191–200 of 1001 posts
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.
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.
Throwing chairs? That's a parent problem. Not sure why the district would put up with that. Expulsion works. I've never heard a story like this and we've been in the district for 8+ years.
As for skills, my kids are probably 3 years ahead of where I was at the same age. Devices are not a huge component of their schooling, although I am on a parent board that's pushing back on SaaS creep. They're forced to have Google accounts which I'm proposing to remove and/or minimize. Math and reading programs are fantastic. Teachers are great. There have been one or two mediocre teachers but nothing to really complain about.
We also have great private options, but again, we moved to this district to take advantage of the public schools.
As an observation the homeschooled kids that participate in extracurricular activities along with the public school kids are definitely behind. Not only from a traditional education standpoint, but also social skills. It's always an awkward conversation when those parents engage in a conversation asking where our kids are at with respect to reading, math or science.
Our goal is to have our kids be the best version of them that they can be. If they're happier, healthier and better equipped than we were then I'll be happy. I look at a lot of parents who want their kids to be stars and it's painful. Modern day parenting has lost its way in US society on so many levels.
American schools just aren’t very good. I remember when I was in third or fourth grade, my mom flipping out about why we were spending so much time learning about native Americans and so little time learning math. To this day, my mom, who grew up in Bangladesh but got a classic British education from a tutor, is more well read in western literature than I am (Tolstoy, Jules Verne, Socrates, Plato, etc.) As far as I c…
> spending so much time learning about native Americans and so little time learning math After a bunch of years overseas, I returned to the US to complete my last two years of high school. I was shocked and dismayed by how much time (and stupid memorization-minutiae) was dedicated solely to the 4 years of the US Civil War.
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.
> Kids are throwing chairs at teachers. I don’t know where you live, but kids (plural!) assaulting teachers like that would be very unusual. I have a lot of family and friends in elementary education and management. Stories like that are the kind of thing that get talked about for years if they happen, not something that happens enough to be referred to in the plural.
No one seems to have mentioned AI/LLMs yet. Between Khan Academy, Wikipedia, and LLMs, if your child has curiosity, the resources to tutor have never been better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> 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 :)
> 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…
We are in an age where people who watch a youtube video think they know more than the experts. Being a good teacher is a skill and understanding childhood development is something that requires proper education. I'm not saying there is never a good reason to home-school your kid, but most people who do it are unqualified and from my limited experience the kids who are home schooled have huge holes in their education.…
Economics plays into this too. Housing in good school districts is often much more expensive, and private schools are ridiculously expensive. COVID is another factor. Anecdotal of course, but I've only met two home schooled families since moving to our present city 3 years ago, and one of them started out of necessity during the pandemic and found that it worked well and so never went back -- but they're a one income…
Where I live all the districts have the same funding per student across the entire MSA. The inner city schools still do much worse.