be Named, we could have done it just fine. But that's not the point really... the point is that people don't appreciate being forced to buy extras they don't actually want, it's completely unnecessary (and IMHO wasteful) to spend $1,000+ on curriculum for one person for one year, most average people would be barely (or not even) able to afford that and only if they have every lower grade package already so they're not buying 2 packages in one year, and the most important thing is that I don't want my money supporting misleading philosophies. On the thread of that last part, I stumbled on a copy of The Purpose Driven Life from back when it was still called The Purpose Driven Life and bought it so I could read it ahead, in preparation for the decision of whether to go with the MFW high school packages or not. And that book was a no for me. It was quite a mix of "That's great!" and "Woah, that is NOT Biblical!" I prayed about it for months with my husband and alone and eventually we decided not to use MFW for high school because they FORCE you to support that with your money when you buy the associated high school package, just like how now they are now set to FORCE all customers to buy art and craft supplies and nonessential subjects when you buy one of their lower grade packages.

Remembering what it was like to be new to being the teacher-parent in the homeschooling endeavor and sick and exhausted and mourning and overwhelmed and just wanting to find a packaged curriculum set that would get me through the year without the cost starving us to death and with all the major boxes checked, I feel an empathetic sense of dread as to what MFW's decision is going to cost their less financially-endowed customers. 

UPDATE 01/29/23: 

The latest from MFW is a push for micro-schools. See the presentations for yourself here. I have always wanted to start one myself, so I was interested in what they had to say. Unfortunately I felt like in some places some of what was said could be construed as advocating that micro-schools are better than homeschools or that God intended for children to be educated collectively rather than by their own parents all along. I felt like some scripture was misrepresented/misapplied to support this view and the main idea was that children are better off with the village raising them so we should curate a good village to raise our kids. Perhaps I misunderstood but at the time I watched it, I remember being bothered by a comment that insinuated God gave our children to everyone not just to the parents as a justification for having them in a micro-school instead of homeschooling. 

Now, I'm all for micro-schools being created and available for those who want them, especially as an option for those who want the benefits of homeschooling or private schooling but can't right now. But something about all of this just doesn't sit right with me. Now I'm looking back at how the website design for MFW had changed over the last howevermany years to appeal as much/ more to private schools than homeschools, and honestly the price hikes (meaning how much their prices have gone up compared to competitors, not how much everyone's prices have gone up since COVID) make sense in that light. People sending their kids to a private school expect to pay more. People starting a private micro-school could be willing to pay more to micro-school than to homeschool because the budget and labor would be split with others and the overall cost would be less than a traditional private school. Making the homeschooling side of it more expensive and overloaded with time-sucking extracurriculars for us plebians could push diehard MFW fans into the micro-school format. More MFW-using micro-schools would undoubtedly mean overall profit increases for the company. I see absolutely nothing to back up the absurd claim that parents who buy minimalistic (basic package) curriculum with which to homeschool are less likely to continue homeschooling long term. If that were true, my mom wouldn't have homeschooled 3 kids to graduation going the cheapest way she could every year. You either believe in the value of homeschooling or you don't. I have never seen anything to back up the claim that most parents WANT to pay more for bigger packages with more irremovable elective options that they didn't get to choose. Therefor it is logical to me to wonder if this whole thing was profit-motivated. I have nothing against making money: I am strongly opposed to both overpricing things and to manipulating people into buying things they don't want or need. 

The whole situation makes me feel rather like my trust in the company was misplaced all along. I was led to believe that they cared about helping everyone homeschool no matter how poor they are or how simple they need to make it to have it work for their family. Now I see a company which has done a 180 to support and push for micro-schools even OVER homeschooling and cater to those homeschooling parents who are more well-off financially. Feels like a bait-and-switch. 

Will I ever use the materials I bought from them again? Some of them, yes. As I think I have mentioned before in other posts, some of the package components didn't work for us and some of the books I found to be questionable in content. However many of the various components were very educational and enjoyable. Most of what MFW sells are items that are curated from various other companies. I own K, 1st, Adventures, and the whole Family Cycle already and had bought extra student sheets for many of them along the way, so I may well use these packages again at some point. I would say it's even probable that I would use something I liked and own and even have backup consumables for and had always intended on using again. It's not that I think the product has no merit, I just can't support things with my money that I feel are predatory, dishonest, ineffective, useless, wasteful, etc. and in my personal opinion some of those negative descriptions apply to some of the products they offer in packages that you can't take apart. I have begun to feel uneasy about MFW as a company in the last few years, uneasy about their current advocation of micro-schools over homeschools, uneasy about trusting them to buy their packages blind and know that I'm not going to be giving money to companies producing spiritually-questionable products. Therefore I will indeed continue to use what components I already own that I don't find morally or spiritually questionable, but will I buy from them again? Very unlikely. If I liked a component that much I would go to the company that actually produces it and buy it there. 

And on that note, I will say I have been very grateful for the wide variety of curriculum brands that MFW has exposed me to. I have been able to find many wonderful things that suit my family very well after hearing/trying the brand name through MFW. For that, I will always be grateful, and for the good memories from the years it was the perfect fit for my family. I simply no longer wish to support what I've been seeing from them in the last few years.