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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#201

Post by UltraSane »

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.

Homeschooling parents are divided into two separate groups. One is secular with college degrees who really want to give their children a better education than they could get in a school AND are able to do so.

The other group are very religious who don't want their children learning about evolution or many other secular things.

The only real issue I have with homeschooling in the US is that regulations vary wildly by state. Some states have so little enforcement that it is possible to teach a child essentially NOTHING by the time they are 18 and face no punishment for ruining that child's life.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#202

Post by UltraSane »

windexh8er wrote: post #192
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.

I'm curious where you live. My spouse and I selected the area we live in based on the school district when our kids were around pre-K age. We live in a district that isn't overly expensive to live, but has the best public schools in the state and are some of the top in the nation. 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…

"Expulsion works."

There really seems to be two kinds of public schools. One is willing to expel students who are violent and disruptive and this allows the students who are willing and able to learn to do so. The other refuses to expel violent and disruptive students and they make it nearly impossible for the willing and motivated students to actually learn.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#203

Post by s0kr8s »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #58
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.

>Just because you are educated doesn't mean you are a good (pedagogical) educator. 100%. But this also applies to people with degrees in education, teaching certs, and employment at your local school. How do parents judge the ability of local teachers to be a good (pedagogical) teacher? If they discover a bad teacher, what is their recourse?

Agreed. Titles and credentials do not mean what they used to, in education and a lot of other fields.

Sufficient erosion in the meaning and value of 3rd party teaching credentials then diminishes the relative value of outsourcing the process vs. doing it in-house: literally.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#204

Post by bluGill »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #200
bluGill wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live all the districts have the same funding per student across the entire MSA. The inner city schools still do much worse.

The economic situation of the parents is a greater factor than the funding of the school IMO

I agree but many keep claiming that inner city schools just lack money despite evidence otherwise.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#205

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#206

Post by smilebot »

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…

> It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way.

Maybe that's not how society thinks? That's one person's opinion.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#207

Post by ergonaught »

Because the education system is garbage;

because the parents are idiots;

because of the paranoid delusions about Them and What They Are Doing;

because the kids (and in many cases the teachers) are awful human beings that people (idiots or not) don't want their kids to be around several hours a day every day;

because of school shootings and other forms of violence;

because the value in this is no longer clear to anyone;

because the only people demonstrating "leadership" in this matter are leading outraged mobs around to prop up themselves and their power structures rather than anything productive.

Or, in our case, our youngest has autism and ADHD and was unable to be successful in the "not homeschool" environment (for numerous reasons), so we removed him from it.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#208

Post by protocolture »

UltraSane wrote: post #202
windexh8er wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious where you live. My spouse and I selected the area we live in based on the school district when our kids were around pre-K age. We live in a district that isn't overly expensive to live, but has the best public schools in the state and are some of the top in the nation. 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…

"Expulsion works." There really seems to be two kinds of public schools. One is willing to expel students who are violent and disruptive and this allows the students who are willing and able to learn to do so. The other refuses to expel violent and disruptive students and they make it nearly impossible for the willing and motivated students to actually learn.

When I was in high school there was a local school that was notorious. Apparently here the public schools were not allowed to expel kids if they would no longer have local options. This was the worst school, and thus the last place the kids would end up. So it was basically just a prison.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#209

Post by thelock85 »

UltraSane wrote: post #201
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.

Homeschooling parents are divided into two separate groups. One is secular with college degrees who really want to give their children a better education than they could get in a school AND are able to do so. The other group are very religious who don't want their children learning about evolution or many other secular things. The only real issue I have with homeschooling in the US is that regulations vary wildly by…

A few weeks ago while giving a talk to some business school students, I was shocked to find most of the students and children of the faculty were homeschooled for K-12. This was a Baptist-affiliated university. I really had no clue this was so prevalent amongst evangelicals.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#210

Post by matrix87 »

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…

> 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."

If those people have worse habits, are less motivated, less educated, less cultured, what is there to gain from it?

Seems like there's only something to lose from adjusting to their shittiness. Like Harrison Bergeron

And seeing the state of California trying to push math classes later because of "equity", seeing public schools dissolving gifted programs, it makes me think that privatization is the only way forward instead of trying to make amends with the current progressive stupidity

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