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

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

#701

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The facts don't line up with your opinion. A 2016 study by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) indicates homeschoolers scored between 15 and 30 percentage points higher on standardized academic achievement tests and usually scored higher on the SAT/ACT. https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/

No, that's not a fact. It's an observation that shows how people with training and resources can do a better job than the public school system. But as more affluent kids move out of the school system, funding will decrease, leaving the kids belonging to poor or uneducated parents stranded, until they too are forced to homeschool. It's funny how people will gut the foundation of public education over decades, then tur…

> But as more affluent kids move out of the school system, funding will decrease

Why? Public schools are funded by tax money, not by the kids. Less kids using public schools mean more resources for the kids left. No?

I am not following your reasoning.

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

#702
post #671
post #611

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> anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like and there's no judgement of any of your actions Wow, what a terrible take. If anyone needs religion to live a moral life, I'm glad they have found it and hope they never lose it. I'm judged by my peers, my family, my community, and my country. But even if I wasn't, I would know what's right and what's wrong. Moreover, I guess it's good that amoral people can find eth…

Ah, moral relativism. I believe there is no way around the idea that without religion, there is no such thing as morality. It all comes down to the question: how do you know what's right and wrong? If you don't have an external moral code, that is, you decide what is right and wrong, then the odds are stacked against you, 1 out of every individual with a unique opinion to ever exist; it is conceited for anyone to bel…

> I am a Christian, so I'd like to briefly correct the ..

With no disrespect toward yourself, just a wry acknowledgement of a plain truth - the essential issue with as the external guidebook is that despite it being "conceited for anyone to believe they are the one" this is more or less the sharding issue of the many many many differing interpretations of (choose your own) .

I've travelled the world a lot in the past six deacades and lost count of how many clearly distinct groups of Christians I've encountered.

The Christian on Christian wars over differing takes on the same material have torn kingdoms asunder.

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

#703

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// 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…

As someone who was raised in religious communities, that "higher aspirations" is only the position "in principle" in reality working with people in the religious community was just scams and moral self justification of despicable behavior hidden behind soft language and terrible behavior. So much contention, so much gossip, so much backbiting behavior and hidden evils against children so that communities wouldn't "lo…

> I know so many poorly educated homeschoolers whose lives have been destroyed with no hope of recovery by the complete lack of skills their hyper religious parents imparted them with, in jail, broke, unable to hack it in college and too lacking in common sense to make it in the trades or professional work, with living standards insanely far below their parents.

As long as we're trading samples from a single observer's recollections: mine are different. I never homeschooled myself, but I had several friends in high school who had homeschooled until then who were well-educated, were in advanced science and math etc. They've been fine since then, too. Not all parents are good teachers, but many do quite fine.

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

#704

I was home-schooled until high school. Long story short, it was a disaster. I bordered on having no education at all, on top of no socialization. I'm so fortunate I got at least four years of public school. I still think I suffer to this day. For parents who are thinking of home schooling your kids: best of luck to you. If you succeed, maybe your kids will be smarter. If you fail, you could be setting your kids up fo…

I was home-schooled and thought it was amazing. I then studied education and worked as a public middle school teacher. I definitely will co-op or home-school my kids unless they want to go to school.

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

#705
post #515

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I was raised very Catholic (and decided by my early teens that I didn't believe in any of it), and I completely disagree with your conclusion. Organized religion (at least Christianity) absolutely is about deep fear. "Do this or you'll go to hell!" "Believe this or you'll go to hell!" Repeat ad infinitum. I won't deny that some churches (as in, specific people, not the system as a whole) can do good in the world; one…

You've misunderstood Catholicism. The entire reason Christianity is so radical is because it's the first major religion of purely love. There is no need to sacrifice anyone, you get infinite forgiveness, so long as you truly repent, and nearly every facet of Catholicism is based around the idea of love. A fine example is the incredibly important Corinthians 13:13: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But…

You need to read your catechism.

Catholicism absolutely has sins that are unforgivable.

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

#706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why are you assuming everyone pays into the system? In fact ide argue the people trying to claw back the money for a better outcome are the people actually paying into the system and the people that aren't are the ones causing the system to degrade.

Well, that's an emotionally satisfying theory for some I'm sure, but one that requires evidence unless you're more invested in the ideology than the reality.

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

#707

I'm not surprised at the rise in homeschooling. When you have anti-education groups like the Oregon Department of Education [1] running the public school system, any parent that cares and can make the effort should remove their child from public schooling. This semester they switched my son from high-school chemistry to "environmental science". I asked him, "is oxygen flammable?" He couldn't answer. I looked at the c…

Is oxygen flammable? I’m pretty well-educated and that question gave me pause. I know oxygen is involved in the combustion process, so I think the answer is yes, oxygen is flammable. That feels like a trick question though.

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

#708
post #361

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[deleted]

> I know you just said “religion,” but I can only speak about Christianity as I’m deeply familiar with it. I believe you when you speak of the bad experiences you had, but you seem to think that what you've seen is the only (or at least the typical) manifestation of Christianity. But that isn't true, and if you do indeed believe it's true I respectfully suggest you aren't deeply familiar with Christianity the way you…

> Christians I have known aren't trying to indoctrinate anyone

Every Christian who was ever born was indoctrinated to become one. Except Paul, who was the bronze age equivalent of Jim Bakker.

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

#709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I've watched my nieces and nephews - now aged 5-13 - fail to learn to do math (any), write, read, even _say the alphabet_. We've called the school district, CPS, and the police. None are able to do anything. These children are being raised to live in poverty. So yes, I'm against home schooling because it leaves some kids worse off. We have to enforce standards, and until we do I will not comply.

Almost half the public school graduates in California can’t read - the world is complicated. Sweeping generalizations are usually wrong in interesting ways.

I think the stat was that more than half of public school graduates in California couldn't read at a grade 11 level. The parent comment to yours seems to be saying these kids literally can't read, and don't even know the alphabet.

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

#710
post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like and there's no judgement of any of your actions Wow, what a terrible take. If anyone needs religion to live a moral life, I'm glad they have found it and hope they never lose it. I'm judged by my peers, my family, my community, and my country. But even if I wasn't, I would know what's right and what's wrong. Moreover, I guess it's good that amoral people can find eth…

No one needs religion to lead a moral life. That's not the argument. But without the transcendent, without a higher power, we have no grounding for our morality. Everything becomes subjective and "post-modern". Actions then become "justifiable" - if there is such a thing - by whatever criteria suits us: the greater good, the good of the nation, whatever. But essentially self-interest takes over completely. The more w…

> without a higher power, we have no grounding for our morality.

This might be more convincing if we had empirical evidence that this “higher power” even exists and could discern (and thus agree on) what it wants and why what it wants is good.

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