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Homeschooling hits record numbers

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Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#471

Post by yachad »

kochikame wrote: post #26
nvahalik wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All kids are indoctrinated. As parents do you want to have control of that or not? With that attitude you might as well just tell parents that they shouldn't participate in society!

I think the point is that part of having a functioning society (civic life, engagement, tolerance of others) is having people mix together. School is one of the prime places where that happens. If you allow a lot of people to pull away from that "forced" engagement with others then you start to stress a lot of societal bonds.

Sure, but I don’t like how society is functions. I don’t like the direction in which society is headed.

That is why my solution is to be selective in who I socialize with, find a like-minded partner, and have lots of children.

My intent is to create a new society and culture free of the rot that infects every public space today.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#472

Post by parsimo2010 »

A lot of people are offering opinions on homeschooling. I'll throw in one anecdote from my past. I played tennis with a kid who was homeschooled through middle school but was sent to high school so he could graduate with a diploma instead of a GED, because this seems to be something that colleges care about. He was awkward for a couple weeks but basically adapted to high school and we quickly forgot he was homeschooled. The only thing that occasionally reminded us he was homeschooled was that he was better prepared for high school academics than we were and got good grades.

So for everyone saying that homeschooled kids aren't well adjusted or have bad social skills, I'll offer the counterpoint that they might appear unadjusted at first, but humans can usually adapt to new environments, so homeschooled kids have a pretty good chance at acting "normal" a short time after leaving homeschool. Don't judge someone's awkwardness the first time you meet them, let them adjust a bit and see if they can assimilate.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#473

Post by o11c »

squigz wrote: post #438
o11c wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age 12 happens to be the cutoff used in the scientific studies.

And the conclusion to draw from that is that one absolutely cannot be trans under the age of 12?

To avoid arguments about the definition of "be", the clear conclusion is that if it exists it's indistinguishable prior to that age, so any claims before that age can only be considered noise.

It's critical to remember that "reality has a liberal bias" does not mean "literally every detail of things liberals say is reality".

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#474

Post by rahimnathwani »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #453
rahimnathwani wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I estimated that a class of 22 children would require one full time teacher and one full time teaching assistant. What am I missing? My table has $200k left over so we could add another full time teacher at $150k?

Any specialized teaching: art, languages, in high school I understand they have a different teacher for each subject, a librarian, a substitute teacher on sick days, an individual aide for one of the kids to represent the special education budget… But I remember you previously and you appear to want a school system that spends money on exactly what your child needs and nothing else.

  you appear to want a school system that spends money on exactly what your child needs and nothing else.
Providing for my child's educational needs is my job as a parent, not the job of the government 'school system'.

But if the government is going to operate schools and demand that we all pay for those schools, I'd prefer it if those schools were run for the benefit of students (and specifically to maximize academic achievement) and not for the benefit of government employees.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#475

Post by tshaddox »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #147

I can't say my public school experience was great, I was bullied and didn't really click with the popular kids, but being around a cross section of actual American kids in my age group (my school district mixed middle class with lower class neighborhoods) helped me shape my worldview and learn to deal with people who didn't look or talk like me. I frequently saw fights, so I learned that you just stay away and watch…

This is a common sentiment, but how much do you really know about the counterfactual?

It's not obvious to me that you would have been unable to deal with people who didn't look like you if you had been homeschooled.

It also seems to me that a lot of public school environments surely contain kids who look different from each other, form cliques based on physical appearance, and learn to base how they treat people largely on physical appearance.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#476

Post by squigz »

o11c wrote: post #473
squigz wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the conclusion to draw from that is that one absolutely cannot be trans under the age of 12?

To avoid arguments about the definition of "be", the clear conclusion is that if it exists it's indistinguishable prior to that age, so any claims before that age can only be considered noise. It's critical to remember that "reality has a liberal bias" does not mean "literally every detail of things liberals say is reality".

> the clear conclusion is that if it exists it's indistinguishable prior to that age

How is that clear? How would we know if it's indistinguishable if your studies didn't even look?

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#477

Post by o11c »

squigz wrote: post #476
o11c wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To avoid arguments about the definition of "be", the clear conclusion is that if it exists it's indistinguishable prior to that age, so any claims before that age can only be considered noise. It's critical to remember that "reality has a liberal bias" does not mean "literally every detail of things liberals say is reality".

> the clear conclusion is that if it exists it's indistinguishable prior to that age How is that clear? How would we know if it's indistinguishable if your studies didn't even look?

The whole point is that the studies explicitly did look, and found a negative result.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#478

Post by tshaddox »

alphazard wrote: post #382
OneLeggedCat wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a strong desire to supplant science and history with religious ideas and principles.

I hear this a lot, and it may be true, but I am very skeptical that it matters. The statistics about home-schooled children don't support the idea that they have horribly inaccurate models of the world guided mostly by religious thinking. Or if they do it doesn't seem to affect life achievement in any important way. Instead home-schooled children are typically more advanced at graduation and have higher lifetime achi…

> The statistics about home-schooled children don't support the idea that they have horribly inaccurate models of the world guided mostly by religious thinking.

I'd be surprised if any such statistics exist. I've seen studies about the reasons parents choose to homeschool, and various outcomes of homeschooled kids versus public school kids, but none about what particular beliefs homeschooled kids have regarding, say, the age of the Earth.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#479

Post by arevno »

lurking_swe wrote: post #148
PKop wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume wives just want to work and many wouldn't jump at the chance to be able to stay home with their children, and also socialize with other friends outside of some office job environment?

that’s a great fantasy but when you consider, statistically, how many marriages end in divorce - that’s a foolish plan. EVERYONE thinks their marriage is different or special. Maybe working part time is OK, you at least have some job history. But no work history for 10+ years? Great ways to put all your eggs into 1 basket and potentially end up a poor single mom. And i say this as a husband and father.

The vast majority of courts award spousal support for this exact reason.

Post-divorce, the vast majority of stay-at-home moms with limited recent work history are supported by court edict.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#480

Post by mmcclure »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #408
mmcclure wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school house. That $200k gets eaten up pretty quick by things like security, janitorial, building maintenance, support staff like principals, librarians, guidance counselors etc etc. If you’re meaning to include total cost for the full time employees (the teachers) in the list, then the salaries are a lot less a…

"I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school house." I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items. I chose a one room school house as an example because it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper due to economies of scale. "I've got multiple kids, so I'll admit I think about schools here a lot." Although I have only one chi…

    I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items. I chose a one room school house as an example because it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper due to economies of scale.
I would argue that economies of scale don't apply to education in the same way they apply to other businesses at large. Sure, you theoretically get the benefits of scale with central organization, buildings, centralized services, etc, but once you get to the classrooms themselves most of the cost simply scales linearly with the number of students.

    This $28k number is false. Most parochial schools charge about $12k.
I'm not sure what we're talking about here anymore. You're using K-8 as the dominating factor for this gotcha a few times in this thread. There are more K-8 parochial schools, yes. "Most parochial schools charge about $12k" is true, unless you're talking about high school. Exactly 1 parochial school is less than $30k (SF Christian, at $16k). From there (limited to religious schools):

    - Sacred Heart ($31k)
    - Archbishop Riordan ($32k)
    - Saint Ignatius ($34.6)
    - Sacred Heart ($60k) 
    - Jewish Community School ($65k)
I might have missed some in here since I'm going by names, but given that SF Christian is the cheapest private high school on SF Chronicle's list[1] I don't think that matters for my point.

You started this thread with average cost per student across all SF public school students, which includes special needs, high school, etc, but move to median prices for debate, and structure most of your argument around the cheapest schools (K-8). Mea culpa on my end, though: you are correct that when I was saying "cheapest I've seen," there was an unfair modifier of "cheapest schools on my personal spreadsheet" which is limited to schools within a reasonable commute and that we'd be willing to send our kids to. You're absolutely correct that there are cheaper parochial schools available as long as you only need K-8.

Using averages for private schools, which feels more applicable to your starting premise, private schools in SF average $27k, $28k, and $52k, for elementary, middle, and high school (again, referencing SF Chronicle's data). I still feel comfortable with my original premise that averaging $28k per student across all of SFUSD students is not an absurd number.

    So looking at the sticker prices (which I've listed above) may give an inflated view of total income.
Sure, that's fair! But we're not talking about income, we're talking about average cost per kid. We can't actually know the details under the hood, but again, those schools specifically in your list are usually subsidized by a larger religious organization, so the sticker price doesn't truly reflect that cost anyway.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/sf-bay-area-privat...

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