Homeschooling hits record numbers • Hacker News Board

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#381

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

BrenBarn wrote: post #365

ryandrake wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling a really large percentage of homeschooling is about religious separatism and political separatism, and not about academic performance. Yes, you'll hear HN commenters sing the praises of homeschooling because this site is going to be disproportionately represented by the group doing it for actual educational reasons. Also, we HN commenters typically see the success stories around us at work, not the f…

That may be so, especially if you add a sort of "cultural separatism" (a la the hippies I mentioned). An odd thing I see recently too is people who seem to believe they're making various choices for educational reasons, but it's not clear if the education they're moving to is any better. They just do it because they perceive their child as being unhappy or stifled somehow. There seem to be, for instance, more and mor…

Vague "educational reasons" is always the noble-sounding excuse they use, but often if you dig deeper they'll admit it's more about the various forms of separatism.

Sometimes you don't have to dig. A ton of moms in my wife's church group permanently pulled their kids out of public school in recent years, and they will openly admit that it's about keeping their kids away from "those" people, where the definition of "those" runs the gamut.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#382

Post by alphazard » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

OneLeggedCat wrote: post #344

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…

In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a strong desire to supplant science and history with religious ideas and principles.

I hear this a lot, and it may be true, but I am very skeptical that it matters. The statistics about home-schooled children don't support the idea that they have horribly inaccurate models of the world guided mostly by religious thinking. Or if they do it doesn't seem to affect life achievement in any important way. Instead home-schooled children are typically more advanced at graduation and have higher lifetime achievement metrics than their public school counterparts.

As an athiest, and a bayesian, it's difficult for me to worry about other peoples religious beliefs that don't seem to negatively affect them or me. Especially when there is propaganda taught in the public schools that does warp the students' world views in ways that harms them and me.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#383

Post by vel0city » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:39 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…

> 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?

A lot of the people I know who do homeschool (the extreme majority of families I know) have openly said the reasons why they're choosing to homeschool is because they don't want their kids exposed to the other "cultures" in their area whether that be immigrants, other religions, or LGBT people.

One family I know was thinking about pulling their kids out of public school because the choir was going to sing "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" and was worried this was indoctrinating their child into another religion. Forget the fact the rest of that holiday choir event was filled with Christian holiday tunes and what that means for the non-Christians that have a right to go to the school, that wasn't a concern at all.

Not all families, I agree. I've known a few outliers who actually are exceptional teachers and think they'll do a better job teaching the kids than the local schools (and they're probably right). But they're definitely the outliers around me. Most that I've personally known are not like that, and rely on just giving their kids workbooks with extreme religious bent to figure things out on their own.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#384

Post by ranbato » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:39 PM UTC

Didn't homeschool here but started a charter school instead. Some of our neighbors did homeschool and I have mixed feelings about it. Some did very well, some not so well; but of course the same can be said of all of the kids in the area no matter which way they went.

A few things I'll note:

  - educational spending has almost zero correlation with outcomes
  - the number one indicator of educational success is parental involvement
  - homeschooling and charter schools tend to attract the outliers from both ends.  The smart who are underserved where they are and the kids with problems whose parents are involved enough to search for solutions.
  - the real losers are those whose parents can't or won't get involved and who aren't succeeding on their own

In the current educational environment, teachers are often viewed as babysitters whose job is to educate children "correctly" and parents are only there to ensure that "correctly" matches their expectations. In the "good old days" when parents and teachers beat children regularly, at least they were unified in their expectations that children would listen to and obey teachers and not disrupt class. Now it is more common to see underpaid teachers without any support confronted by angry parents when their children misbehave and fail to actually learn.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#385

Post by TheGRS » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

OneLeggedCat wrote: post #344

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…

In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a strong desire to supplant science and history with religious ideas and principles.

That has been the case for a long time, and I guess something about the current generation of parents has gotten them to act more on it. My dad came from a very religious family and they all did private religious schools for their early grade school years. Then they went to public for high school years.

If I had to guess, its maybe something about the demise of church life that has gotten religious parents to just pull back entirely. It wasn't that uncommon for public schools to make nods toward Christian ideals/lifestyles before like the 90s, but now that stuff just doesn't happen anymore.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#386

Post by jfreds » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:41 PM UTC

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…

I was homeschooled until high school. I couldn’t agree with you more. The value that the socialization the public school offers is underestimated.

Learning activities with other homeschooled kids is ok but not enough. A tight-knit neighborhood of friends is huge, but not enough. You need to develop a thick skin and a sense of self-assurance.

I have no counterfactual of course, but I think much of the social anxiety I’ve had to unlearn as a young adult came from homeschooling. And I had great circumstances

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#387

Post by hereme888 » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:42 PM UTC

MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #361

afavour wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> homeschoolers are "not exposed to the real world". Isolation exists for some, but my extensive interaction with homeschoolers is they are immersed in healthy communities, hand-picked by parents to keep away problem children. Who would plant a flower next to a sick or hostile one? ...a healthy community hand-picked by parents is not "the real world" though, is it? I think your view is a very black and white one. Kid…

Counterpoint from my own experience having been previously homeschooled all the way to college: My parents went the extra mile to ensure I was constantly immersed in large group settings with other homeschoolers. Field trips, co-op classes, sports, and general high-quality social time. There were of course bad eggs as in any group setting, but with an important difference: if it ever got bad, it was possible to leave…

^^^ That's my experience interacting with healthily homeschooled children-now-adults. On average they seemed to have so much less trauma than me and my peers, and less "subconscious" issues to deal as adults.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#388

Post by FireBeyond » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:44 PM UTC

negzero7 wrote: post #183

Yizahi wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can actually. It's called theory of probability and statistics, which is probably "forgotten" by these amazing self-appointed homeschoolers. A few rare successes of homeschoolers doesn't mean this practice is good on average, and vice versa the rare failures of the public education system doesn't mean that it is bad on average.

This comment is so disingenuous. Few and rare?? Why would you frame it like this? Homeschoolers are better educated, more likely to get into college, and have better socialization skills than their publicly educated peers. https://nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/#:~:text=r... https://chewv.org/college-preparation/college-admissions/?ut... https://nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/?utm_sourc...

They're not more likely to get into college as a whole. In fact, they apply to college a lot less. But in that subset, against public education as a whole, then yes, they do better.

You may want to look wider afield than homeschooling advocacy and lobbyist groups for your stats.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#389

Post by FireBeyond » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:44 PM UTC

oceanplexian wrote: post #172

connicpu wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t buy that argument, there’s no reason a teacher in San Francisco can’t live in Oakland or Berkeley, or a teacher in NYC couldn’t live in NJ. You don’t have a human right to live in the most expensive real estate on Earth.

Keep that argument going.

Jackson Hole residents complaining about "poor service" in stores and restaurants in town, because shocker, servers can't afford to live in Jackson Hole. And unlike even SF or NY (which may not be perfect but have at least functional transport), there's no easy way to travel from the next town, an hour away or more.

Residents have started banding together to rent coaches to bus people in, which seems the most reasonable solution, after all, no poors in town, still, and it doesn't hurt the residents that service industry employees in their town have a three hour commute. /s

It got so bad in Atherton, CA, that the school had to build accommodation for teachers in the school itself. Next step, they can do janitorial work for extra money!

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#390

Post by pyuser583 » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 9:44 PM UTC

I used to teach high school. The amount of time I spent doing crap work was insane. It was necessary. If you don’t remind students 100 times what the assignments are, they won’t do them.

You also have to spend an insane amount of time with the lowest performers, because with enough attention, they can improve dramatically.

But this creates tradeoffs. Should I neglect the students doing best?

One on one instruction is the best kind. It’s generally reserved for doctoral students.

I also tried homeschooling by eldest. It didn’t work.

Its insane more parents don’t homeschool.