Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#161

Post by rayiner » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:18 AM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #83

brightball wrote: post #70

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…

Being able to read the Bible would be a big improvement on say the Baltimore school system, which spends $22,500 per year per student: https://www.city-journal.org/article/are-baltimore-students-... (“According to the 2022 NAEP test, only 10 percent of fourth-graders and 15 percent of eighth-graders in Baltimore’s public schools are proficient in reading.”)

Literally, madrassas in Pakistan that just teach the kids to read the Quran would be an upgrade.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#162

Post by evantbyrne » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:21 AM UTC

vodou wrote: post #40

One thing I've never understood with homeschooling: How come parents think they have the competence to be a teacher? Just because you are educated doesn't mean you are a good (pedagogical) educator.

Depends on the parents because a lot of them are more than qualified. The typical education major isn't exactly a scholar, but that is also true of most people.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#163

Post by bluGill » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:22 AM UTC

zetazzed wrote: post #31

unstyledcontent wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read thst San Francisco decided not to offer Algebra until high school so no one would feel left behind. One of those dystopian decisions that emerged from a well intentioned DEI initiative. A decision that defies logic and surprise didn't help. That would be enough of a red flag for me. https://priceonomics.com/why-did-san-francisco-schools-stop-...

Algebra in 8th grade is back this year. https://www.sfusd.edu/about-sfusd/sfusd-news/press-releases/... . I have no other knowledge to vouch for SFUSD either way though.

my son is in pre algebra in 6th grade. I assume that mean algebra next year. I'm glad his fifth grade teacher realized he knew it all early in the year and moved him to sixth grade math early.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#164

Post by woodruffw » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:23 AM UTC

> These tech parents are hackers by nature, and I think they’re convinced that in homeschooling they’ve happened on the ultimate life hack: just opt out of being around average people.

It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way, much less has a cultural and economic elite that is seemingly emboldened to think this way. "Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives.

Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average."

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#165

Post by loughnane » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:24 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #110

aurareturn wrote: post #2

Having gone through the San Francisco public schooling system, I would never send my kids there. I'd rather home school them if I lived in San Francisco, or if I have money, send them to private school.

This is one of the main reasons why there are more dogs than children in SF. There are some good public schools but parents don't want to deal with the vagaries of the lottery system so they move out to other school districts.

Same thing in Boston.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#166

Post by thayne » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:25 AM UTC

msluyter wrote: post #51

nosefurhairdo wrote: post #23

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.

| Private schools are outrageously expensive. Yes, and... In states where property taxes fund schools, there are basically two ways to pay for a good school: a) go to a private school, b) live in a school zone with high real estate values. At various points my wife and I calculated that 8 years at ~25k/yr tuition would work out to about the same as the ~200k house price delta we'd have to pay to move to a better scho…

IME private schools also tend to be in more expensive areas, so you will either still have to pay more for housing, or spend a lot of time and transportation costs to get between home and school. Plus friends from school will live further away.

And of course many people don't have enough money for private school or to move to a good school district.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#167

Post by bdangubic » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:28 AM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #164

> These tech parents are hackers by nature, and I think they’re convinced that in homeschooling they’ve happened on the ultimate life hack: just opt out of being around average people. It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way, much less has a cultural and economic elite that is seemingly emboldened to think this way. "Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people wi…

"Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives.

if by “deal with” you mean serving them fries on their way to a ski trip, perhaps :)

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#168

Post by bluGill » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:32 AM UTC

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #144

NDizzle wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you were technically wrong. Which is wrong. var wholeNumber = 3.0; - what type will be assumed for that value?

The class is mathematics. In mathematics, numbers do not have types. You also shouldn't try to mention INT_MAX, negative zero, rounding error, or other computer science topics which do not exist in mathematics.

Type theory comes from math. Numbers in math do in fact have types. Most of the time we ignore it but numbers in math have types. math also has the concept of max number rolling back to zero ogain something anyone who has studied types in math would know. Rounding error is studied in several different math fields.

negative zero isn't in any math I know of. It is only in obsolete computer science though.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#169

Post by brightball » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:32 AM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #158

brightball wrote: post #70

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…

> A free market fixes anything https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/

Nothing magical about it. It’s pure economics and rational decision making. The institutions we complain about in this country every day are completely insulated from it. Everything else survives or fails on its own merits.

Supply and demand. It’s a natural law.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#170

Post by 23B1 » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:37 AM UTC

Because public education has become a vector for propaganda.

Because we spend more per student but with awful results.

Because our brightest don't become schoolteachers.

Because education is years if not decades behind the skills curve.

Because big, powerful teachers unions make change impossible.

Because parents have spared the rod and spoiled the child.