Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education • Hacker News Board

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#481

Post by 303uru » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

akira2501 wrote: post #114

303uru wrote: post #17

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Sure, that's one model. The underlying problem is the completely unregulated nature. Similarly, there is household in my neighborhood that home schools. The kids (all 8 of them) never leave the house. They have a 8ft. fence and 1 acre yard where I assume they get some outside time. No one visits. Only dad is allowed to talk to anyone and when he does it's extraordinarily weird.

> The underlying problem is the completely unregulated nature. I didn't need your permission to give birth to my children, why do I need your permission when deciding how I educate them? > Only dad is allowed to talk to anyone and when he does it's extraordinarily weird. If you feel these children are legitimately being abused in some way, I'm guessing there are plenty of state resources to address that challenge. Do…

>why do I need your permission when deciding how I educate them

Your kid has a right to education, you don't get to deny them that right. It's funny how these arguments are all "don't tread on my right to tread on my kid."

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Post by chmod600 » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #462

chmod600 wrote: post #455

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Public schools don't have some inalienable right to that money either -- they are entrusted with the money by popular vote. If we want that to continue, then there needs to be very broad consensus that the things teachers are teaching are the right things, or at least not the wrong things.

What other institutions do people try to claw back money from when people decide they can do a better job?

Schools are one area where there's a lot of money involved, it's a direct service to normal people, and those people actually can do a pretty good job without the school (not saying that everyone can or that it's easy).

Some communities highly dissatisfied with their police attempted to defund and/or defunded their department. That's not a great example because self-service policing doesn't work very well, but it's kinda close.

Ultimately, if you want the voters' money, you need to convince them that you at least won't use it against them. And it's really easy for people to start thinking that it's being used against them when engaging in culture war or political issues.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Post by alistairSH » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:57 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #239

jgeada wrote: post #200

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It is wild that this is the take. This eep distrust of government is at the root of many American problems. It is deliberately created and fed, and it directly leads to some truly awful results: bad education, bad healthcare, virtually no public benefit for all the taxes we pay. But we do get world's largest military, large corporate subsidies, highest per capita healthcare costs. Unlike in most other Western countri…

It's not really a wild take - that's the reality. It's not really distrust in this case either. The question was can we educate more efficiently. This case is of a group of kids being taught by parents. The parents give up half a day a week to teach one of their homes. They don't need a staff, a building, etc. You really can't be more efficient than that model of using the existing resources. And you're only partiall…

You really can't be more efficient than that model of using the existing resources.

It’s only “efficient” because it doesn’t have to scale. Add non-wealthy kids into the mix. Add children with learning disabilities. All of a sudden, homeschooling fails a massive chunk of the population.

Public education has served the US well for most of the post-WWII era. Let’s fix it, not abandon it.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Post by vorpalhex » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:58 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #441

drw3 wrote: post #361

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[deleted]

If you want an example of current events as it applies to the danger of religion take a simple look at the Israel/Hamas war. 1) Hamas jihadists cultivate decades of repression of the Palestinian populace into a spectacular terrorist strike on Oct 7th. 2) Israel, an apartheid ethnostate, where Rabbis call for extermination of Palestinians in response to the Hamas strike (after decades of dehumanization), drops a nucle…

That'd be a great counter example if any of it were factually true.

Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians and it's planks include the extermination of the Jews wholesale, whether in Israel or elsewhere. Part of why Israel was created is because.. a large group of Muslims was attempting to enact an extermination of the Jews (and did kill quite a few).

Israel is not an apartheid ethnostate in any sense of those words and you do dishonor to actual apartheid and ethnic conflicts even by a comparison. Gaza itself has a luxury car dealership[1]!

Not only do non-Jews have equal rights in Israel but it's one of the few countries in the middle east where Arab women have a legal right to vote and free travel without an escort.

I have no idea where you got three from but it's not actually in the Christian Bible or the Torah.

[1]: https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/mena/libyan-luxury-car...

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Post by chaostheory » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:00 PM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #447

chaostheory wrote: post #389

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> I used to think religion was about deep fear, now I see it more as about deep care. As someone who has grown up in a religious, conservative household, I strongly disagree. Sure, there are many good values that a religious conservative household can foster such as independence and self accountability. However, you cannot its ignore downside either. The same culture promotes fear of the “other” ie different religion…

> However, you cannot its ignore downside either. The same culture promotes fear of the “other” ie different religion, different ethnicity / race, different political ideology, et al. That has nothing to do with religion. These are facets of human nature which find a way to express themselves in all societies regardless of religion.

One of the main tenants of religion is to make it clear that the people who aren’t adherents are wrong and that they will end up in that respective religion’s hell. Religion is a large part of it.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Post by bigstrat2003 » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #402

chasd00 wrote: post #227

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I had someone (childless i might add) try to make me feel guilty for pulling my kids out of a school circling the drain and into a high performing one in the name of diversity. I told them, when the time comes, if they want to sacrifice their child on that altar then it's their decision but don't ask me to sacrifice mine.

Kind of wild and weirdly refreshing to finally see the "everyone is in it for themselves and their own" attitude on fully overt display in this article's comments. Usually it's masked behind talk of "freedom" and "individuality," but here, it's raw and out there in the open! FWIW I probably could afford to send my kid to a better private school or alternate-schooling group, withdrawing from the community and not-so-g…

One's job as a parent isn't to use their children to solve systemic issues in society, it's to do the best they can for their children.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Post by temptemptemp111 » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

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Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Post by rhuru » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #329

jandrese wrote: post #264

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There is a huge spectrum, but back when we homeschooled (my wife wasn't yet comfortable sending the kids back to the classroom in 2021) we did a few events where local homeschool kids got together for various activities. Tree identification/nature trail at the park, visits to historic sites, stuff like that. Of the parents I met there was some variety, but 9 times out of 10 it seemed like they were mostly doing it be…

// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination I was raised totally secular but I now understand that religion is about fundamentally aligning yourself to the highest aspirations ("what kind of man does G-d want me to be?") and even w/o actual faith, I am starting to think that's preferable to the current mode of "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like an…

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Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Post by robertlagrant » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:05 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #421

rrradical wrote: post #404

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I was (non-religiously) home schooled and very much benefited from it. I was able to spend a lot more time reading books than I would have in school. I was able to learn about computers, programming, etc. I did get some socialization through other kids in my neighborhood and events with other home school families. I started in back in school around high school and, although it was a bit of a transition, I enjoyed it…

Or so you think. I don't know you, but every home school kids I've met shows the lack of meeting republicans/democrats/jews/blacks. None of them see that in themselves though.

It's hard to know what this looks like.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#490

Post by lolinder » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:06 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #436

CaptWillard wrote: post #430

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// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination. While this may technically fit the definition of "indoctrination", that's a pretty loaded way to describe what parents teach their own children. // they thought the public schools were too secular and were teaching "sinful" sciences like evolution. Really? In 2021, the hot-button issue among religious parents was evol…

I personally know multiple people who homeschooled their kids to avoid discussing evolution. There's even been debate at state board of education levels about how evolution is taught in public schools. There's absolutely a lot of people who want to teach their kids humans and dinos existed at the same time.

I think their point wasn't that religious parents wouldn't be concerned about evolution too, but that in 2021 they would have expected LGBT issues to be at the forefront of the religious right's fears surrounding public schools.

For the parental fears to center on evolution either suggests either that the parents were censoring their larger concerns for OP, or it's an anachronism that brings the chronology into question.