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Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

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Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#11

Post by jmspring »

I can't find the original story I heard a couple of weeks ago (on the radio), but another egregious sign of the state of public education in the US -- people are jailed for lying about their address in hopes of getting their child into a better school.

The story I recall hearing a couple of weeks ago was about a woman who was periodically homeless and used the address of her baby sitter (or something like that) to get her child into a better school. Now she faces jail time.

Searching google for lying about address to get into a better school resulting in jail time shows that this is not an isolated phenomena.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#12

Post by clicks »

jasonjei wrote: post #9

I agree that our K-12 sucks, but why is our university system considered good? For instance, Berkeley, Stanford, MIT/FSF, Carnegie-Mellon, UIUC, etc, have made valuable contributions to Computer Science (this is becoming less true as commercial and open-source have overtaken academia in many respects). Is it possible that our K-12 system is broken is the reason that our kids are capable of pursuing their own interest…

Only responding to a small part of your argument: For every univ. that is good, there is a Univ. of Phoenix. But, for every univ. that is good you also have Bronx High school of NY... which produced 8 Nobel prize laureates, you have Stuyvesant, which produced 5 Nobel prize laureates. America is much a place of extremes -- you'll often find the best and worst from nearly every category.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#13

Post by erichocean »

manaskarekar wrote: post #8
k-mcgrady wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might seem better to us but I doubt kids see it like that. Most kids enjoy being in a school environment with their friends. You lose the very important social aspect of school with homeschooling/online courses. >> À la carte education sounds much more useful than a buffet of stuff selected by someone else for you. With online courses parents would most likely select what the child learns, it will still be "a buff…

Two things: 1. Parents can choose what is best for their children, instead of a "democratically" chosen buffet. 2. The social aspect can be addressed by having physical activity clubs/gatherings/groups/centers. I don't know if schools already do this, but being able to choose Skiing as a Phy Ed since grade 1, or whatever tickles your child's fancy just sounds like a much better opportunity to perhaps become a profess…

> The social aspect can be addressed by having physical activity clubs/gatherings/groups/centers. I don't know if schools already do this,

They do. Really, the negative comments here on homeschooling are staggeringly out of date.

Go look at K12.[0] That's what "homeschoolers" in the State of California use, through something called CAVA. I've got two boys in CAVA and one boy in regular public school. The K12 courses are incredibly well-designed.

The education in the public school (and we're in the best school in Palmdale) is terrible. CAVA is amazingly good, way better than the education I got in public school growing up.

[0] http://www.k12.com/

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#14

Post by manaskarekar »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #5
manaskarekar wrote: post #2

The alternative many will be forced to take will be Homeschooling + Online Courses, which is great! À la carte education sounds much more useful than a buffet of stuff selected by someone else for you.

Surely with homeschooling kids are going to get even more inconsistent results due to radically varying teaching abilities and knowledge of parents? Not to mention severely biased curricular, I'm sure HN kids would all know haskell by the time they were 9 but what about poetry , sports and history?

1. The parents aren't the ones who are expected to teach, they are expected to select online(or off) "coursework." So a parent doesn't have to be proficient in what he expects his child to learn.

2. Does everyone have to know everything? Isn't that a line between good parenting and bad parenting. If you think your kid will benefit from arts and history and what not, you will make sure they go through those courses. Why do you need someone else to force your kids to go through that curriculum? This just sounds like an implication that parents don't know what's good for their children, so we should trust what the experts have outlined for us.

Well, in the homeschool/online education setting, you still could and probably would consult education/career counselors for selection of syllabus.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#15

Post by rayiner »

clicks wrote: post #3
manaskarekar wrote: post #2

The alternative many will be forced to take will be Homeschooling + Online Courses, which is great! À la carte education sounds much more useful than a buffet of stuff selected by someone else for you.

So, one of the big reasons homeschooling isn't more prevalent is that increasingly both parents have to work. Maybe a new, not before seen alternative is some sort of a quasi-daycare institution which has authority figures not teaching but just making sure the kids are focusing on their online courses and not horsing around! And only so occasionally answering questions the kids ask. Because you're still in an environ…

So, basically, private school?

This is where my wife and I want to send our daughter if we ever make it back to Chicago: http://www.chicagogrammar.org/curriculum.

Basically some guy decided to home school his kid, but let other kids join in.The result was a curriculum in which kids learn formal logic in middle school.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#16

Post by mhurron »

manaskarekar wrote: post #8
k-mcgrady wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might seem better to us but I doubt kids see it like that. Most kids enjoy being in a school environment with their friends. You lose the very important social aspect of school with homeschooling/online courses. >> À la carte education sounds much more useful than a buffet of stuff selected by someone else for you. With online courses parents would most likely select what the child learns, it will still be "a buff…

Two things: 1. Parents can choose what is best for their children, instead of a "democratically" chosen buffet. 2. The social aspect can be addressed by having physical activity clubs/gatherings/groups/centers. I don't know if schools already do this, but being able to choose Skiing as a Phy Ed since grade 1, or whatever tickles your child's fancy just sounds like a much better opportunity to perhaps become a profess…

> Parents can choose what is best for their children

They don't need those English courses, or waste time on that History stuff. They'll never need chemistry or physics so why waste their time on that...

There is a time to pick your courses, it's called University. Primary and Secondary school should be a buffet of many many things. Things that are 'unimportant' to their work are actually important to them as an individual. Neither the child nor most parents recognize that.

Case in point, a lot of the current stupidity in US politics is because of people misunderstanding or flat out not knowing the history of the US and the political process in the US. This idea of a la carte education would make that worse. However no parent is going to have their kid 'waste' their time on history or civics when they could be studying to be the next Steve Jobs.

> my kid shows interest in becoming an Astronaut And next week they'll want to be a drummer. Kids whims change with the wind. Most don't solidify on a career idea until their late teens, if not later.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#17

Post by kamkazemoose »

clicks wrote: post #3
manaskarekar wrote: post #2

The alternative many will be forced to take will be Homeschooling + Online Courses, which is great! À la carte education sounds much more useful than a buffet of stuff selected by someone else for you.

So, one of the big reasons homeschooling isn't more prevalent is that increasingly both parents have to work. Maybe a new, not before seen alternative is some sort of a quasi-daycare institution which has authority figures not teaching but just making sure the kids are focusing on their online courses and not horsing around! And only so occasionally answering questions the kids ask. Because you're still in an environ…

I just wonder how effective that would be. I think kids would have a hard time focusing in front of a computer, and being lectured to. I think a large part of the elementary school education is working on activities and worksheets, especially in groups. I'm not sure you can replicate that in an online course, and I just wonder how effective an online course could be for younger kids. I'd actually be interested in seeing if there have been any studies done on this.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#18

Post by walshemj »

Rather ironic as Finland has a comprehensive schooling system he seems to be arguing for selective schools by the back door.

Though in Finland do seem to have the same rigid vocational / academic track similar to Germany where going to the wrong sort of school locks you out of or makes it very hard to go to the top universities.

And comparing his experience a tiny European country with a small and homogenous population and thinking that the USA is going to have the the same challenges or possible solutions is a bit naive.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#19

Post by Taylorious »

erichocean wrote: post #13
manaskarekar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: 1. Parents can choose what is best for their children, instead of a "democratically" chosen buffet. 2. The social aspect can be addressed by having physical activity clubs/gatherings/groups/centers. I don't know if schools already do this, but being able to choose Skiing as a Phy Ed since grade 1, or whatever tickles your child's fancy just sounds like a much better opportunity to perhaps become a profess…

> The social aspect can be addressed by having physical activity clubs/gatherings/groups/centers. I don't know if schools already do this, They do. Really, the negative comments here on homeschooling are staggeringly out of date. Go look at K12.[0] That's what "homeschoolers" in the State of California use, through something called CAVA. I've got two boys in CAVA and one boy in regular public school. The K12 courses…

Were you homeschooled? Because I was, and all though I don't want to go into extensive detail on why I despise it, I will just say that parents HS because they think they know what's best for their children, but they often don't.

I lived in an area with a horrible school district, so I understand why parents in school districts like that think they can do better, but in reality HS parents should be putting their energy into making public schools better.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#20

Post by taylodl »

Linus is now seeing firsthand that opportunity is not equal in the United States. You typically need to have attended a good university to get a good job and to get into a good university you need to have graduated from a good secondary school - which you need to have paid for either through tuition or taxes. The goal is to keep the wealth concentrated in the already wealthy. That's how it works here in the United States.

I'll assume for the moment that Oregon's intentions are noble, and they're attempting to right this wrong. How ironic that it will achieve the exact opposite result. The old law of unintended consequences and all. Those of us who were in school in the 70s during mandatory desegregation will recall that too had the opposite effect of what was intended: instead of providing better learning opportunities for black students the white families left for the suburbs leaving the black students behind in worse schools than what they had started out with. Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it I suppose.

So what is the answer? I think we really need to understand the problem: public schools are locally funded and operated and small locales can use real estate to become exclusive. The solution then is to realize that exclusivity can't be had on a large scale. You need to expand the scope of 'local' in the local school system. A good start would be to expand 'local' to the county level. While certainly there are some counties richer and more exclusive than others, they are much more homogenous than individual communities. At least it would be a step in the right direction that would better serve everyone.

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