Homeschooling hits record numbers • Hacker News Board

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#221

Post by danesparza » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:01 PM UTC

jmathai wrote: post #3

I do think Covid forced people to ask questions they hadn’t before. We have sent our kids to private, poor quality and top rated schools. We saw a stark difference between the poor quality and higher cost options. No surprise. But the reason we are considering home schooling our younger kids was surprising. It says something about a system dedicated to teaching children when parents think they can do as well or bette…

It also has its own problems that haven't even been quantified yet.

If you think that homeschooling is a panacea, I guess we're all about to f*ck around and find out...

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#222

Post by nlavezzo » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:01 PM UTC

swannodette wrote: post #193

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #147

I can't say my public school experience was great, I was bullied and didn't really click with the popular kids, but being around a cross section of actual American kids in my age group (my school district mixed middle class with lower class neighborhoods) helped me shape my worldview and learn to deal with people who didn't look or talk like me. I frequently saw fights, so I learned that you just stay away and watch…

If you can afford it! "Grass-roots segregation hits records numbers" would be an equally fitting title.

What leads you to believe the reason parents are willing to dedicate huge amounts of their time and money to homeschool their children is racism?

Maybe it's:

  - the terrible educational state of the school system?

  - the fact that device and social media addiction is a prevalent and growing problem that they don't want their kids brains rotted by?

  - they want to provide their kids an education based on experiential and project based learning rather than filling out worksheets? 

  - they don't want their kids to be forced to wait for the slowest / least interested kids in class to catch up before moving on to more challenging material?

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#223

Post by mikece » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:02 PM UTC

Esophagus4 wrote: post #9

jmathai wrote: post #3

I do think Covid forced people to ask questions they hadn’t before. We have sent our kids to private, poor quality and top rated schools. We saw a stark difference between the poor quality and higher cost options. No surprise. But the reason we are considering home schooling our younger kids was surprising. It says something about a system dedicated to teaching children when parents think they can do as well or bette…

How are you thinking about the socialization aspects of homeschooling vs not? I imagine part of the benefit of schooling is to socialize children with their peers so I’m curious how you thought about it.

Homeschooled does not mean "completely isolated." My kids are in bands, sports teams, and numerous extracurricular activities both with other home schoolers as well as with public schoolers. Also, homeschooled kids are far less reliant on their same-aged peer group for socialization; my kids talk with people in public regardless of their age (something which surprises some adults).

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#224

Post by brewdad » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:02 PM UTC

Brendinooo wrote: post #168

buellerbueller wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there is a lot of selection bias in that data. My hypothesis is that the homeschooled folks who take the ACT are more likely to do well on the ACT than the homeschooled folks who don't.

Isn't that true of public school kids who do/don't take the ACT as well?

My Title 1 school made the ACT available to all students for free (on one specific date). A lot of kids who were unprepared for the ACT took it because, why not?

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#225

Post by oceanplexian » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:03 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

estearum wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it should, yes, given that socialization is the result of shared social experiences. Experiencing bullying is (unironically) one of those shared social experiences that create bonds with people (whether as victim, perpetrator, or witness) These are real social dynamics that actually exist in adult life, and I suspect people who are totally blindsided by them are maladapted

> Experiencing bullying is (unironically) one of those shared social experiences It also teaches you to deal with bullies. That said, we had homeschooled kids in my Boy Scouts troop. They learned how to deal with bullies just fine.

Why would you need to learn to deal with bullies?

If you try that the modern world as an adult you get charged with aggravated assault, pick up a criminal record and then are weeded out from polite society.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#226

Post by jeffbee » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:03 PM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #123

gtirloni wrote: post #85

I don't feel better prepared to teach at home than someone who actually went to college for the various topics covered in high school. How can I know all I need to teach about math, chemistry, english, physics, etc, etc, etc when I already have to learn so much for my own work? I think parents that think they can do a better job are delusional. Maybe the school _environment_ that a child has access isn't great, right…

In California, a teacher without a chemistry degree can teach high school chemistry after passing the CSET Chemistry subtest. This requires less depth of knowledge than AP Chemistry.

You do not need to know anything about the subject to teach high school subjects. You need to know stuff about teaching.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#227

Post by verdverm » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:05 PM UTC

nlavezzo wrote: post #222

swannodette wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can afford it! "Grass-roots segregation hits records numbers" would be an equally fitting title.

What leads you to believe the reason parents are willing to dedicate huge amounts of their time and money to homeschool their children is racism? Maybe it's: - the terrible educational state of the school system? - the fact that device and social media addiction is a prevalent and growing problem that they don't want their kids brains rotted by? - they want to provide their kids an education based on experiential and…

Are they going to spend huge amounts of time & money?

I'd be willing to bet that we'll hear some stories about how they outsourced the effort to AI

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#228

Post by michaelt » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:05 PM UTC

connicpu wrote: post #126

SauntSolaire wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does housing cost affect the cost for a school to educate a student? Are you saying it's the cost of paying for the school's real-estate?

It affects the minimum viable salary for a teacher to even be able to live in the city where you want to hire them to work, same for all the other support staff that make a school function.

With a budget of $28k per student, and 21 students per classroom, that’s $588k per classroom.

Now, granted, some of that goes on building upkeep, cleaning, supplies, heating, pensions, managers etc - but if $588k per classroom doesn’t let you pay enough to attract teachers there’s something very suspicious going on.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#229

Post by Izikiel43 » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:06 PM UTC

csb6 wrote: post #96

csense wrote: post #7

Anecdotally, two factors at work here: - Schools have stopped educating in favor of test metrics, making sure the worst students pass, and pushing borderline indoctrination of controversial, left-ish values. - With remote education during the pandemic, people have more visibility into their school's day-to-day teaching. It's hard to fix the US education system by political means. If you have the ability to do so, it'…

[flagged]

Do privilege walks count? Which seem to foster victim mentality?

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#230

Post by lapcat » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 8:06 PM UTC

account1984 wrote: post #185

lapcat wrote: post #130

> Recent estimates put the total homeschooling population at about 6 percent of students across the United States, compared to about 3 percent pre-pandemic. One thing that concerns me about many pro-homeschooling comments is a kind of tear-down-the-schools attitude, as if schools were hopeless and irredeemable, despite the fact they're still educating 94% of students even at today's elevated homeschooling rate. Of co…

I hear your viewpoint, but parents do have a right to teach their religious beliefs to their children. There is no law or social imperative that children must be taught a secular view point. At the end of the day, there are over 7 billion people in the world, it's okay if some of them believe differently. Honestly, I am more concerned that in the last 20 years we've progressed to the point where secularism has for so…

> I hear your viewpoint, but parents do have a right to teach their religious beliefs to their children.

I didn't claim that they don't have a right. I just claimed to be skeptical of the idea that the primary motivation for homeschooling was educational outcomes rather than ideological outcomes.

> At the end of the day, there are over 7 billion people in the world, it's okay if some of them believe differently.

If only they believed differently. ;-) It's no coincidence that children tend to adopt the same beliefs as their parents, no matter the country or region.

> I am more concerned that in the last 20 years we've progressed to the point where secularism has for some become as militantly evangelized as any religion.

The last 20 years? The First Amendment of the US Constitution begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". The principle of separation of church and state is more than 200 years old.

> kids are not the communities children, they are their parents children

I don't know what label you'd want to put on me, but I would say that kids do not belong to anyone. I find the notion of ownership to be noxious, practically slavery. We have a responsibility to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves (yet), but that doesn't mean children are simply the personal property and playthings of the parents. I think it's a disservice to a child to place them in a bubble and shield them from anything the parents don't happen to like.

> The shift towards enforced collectivism, away from individualism

"they are their parents children" is not individualism, or certainly not individualism from the child's perspective.

Morover, from what I've seen and heard from homeschoolers themselves, they do tend to form, or indeed come from, specific communitites, and are not simply "lone wolf" homeschooling parents.