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Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#181

Post by anon291 »

vasco wrote: post #128

I wasn't homeschooled and it's not legal to do it in my country even, so I have a bias. That being said it seems weird to me that parents in the US seem to consider that they "own" their kids to a much bigger degree than some places in Europe at least. I don't have kids but I think most parents around me growing up had a sense that their kid also belongs "to society" in a way, and going to school and learning about w…

Well the issue is that the United States is very diverse. Most countries are basically monocultural ethnostates. My kids do not belong to American society but they definitely belong to a particular culture. And within that culture, and families who partake, we do 'share' our children.

But, to bring the culture wars into this, how do you feel that you have joint guardianship of a child whose parent fundamentally disagrees with you? With our church group, I trust the parents to discipline, to entertain and to teach in a way consistent with my beliefs, even if they're very different people. On the other hand, my next door neighbor is convinced my daughter is a boy because she likes trucks and would like her to be trans, like she has already transed her son. When you perceive other adults attempting to abuse your child and this is a common enough movement you're not going to be able to feel any joint sense of guardianship. And it's not just culture issues. Unsurprisingly, neighbors children are also poorly behaved, disrespectful, and never get told no.

America has fully embraced multiculturalism without assimilation, so there are now dozens of cultures, so no sense of joint guardianship over children.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#182

Post by pengaru »

MadcapJake wrote: post #154
brightball wrote: post #7

When I moved into my current house about 10 years ago, the family next door home schooled. I'd never known any home schoolers before and definitely had some notions about how terrible it must be until I learned about it. This family was part of a home school group with other families. The kids went to different houses every day and had an instructor focus on 1 subject for half of the day, mixed in with free time, dep…

It's like people are reinventing all the same stuff schools do at scale. Can't we be more efficient as a society? Not to mention the privilege that is draped over every detail of this setup.

They're not reinventing anything, they're just doing education with a better instructor:student ratio.

We all know the worse the ratio the worse the education tends to be. Tutoring is a long established means of compensating for this, by supplementing sessions with a 1:1 ratio, clearly illustrating the problem.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#183

Post by eutropia »

MadcapJake wrote: post #154
brightball wrote: post #7

When I moved into my current house about 10 years ago, the family next door home schooled. I'd never known any home schoolers before and definitely had some notions about how terrible it must be until I learned about it. This family was part of a home school group with other families. The kids went to different houses every day and had an instructor focus on 1 subject for half of the day, mixed in with free time, dep…

It's like people are reinventing all the same stuff schools do at scale. Can't we be more efficient as a society? Not to mention the privilege that is draped over every detail of this setup.

“I’ll intentionally disadvantage my kids in the name of the ideal of egalitarianism” said basically no parent ever.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#184

Post by arrowsmith »

brightball wrote: post #168
arrowsmith wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lifetime of stunted socialization skills and poor work habits. The joke's on you, I wasn't home-schooled and I still got both of those.

Is your username related to the actual program out of Toronto?

No, I'm not Canadian and have no idea what program you're talking about.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#185

Post by huytersd »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #134
orochimaaru wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School is parents + school. I would say about 60% parenting and 40% school. If you don’t push your kid academically nothing is going to happen. Peer groups matter. In “good” schools you’re optimizing the peer group. A good/bad school rating has little to do with teacher capability.

So when do we start blaming parents instead of schools? And saying, “this is what you get, take it or leave it, you have to put effort in too”? Parents treat themselves as customers expecting a turnkey service, when instead they are stakeholders with their own book of work and responsibilities they need to be accountable for to deliver the environment and education their child will need to become a functioning member…

This aspect is so different from South and East Asian society. We expect little from the teachers (not to say they’re bad), the majority of the onus and blame lies with the parent.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#186

Post by lapetitejort »

biomcgary wrote: post #170
lapetitejort wrote: post #137

I was home-schooled until high school. Long story short, it was a disaster. I bordered on having no education at all, on top of no socialization. I'm so fortunate I got at least four years of public school. I still think I suffer to this day. For parents who are thinking of home schooling your kids: best of luck to you. If you succeed, maybe your kids will be smarter. If you fail, you could be setting your kids up fo…

Did you notice that the article highlights the rise of homeschooling co-ops? This is intentional on the part of the homeschooling movement. It improves both socialization and educational opportunities (e.g., shared lab equipment). Rather than pearl clutching about individual anecdotes or doubling down on government control, I think states should provide direct funding to homeschool co-ops in addition to direct fundin…

I was in a home-school coop about 25 years ago. We attended it a few times, until we stopped going. I was just a kid so I have no idea why we stopped. I remember it didn't help. I didn't know how to do any of the homework they assigned so I never did any (a practice that carried into high school). Since I never had tests or grades of any sort it didn't really matter.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#187

Post by jononomo »

vharuck wrote: post #155
akira2501 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The underlying problem is the completely unregulated nature. I didn't need your permission to give birth to my children, why do I need your permission when deciding how I educate them? > Only dad is allowed to talk to anyone and when he does it's extraordinarily weird. If you feel these children are legitimately being abused in some way, I'm guessing there are plenty of state resources to address that challenge. Do…

>I didn't need your permission to give birth to my children, why do I need your permission when deciding how I educate them? One legal theory that may be relevant was brought up long ago for a case on banned books in school: you have the right to raise your kid according to your beliefs, but many states guarantee children the right to education. So the state could regulate homeschooling to ensure all children have ac…

People just assume that other people must be abusing their kids. Sheesh. The commenter is describing a two-parent household with 8 children and a massive backyard -- the odds are that they're extremely happy and our commenter is just a grouch.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#189

Post by lotsofpulp »

orochimaaru wrote: post #110
Amezarak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, there are many public school horror stories. For example, despite spending $21k/student, making it the third-highest funded school system in the country, 23 Baltimore schools failed to produce a single student with basic math proficiency.[1] One of my friends went to a school where she was beaten every day and the teachers had totally given up and most of them did not teach. Unfortunately, we need much mor…

School is parents + school. I would say about 60% parenting and 40% school. If you don’t push your kid academically nothing is going to happen. Peer groups matter. In “good” schools you’re optimizing the peer group. A good/bad school rating has little to do with teacher capability.

I would guess it’s 90% parenting and 10% school.

If you search niche.com, you can see proficiency scores correlate exactly with household income. Same school systems, same new facilities, same teacher compensation, same class sizes.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#190

Post by giantg2 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #108
BurningFrog wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public schools are highly regulated, and are on average horrible. I'd bet a lot on parents caring more about their kids welfare than regulators.

There are many bad public schools - but it seems a bit hyperbolic to say the average public school is "horrible".

I guess it depends on how you measure it. If we go by percent of kids meeting the standards and a passing grade being 70%, you could justifiable say the schools are horrible on average.
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