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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

#971

Post by HuwFulcher »

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.

> Can't we be more efficient as a society?

Efficient in what way? Children in public schools are now doing worse than previous generations. Efficiency does not beget quality education.

> Not to mention the privilege that is draped over every detail of this setup.

If we, as a society values families more and enables single income households this wouldn’t be privilege, it could be the norm.

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

#972

Post by HuwFulcher »

ryandrake wrote: post #402
chasd00 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had someone (childless i might add) try to make me feel guilty for pulling my kids out of a school circling the drain and into a high performing one in the name of diversity. I told them, when the time comes, if they want to sacrifice their child on that altar then it's their decision but don't ask me to sacrifice mine.

Kind of wild and weirdly refreshing to finally see the "everyone is in it for themselves and their own" attitude on fully overt display in this article's comments. Usually it's masked behind talk of "freedom" and "individuality," but here, it's raw and out there in the open! FWIW I probably could afford to send my kid to a better private school or alternate-schooling group, withdrawing from the community and not-so-g…

Answer this, how does sending your child to public school benefit others? It’s pretty clear schools do not work at scale. Focusing on small cooperatives where teachers, students and parents are valued is the way forward.

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

#973

Post by HuwFulcher »

dbjacobs wrote: post #377
haizhung wrote: post #261

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,…

We let our 3 kids choose between homeschool and private school. As a result they tended to bounce back and forth between the systems depending on their priorities. By the time they reached 4th grade I was mostly a coach when they chose homeschooling. I would let them know the things they needed to learn and help them find curriculum. And when they got stuck on something they would come to me for help, but in general…

This is a fascinating insight, thanks for sharing. How did you get your children to the point where they could do self directed study?

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

#974

Post by mlrtime »

haizhung wrote: post #261

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,…

>The problem is that the public education sector has been - for years - continuously squeezed dry of any funding

I'm late and this probably won't be read, but I disagree. There is no strong correlation between funding and public education "success".

The only thing that correlates is parents involvement in education. This isn't something you can realistically spend your way out of. (It's been tried).

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

#975

Post by solarman5000 »

I homeschool my kids comp sci stuff, because public schools are not preparing children at all, they are just indoctrination centers for google, Microsoft or Apple. In my fight to let my kids bring their own laptops, the administration said they were switching over to tablets soon

Great, so now they won't even be able to type when they get older. Thank god AI is coming

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

#976

Post by troupe »

chii wrote: post #773
troupe wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. There are involved parents whose kids are going to thrive in the public school. There are uninvolved parents whose kids are going to do poorly no matter where they are.

So the question becomes "should more taxes be spent to disproportionately favours kids whose parents are uninvolved, in the hopes that they reach the same outcome as kids of the involved parents?"

If a school system is organized around providing each child with the same investment of education and expecting some to make use of that investment more than others, then answer would be no. If it is organized around trying to get the same outcome from each child regardless of how much it costs, the answer is yes.

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

#977

Post by bratbag »

cooper_ganglia wrote: post #890
cycomanic wrote: post #178

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? Because your children are not your property, they are your responsibility and we as society have decided that we want to make sure that the education is to a certain standard. As a side note I find it fascinating how people who f…

> Because your children are not your property, they are your responsibility I couldn’t possibly agree more! They are MY responsibility. Not yours. Not the state’s. Not society’s. I will educate them the way that I see fit. It’s not my responsibility to educate your kids, and it’s not your responsibility to educate mine, no matter how righteous and justified it may feel.

Within limits.

If you are teaching your children to murder all Jews and that red traffic lights mean go, then you are clearly not capable of being responsible for another human being.

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

#978

Post by lobocinza »

pixl97 wrote: post #60
keiferski wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that the only relevant question here is how home schooling compares to public schools when it comes to “horror stories.” And there certainly aren’t a lack of public school horror stories…

There are plenty of 'public school' horror stories because these things are public and can be audited in a great number of cases. You don't get to hear the homeschooling horrors when they happen because they are private. Maybe you'll be a therapist and years later get to talk to one of these people how they are effectively crippled for the rest of their life. Or you'll be like me that grew up in a place that had a bu…

This goes both way. Public school success cases will be exaggerated and amplified by authorities where parents will prefer to keep their lives private.

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

#979

Post by mjx0 »

pdonis wrote: post #396
defgeneric wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense. Public schools at least aim for a measure of neutrality, beyond which children can develop their own ideas. It's just strange to me that people are so intent on having their children mirror their own ideas. Have some humility, entertain the idea that you yourself may be wrong about everything, and let the kids figure out what they think for th…

> the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense "Almost always" is way, way too broad. Yes, some parents' values are crackpot nonsense, but many are not. One does not have to be a crackpot to prefer homeschooling to US public schools. Also, the values that the people who set up the US public school system explicitly said that system would indoctrinate children into are nothing to write home about eit…

> > the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense > > "Almost always" is way, way too broad. Yes, some parents' values are crackpot nonsense, but many are not. One does not have to be a crackpot to prefer homeschooling to US public schools.

What are some examples of values that would lead one to prefer to homeschool their child, and are not "crackpot values"?

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

#980

Post by pdonis »

mjx0 wrote: post #979
pdonis wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense "Almost always" is way, way too broad. Yes, some parents' values are crackpot nonsense, but many are not. One does not have to be a crackpot to prefer homeschooling to US public schools. Also, the values that the people who set up the US public school system explicitly said that system would indoctrinate children into are nothing to write home about eit…

> > the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense > > "Almost always" is way, way too broad. Yes, some parents' values are crackpot nonsense, but many are not. One does not have to be a crackpot to prefer homeschooling to US public schools. What are some examples of values that would lead one to prefer to homeschool their child, and are not "crackpot values"?

> What are some examples of values that would lead one to prefer to homeschool their child, and are not "crackpot values"?

Values such as the ones the US was founded on: things like individual liberty and deep distrust of governments, particularly governments wanting to indoctrinate children. And governments have done plenty to earn such distrust.

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