Live data from Hacker News

Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

newsletter.goodtechthings.com

131–140 of 1001 posts

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same math comparing portland with suburb schools (around portland and seattle) and came to the same conclusion. But one other thought is when the money goes to the mortgage, you get to keep the wealth after (assuming you sell to downsize at some point).

More money in the mortgage principal you theoretically keep when you later downsize housing, but you also will probably spend a good bit more in taxes as well.

Yes, good to do the calculation properly before making the decision if its motivated primarily by finances; sometimes the outcome can be surprising. Ironically speaking specifically about Portland, you'll pay _less_ in taxes moving to e.g. Washington schools in addition to getting better schools. But I think this is likely a special case.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also schizotypy which maybe 5% of people have and gets DXed basically 0% of the time. It's a developmental disability which will make you a target for relentless bullying which will screw you up much more than you need to be screwed up. You should be reluctant to DX ADHD, everybody seems to have it because it's promoted by an addictive pill industry, it's almost as fashionable as gluten intolerance used to be or auti…

Interesting. I read the wiki article and the mayo clinic page on it. School uniforms are not uniformly a bad idea I think. We as a civilization should really focus on removing bullying as memetic virus. It has knock on effects that are larger than we realize, like most forms of harm. I think most people seem to have it, because I think most people do to some degree, most things are a spectrum. We simply aren't prepar…

Whether schizotypy is dimensional (you have more or less of it) or taxonic (you have it or you don't) is a primary controversy. One fact is that the 'schizogene' postulated by Meehl which would make it taxonic certainly does not exist or efforts to find it would have born fruit in the genomic age.

The dimensional view is personified by Gordon Claridge who edited a few conference proceedings which may be closer to the truth but fail to tell a compelling story. You might read these and walk away thinking "nothing more to see here folks"

This monograph

https://www.amazon.com/Schizotypy-Schizophrenia-View-Experim...

by Mark Lenzenweger tells a compelling story that might be less true. My life made 100% more sense the day it fell into my hands after decades of looking for answers.

I don't really like the DSM definition of STPD; today I could mark up my first psych eval with a highlighter and add a few symptoms I've experience sense and satisfy it, but as a person who reads about psychodiagnosis for fun I read it and missed it numerous times. (Also despite my condition causing me a lot of trouble, I don't feel like I'm really that ill.) If Lenzenweger is right, it could be diagnosed by an eye tracking test.

As for school uniforms I think they have some good points and some bad points. As a kid they might have done me some good but I probably would have been resistant, as I was to many things. And for bullying I'll share

https://www.amazon.com/Bullying-Social-Destruction-Laura-Mar...

and also

https://www.amazon.com/Sense-Honor-Bluejacket-Books/dp/15575...

written by USMC officer, journalist, novelist and US Senator Jim Webb which is a compelling but even-handed account of the role of hazing in promoting group cohesion that was recommended to me by one of his classmates from the Naval Academy one day when I was giving blood.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to reflect a lot of what I hear about as well. Everything is too entrenched from a decision making standpoint for any one person to make a difference in reforms. A free market fixes anything where people have the ability to "vote with their wallet" and simply stop paying for services which aren't meeting expectations when they find another that does. Things like employer sponsored health insurance are insu…

Voucher programs are just going to flood the "education market" with substandard schools teaching things like humans walked with dinosaurs a few thousand years ago before the great flood. They're going to extract profits from our tax dollars to give us a worse quality service. We'll see a lot of new schools open up, spend a few years collecting profits, then get shut down for substandard quality after effectively fai…

Or private equity owned schools. Imagine how bad product they could effectively deliver. The would not even teach humans walking with dinosaurs... As they would do bare minimum of teaching anything at all...

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#136

I live in a good area and have friends who work in a few different schools out here. Kids are throwing chairs at teachers. There are elementary school classrooms where ~1/4 students don't speak English. The reading/math skills are so dismal, any student who learns at home is bored as hell. Private schools are outrageously expensive. Homeschooling is becoming the pragmatic choice.

It's a situation like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty_Model where "voice" never works.

TIL, thank you for sharing that.

Btw, I'm trying hard to think of places (today) where "Voice" works. For instance, in a corporate setting, I can personally attest that it does not.

Perhaps there are some "small-scale" contexts where it does work (HOA?)

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would never send my kids there. Why not, what's wrong with it? What could you do better at home, or what could private schools do better?

You could literally live next to a school and there’s a chance your kids can’t go there. There are many kids from low income, broken families who are just really bad students. Bullies. Disruptive. Disrespectful to teachers. It was hell going through public schools in SF.

So it's "opt out of being around average people", then?

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#139

I thought this was a really bad article. "Suddenly"?? I've heard many tech parents go full bore into homeschooling for at least about 2 decades now. Also, for the particular issues she talks about (e.g. social isolation), essentially all of the tech parents I know that are into home schooling put a ton of effort into having a really rich social environment, e.g. either through "group schooling" or lots of outside act…

It's really a blog post and if you read it that way (i.e. a personal story / take on the topic) then it's fine.

I've replaced the title with a somewhat more neutral question from the article. If there's a better title (i.e. more accurate and neutral, and preferably using representative language from the article), we can change it again.

Post reply on HN