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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#81

Post by [deleted] »

nineplay wrote: post #37
ARandomerDude wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing the quantity and quality of good influences on your children is just good parenting. If I know there's a kid down the street who seems like he will grow up to be a criminal, and another kid who seems like he'll grow up to be a kind, hard-working, well adjusted person, there is a 100% guarantee I will encourage my kids to play with the second kid, not the first.

The poster above references the 'average person'. Do you think that the average person is not going to be a good influence?

[deleted]

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#82

Post by cloverich »

msluyter wrote: post #51
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.

| Private schools are outrageously expensive. Yes, and... In states where property taxes fund schools, there are basically two ways to pay for a good school: a) go to a private school, b) live in a school zone with high real estate values. At various points my wife and I calculated that 8 years at ~25k/yr tuition would work out to about the same as the ~200k house price delta we'd have to pay to move to a better scho…

I did the same math comparing portland with suburb schools (around portland and seattle) and came to the same conclusion. But one other thought is when the money goes to the mortgage, you get to keep the wealth after (assuming you sell to downsize at some point).

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#83

Post by vel0city »

brightball wrote: post #70
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.

This seems to reflect a lot of what I hear about as well. Everything is too entrenched from a decision making standpoint for any one person to make a difference in reforms. A free market fixes anything where people have the ability to "vote with their wallet" and simply stop paying for services which aren't meeting expectations when they find another that does. Things like employer sponsored health insurance are insu…

Voucher programs are just going to flood the "education market" with substandard schools teaching things like humans walked with dinosaurs a few thousand years ago before the great flood. They're going to extract profits from our tax dollars to give us a worse quality service.

We'll see a lot of new schools open up, spend a few years collecting profits, then get shut down for substandard quality after effectively failing to teach kids for those few years. Meanwhile the public schools which can't be choosy will end up with fewer resources and have worse outcomes for the kids who have parents who can't afford private transportation to the few nicer, choosier voucher schools.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#84

Post by superq »

cratermoon wrote: post #18
dingnuts wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this explanation extremely unsatisfying considering that you could make the same choice and put your child into private education if you're a successful tech person. I know families that homeschool and I like to read articles like this one to see if anyone "gets it." So far, no hits. They're opting out of mediocre instruction and government-mandated values enforcement ("DEI" in its public school curricula for…

If you look around and see "government-mandated values enforcement ("DEI" in its public school curricula form)", I already fear for your children, whether you home school them or not.

You fear for other people's kids.. over politics?

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#85

Post by PaulHoule »

x187463 wrote: post #22

Anecdotally, those around me that are homeschooling are doing it for one of two reasons: 1) Right-wing disgust over woke issues. 2) Fear of school shootings. That's coming from a non-tech middle/lower-middle class setting. 20-30 years ago, when I was in school, most of the homeschoolers seemed (again anecdotally) to be based on religion or some other idiosyncratic reasoning rather than the reasons I cited above.

I have some friends who are Christian but left wing (their kids would come over to play and draw pictures about helping poor people.) The dad teaches CS at a small Catholic college, mom stayed home and educated their kids.

The "disgust over woke issues" existed in some form 30 years ago when people were homeschooling but it had not hardened into the constellation it is in now. Back then you could get folks like that to talk articulately about how they disagreed with secular values, introduce a word like "woke" and now people talk past each other, at best, if they talk at all.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#86

Post by demosthanos »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #67
demosthanos wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't think we have the competence to be a teacher. We would never presume to teach someone else's kids. We think we have a relationship with our own child that allows us to understand what they need and how to communicate with them in a way that works for them. We think we have the time (assuming one parent is full time parenting) to give our child the attention they need to excel. And we believe that a combinati…

You can do all that on top of a normal education.

Not really—public school takes up 6+ hours of every day, and I'd like my kids to have self-directed time as well. If we tried to do some sort of after-school tutoring with mom that would deprive them of valuable time to choose their own stuff to work on.

And what would be the point? If we're right that their mom is better equipped to teach them than a teacher is (because of time to dedicate to them and a personal relationship and understanding) then what do we gain by having a teacher do it too?

(This isn't the thread for the socializing argument, because OP started with teacher qualifications. I'll just add that we are aware of that concern and have strong mitigations in place.)

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#87

Post by spiderfarmer »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #80
spiderfarmer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do all that on top of a normal education.

Not really. There are only so many hours in the day. The time between school and bedtime is extremely limited and involves other time consuming activities such as after school sports and eating dinner. I work on homework with my kid every day and after all those things it's not like we have time (or she has energy) to fill in holes in her at-school learning

I teach my kids valuable lessons in the car, during dinner and on evening walks. But I’m not in a country that is starving their education system.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#88

Post by cloverich »

inetknght wrote: post #49
jazzyjackson wrote: post #25

Homeschooling is seeing a surge in popularity, its not just tech people or high status people. IME it's a lack of trust, sending your kids to be raised by strangers. I grew up in a small town and some of my teachers were basically neighbors. For some reason outside my understanding, a lot of small towns have shuttered the school in walking distance and moved to "consolidated" schools which might serve a thousand stud…

> For some reason outside my understanding, a lot of small towns have shuttered the school in walking distance and moved to "consolidated" schools In my experience it's because schools are being treated as a business, and businesses are usually more efficient when there's consolidation of expenses. Why pay for 3 schools with 10 teachers each when you could instead consolidate classes and pay for 1 school with 15 teac…

Depends on area. Portland schools have plenty of money but still struggle. Administration and retirement perks eat up most of the budget. In a sense its that they are not a business that leads to that kind of issue.

But ultimately its a complex issue. eg voucher systems would resolve the above issues, but create entirely new sets of problems which may be worse along the way.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#89

Post by morkalork »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #79
morkalork wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public school education is a shit show in many western countries. I'm not in the USA but all the talk about private schools and lotteries is very real. The only thing we don't have is charter schools leaching public funds.

The USA is ranked below most other western public school systems so I don’t think you can conclude “the US are doing bad because all western countries are”. It’s just a matter of priorities and the US prioritizes defense over education.

Wasn't there a time in the 70s/80s when the USA prioritized education and STEM specifically for the MIC and the cold war?

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#90

Post by theamk »

nineplay wrote: post #37
ARandomerDude wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing the quantity and quality of good influences on your children is just good parenting. If I know there's a kid down the street who seems like he will grow up to be a criminal, and another kid who seems like he'll grow up to be a kind, hard-working, well adjusted person, there is a 100% guarantee I will encourage my kids to play with the second kid, not the first.

The poster above references the 'average person'. Do you think that the average person is not going to be a good influence?

Average person _where_?

If the school is bad enough, then an average student there (because there are many more students than teachers) might not be a good influence.

There are schools in my state with <50% graduation rate, the average student there won't even finish the school.

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