> Treating all these scenarios as a single thing that you can hold a single, consistent opinion about suggests to me a lack of familiarity with its wide spectrums along multiple dimensions. I'll give it a shot: in all these scenarios, there ought to be a minimum standard-- backed up by the state-- to ensure none of these children are being abused or neglected. Public and private schools benefit from the children havi…
Isn't the standard "pass the GED test"?
How are the students not passing the tests being followed up?
We homeschooled for a couple years after a 1st grade teacher told us our daughter didn't need to learn math, "she's so pretty she should be a cheerleader!"
> Treating all these scenarios as a single thing that you can hold a single, consistent opinion about suggests to me a lack of familiarity with its wide spectrums along multiple dimensions. It's like passing a judgment on a person based on their race, country of origin, gender, etc. A huge +1 to this, from observing the many friends I have who do homeschooling. Judging by their results -- super-smart, super-well-beha…
Your children's future classmates wish you wouldn't keep your children from enriching their shared classroom. You might be just the kind of parent that the school needs to maintain a critical mass of involved parents.
Phew, I'm glad you hold this viewpoint, because I need a little help. My local prison has a lot of inmates who would be better off, and less likely to re-offend, if they just had more good influences in their lives. I mean, who thought it was a good idea to put all of the bad-influence people together in one location? So, I'm looking for volunteers to live side-by-side with the prisoners, in the hopes of rubbing off on them. You'll get three hots and a cot, just like them. Come on, in the spirit of social responsibility and collective welfare, what do you say? Can I put you down for a four-year stint?
People talk about homeschooling as if it's one single concept, but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things. There are people who homeschool because they don't agree with the government's viewpoints, people who homeschool because the public school system has failed their kids, people who homeschool because it just happens to fit their lifestyle. Those are all very different motivations. Likewise, there a…
Yes, there are a lot of reasons to homeschool. And I don’t want to undermine your idea, but the vast majority (by far) of people that homeschool do so because of disagreements with secular education. Public schools are an increasingly politicized issue, likely the dominant factor in the recent uptick of homeschooling, and I think saying it is not possible to hold an opinion on the issue one way or the other is a bit too reductionist of reality.
// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination I was raised totally secular but I now understand that religion is about fundamentally aligning yourself to the highest aspirations ("what kind of man does G-d want me to be?") and even w/o actual faith, I am starting to think that's preferable to the current mode of "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like an…
As someone who was raised in religious communities, that "higher aspirations" is only the position "in principle" in reality working with people in the religious community was just scams and moral self justification of despicable behavior hidden behind soft language and terrible behavior. So much contention, so much gossip, so much backbiting behavior and hidden evils against children so that communities wouldn't "lo…
> As someone who was raised in religious communities, that "higher aspirations" is only the position "in principle" in reality working with people in the religious community was just scams and moral self justification of despicable behavior hidden behind soft language and terrible behavior.
Yeah, but at least there's a defined goal that they're failing at and you can point it out to them with a 30% chance they'll feel shame.
In the secular world it's just free form open world. People have no anchor to cling to or example to fail to aspire to. It's just Elon Musk one week and Kylie Jenner the next.
// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination. While this may technically fit the definition of "indoctrination", that's a pretty loaded way to describe what parents teach their own children. // they thought the public schools were too secular and were teaching "sinful" sciences like evolution. Really? In 2021, the hot-button issue among religious parents was evol…
Creationism never went away, it just became less politically salient. Public belief in evolution has been basically static for decades.
Why does it matter? I'm not a creationist but the insistence that you take this tiny aspect of a science (origin of life) and make everyone field loyalty to that idea is just weird. It's probably important if you're doing scientific research but not for basic education. You can scoff at creationists about how they don't believe in fossils, but what can the everyday man tell you about fossils? Is it integral to their life? Do they make important decisions based on the existence of fossils? Its basically a bumper sticker belief to 95% of people anyway
All this to say who cares? People choose to believe what they want to believe. And for historical reasons there's this belief common that may or may not align with current scientific thought. Let's not make this a hill to die on if it drives parents away.
The facts don't line up with your opinion. A 2016 study by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) indicates homeschoolers scored between 15 and 30 percentage points higher on standardized academic achievement tests and usually scored higher on the SAT/ACT. https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/
No, that's not a fact. It's an observation that shows how people with training and resources can do a better job than the public school system. But as more affluent kids move out of the school system, funding will decrease, leaving the kids belonging to poor or uneducated parents stranded, until they too are forced to homeschool. It's funny how people will gut the foundation of public education over decades, then tur…
So much this. This is the most worrying thread on HN I've ever read. :/
Am I the only one thinking that home schooling is the wrong solution to the underlying problem? The problem is that the public education sector has been - for years - continuously squeezed dry of any funding. Teachers are quitting left and right, and schools are in a terrible state. Instead of fixing THAT problem, now people homeschool. Ok; I guess. At least homeschooling is something that the individual can control,…
How good were you at your profession when you got your bachelor's? How good were your "average" classmates? I can teach my (hypothetical) child better than the "average" teaching-degree graduate. You're selling yourself short if you don't think you can, too, with a focused effort. My friend group is like 20ish elementary school teachers (US). They are all great people, but they are quite variable in competence. Some…
>How good were you at your profession when you got your bachelor's?