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

#941

Post by llbeansandrice » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 6:05 PM UTC

petertodd wrote: post #379

llbeansandrice wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really difficult because a lot of the resources and groups are created by and supported by this very religious group that homeschools. There is still a very wide margin though. My wife was homeschooled because she did gymnastics at a fairly high level when she was young and so scheduling was easier for her that way. Her older sister wasn't homeschooled hardly at all though.

> It's really difficult because a lot of the resources and groups are created by and supported by this very religious group that homeschools. ...and why do those groups create so many resources? Because they tend to be people trying hard to replicate the traditional schooling experience, with high academic standards and expectations. Evangelicals are rarely the ones doing unschooling. Source: was mostly(1) unschooled…

They're not doing unschooling I guess but they are pulling their kids out of public and private schools because they teach things like evolution. I suppose it's up for debate which is worse: kids attempting to learn in an unstructured environment or a structured environment that's religious propaganda and entirely wrong.

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

#942

Post by swalling » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 6:06 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #239

jgeada wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Education is not a market, efficiency is not the primary goal. Quality and equity of outcomes for students is the goal.

The system today is optimizing for standardization federally in order to try and fight the natural entropy toward a highly unequal system where rich kids get dramatically better education and there is a downward spiral for poor kids. It's not achieving this goal today, but decentralizing the system would most definitely reinforce unequal outcomes, not avoid it.

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

#943

Post by slackfan » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 6:09 PM UTC

nickthegreek wrote: post #501

goalonetwo wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's start with this thread: https://twitter.com/wanyeburkett/status/1715586174658441404

I do appreciate the effort, but I can't see the thread as I do not have a twitter account.

nitter.net?

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

#944

Post by mcpackieh » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 6:12 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #865

NiagaraThistle wrote: post #855

My biggest concern with Home Schooling is you literally have someone not qualified as a teacher, as in probably knows nothing of the subject and may not even have an education themselves, teaching the children. Obviously this isn't all cases, and some traditional school teachers are questionable at best, but at least traditional teachers had to at least TRY to be subject matter experts before teaching in a traditiona…

For some reason there's not a lot of academic interest in homeschool outcomes, so there's not much data out there. But the data that is out there shows why parents who turn to homeschooling almost never turn back. And I've never met a homeschooled kid who didn't seem weird. And by weird, I mean able to easily discuss complex topics with adults, showing not only competent conversation skills, but broad knowledge of th…

> And I've never met a homeschooled kid who didn't seem weird. And by weird, I mean able to easily discuss complex topics with adults, showing not only competent conversation skills, but broad knowledge of the world and how it works.

It goes beyond knowledge. I went to public school but one of my better friends was homeschooled. We knew each other because we participated on the same sports team and consequently saw each other six days a week for most of the year. He was always odd and I knew it, but only some years later did I figure out what was odd about him: He was two years older than me but he always treated me like an equal. He lacked the biases against people of a different ages that were normal in public school attendees. Most older kids (the rest all public school attendees) wouldn't necessarily bully the younger kids, but at best treated them distantly with mild to substantial condescension.

I was the same way, almost all of my friends were the same age as me but kids even one year younger were in some way "little kids" to me, even though some of them were physically larger, faster, and sometimes smarter too. What difference does one or two years make? Now that I'm an adult, I can clearly see that a few years of difference is no difference at all. My homeschooled friend had that figured out years before anybody else.

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

#945

Post by zen_1 » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

TheBigSalad wrote: post #740

brightball wrote: post #7

When I moved into my current house about 10 years ago, the family next door home schooled. I'd never known any home schoolers before and definitely had some notions about how terrible it must be until I learned about it. This family was part of a home school group with other families. The kids went to different houses every day and had an instructor focus on 1 subject for half of the day, mixed in with free time, dep…

OK but that's virtually the same thing as public school.

Except with a much lower chance of kids getting bullied, assaulted, or shot

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

#946

Post by zen_1 » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 6:47 PM UTC

eutropia wrote: post #909

mrguyorama wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only exist as an educated person who can make a middle class income and live a normal life because of public education. My single mother is an experienced and gifted teacher, but would not have had the time to educate me. We could never have afforded to send me to any private school. My only chance for a normal life and education was public school. A huge amount of americans are poor in time and money. The only opt…

Yeah, school choice is a bullshit policy, typical of the fuck-you, got-mine neocon movement. I voted to raise property tax where I live specifically to improve the funding situation for our struggling public schools - I attended a great public school district growing up (because, surprise: my parents could afford to move into the district). The funding situation needs to be fixed across the board, because indeed ever…

The problems public schools are facing aren't (all) funding related

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

#947

Post by mcpackieh » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

etchalon wrote: post #737

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you meant to say instead of "anything goes", was lack of duty. That's what seems to be missing, that organized religion did bring to the table. Duty. The duty of the teacher to protect the student from bullying? Gone. The duty of the parent to stay in an unfulfilling relationship for the sake of the children. The duty of the professional (cop? doctor?) to serve and protect the public. The duty of the pro…

The duty to stone someone working on the Sabbath? Gone.

It was religious adherents who dispensed with that 'duty', not atheist reformers. Jesus himself said that you should not cast stones unless you are without sin (nobody is, therefore nobody may cast stones.) Jesus brought this and other reforms to the jewish religion and was murdered for it.

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

#948

Post by zen_1 » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 6:56 PM UTC

burcs wrote: post #27

We're homeschooling our kids. I was pretty against it at first, but seeing our education system degrade to the state it is today, and being honest about my schooling experience definitely opened me up to it. I think the biggest argument for schooling is the socialization aspect of it. I don't know about the rest of you but I was bullied pretty relentlessly throughout grade school and it completely changed my personal…

I'm glad that I grew up in {shithole} (as Trump would put it) where I was able to threaten to (and follow up on in one case) beating the shit out of my bullies in school. It didn't magically stop the bullying, but it made it much less effective when I could lunge at him/fake him out and make him flinch back in fear of a repeat.

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

#949

Post by Teever » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #666

Teever wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the purpose of religion is to align yourself to the highest aspirations why do so many large religious organizations get caught up stuff like this: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mormon-church-ensign-peak-whist...

It’s the same reason every institution has corruption: health care, insurance, wall st., etc.

What is that reason?

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

#950

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Wed, Nov 01, 2023, 7:10 PM UTC

Racing0461 wrote: post #623

spiderfarmer wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The local public school program that he would be in is overwhelmed. Pay more taxes. Solve the problem for all people who run into it, not just the ones who can afford it.

We already pay more per student than literally any other socialist country. More so in the "bad schools". Money isn't the problem, it's "da culture".

In 2019 the US was at 38% above average with four other countries above us: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...

I think our educational outcomes are not in line with our spending because a part of our political apparatus is simultaneously trying to sabotage the program.