Home SchoolingFollow

Oh, I don't know. I agree that you have the right to say just about anything you want in a public manner, Just Not Here. This is not, strictly speaking, a public forum. It is not government owned and operated, and thus any kind of regulations that the forum admins wish to enforce is their perogative. You know, kinda like I could kick you out of my home if you entered uninvited.

Furthermore, if I heard the crap you spew on a street corner, I would be well within my rights to tell you to STFU and to heckle you because I think you're a cnut, but thats just me exercising my right to free speech.

Yet it would be on the list. For a guy who supposedly espouses liberty and freedom from the heavy hand of government (ie the Patriot Act) you sure are quick to force people to conform to your ideas of what is acceptable or not, Smash.


It's the opposite, actually. Read my posts on this thread and see if you can't figure out why forcing people to conform is precisely why I'm against homeschooling.

Not at all, Anna. Smash says if he had his way public schooling would be compulsory and any issues you had with it could be dealt with after the required 35 hours of state run schooling. He would abolish home schooling, private schools, and parochial schools as a vehicle for learning except under very limited circumstances.

Wow.

If that's not an enfringement upon freedom of choice, then what is? Yet you pounce on the term Stalinist as if I were the one who just had made an outrageous statement. This falls in lockstep with the common belief that the liberal elite thinks they know better than you in all aspects of your life-- and that starts with your children who need to be schooled in the "proper" way to think, that is, their way. The Stalinist or Maoist comparison isn't far from the mark. Even Smasharoo points out that it's just a few steps removed from what actually occured in an authoritarian state.

Your increduality at my observation just goes to show how steeped in the doctrine of selective freedom you as a liberal are. Everything is fine as long as you go along with and believe what your masters tell you. If that's not a concise definition of a totalitarian state, what is?

Totem

If that's not an enfringement upon freedom of choice, then what is?

Every law ever passed in the history of the world is "an infringement upon freedom of choice". That's what government is. Are you an anarchist? Seriously, I don't find it an untenable philosophy, so I'm really asking. Seems to me, infringing on freedom of choice when it's what you'd like people to do seems perfectly ok with you. Maybe I'm wrong there, help me out.

So let me ask you, because in my job sometimes I have families who come in with teenagers who are being educated at home by random adults with questionable credentials, how much control should the state have over who should home school kids, what should their qualifications be and should there be certain age restrictions (i.e. it's easier to homeschool younger kids than high school students)?

No question about it, there are difficulties with home schooling, particularly as the children grow older. However, this does not mean they insurmountable, but it is something for the parent to contend with.

As a rule, home schooling is done by the parent. There is some lattitude for a parent to use the teaching skills of another parent who has skills or better knowledge in certain subjects, but the norm is the parent handles the education of their own kid. The vast majority we came into contact with were not looking to use home schooling as some form of skating on their kid's education, after all, they could just send them to public schools to do that, couldn't they? Rather, these parents took the responsibility seriously and examined their own abilities to teach a comprehensive cirriculum critically. Most have some form of organized gathering for socialization and team sports.

All this being said, just as in public education there is no guarantee that success will be achieved in home schooling. In some cases a parent is more concerned that various unsavory or secular influences may harm their child and thus take on the child's education to their unfortunate results due to a lack of preparedness or ability. This is far from the norm in my experience (and in studies I have read). However, there are entire public school systems generating this very result, so why not focus on that issue equally? For example, in California, the year we moved here, the state budget was short so pencils and paper were not available at the start of the school year. What was the schools' solution? They freaking did not begin classes until OCTOBER and STILL let school out in May! All for the lack of pencils and paper. Wow. Just... wow.

Look, I do not advocate home schooling unless the parent is willing to put in the time and effort to do it properly. Properly does not mean the parent needs a course in Children's Education 101 or anything else, but rather a willingness to learn the material themselves and then patiently teach their youngster. And that's hard work. I know this. I did it myself.

Totem

Perhaps we should back up and discuss what it is about home schooling that you find abhorrent, Smash. Is it the lack of a standardized curriculum? Or the idea people get different ideas taught to them? Because if your objection is a lack of quality then trying to make the case that public education is superior is a non-starter. Dollar for dollar, private schools deliver far more bang for the buck than public education

Wrong.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800EFD7123EF930A1575BC0A9609C8B63

Private schools WHO SELECT STUDENTS do better than any schools that don't, and public schools WHO SELECT STUDENTS do better than any schools that don't.

Comparing a selective private school that accepts vouchers to a public school required to accept all students is moronic and intellectually dishonest.

When compared with corresponding populations private schools have never once been shown to outperform public schools.

Not once.

I realize having any ******* clue what you're talking about isn't a prerequisite to posting here, but come on now.

School Privatization exits, incidentally. The fact that it's consistently a massive unqualified failure is what prevents it from being widespread, not politics. Edison Schools is a large for profit school company who's schools cost more per student and perform shockingly poorly when compared to public schools with similar demographics. They're still in business, of course, because there's never been and never will be a shortage of suckers convinced that "the government" is inefficient in every capacity.

There's your problem-- public education. Your defense lasted all of three sentences in that article. We're discussing home schooling/private schools vs public education, not public vs more public.

So you agree that Charter Schools are a bad idea?

Truth be told, I don't have an opinion on charter schools. My wife's sister's kids go to one and she's not impressed, but she refuses to spend the money on an excellent local private school, even though she has adequate funds to send them there. I'd have to do some thinking/reading/research on the topic to make an informed decision on them.

Off the top of my head though, based on the fact that they are still publically funded, I'd guess there are basic similarities to your run-of-the-mill public school despite the label of "charter", thus ensnaring it in many of the problems that traditional public schools face. I'd further guess that some of the cirriculum is marginally different or a particular school specializes in a specific skillset.

/shrugs

But off hand I am uninformed about the intricacies of the charter system.

As for my sister-in-law, I am baffled why she would settle for a mediocre education for her kids when there is something available that is exceedingly superior. My brother teaches there and his kids (who his wife home schooled for the first three grades) are tremendously educated. His oldest, a senior, scored a perfect 32 on his ACT and got a 2360 on the SAT. While that may be largely genetics, the foundation they gave their boy allowed him to excel.

Totem

Edison, shmedison. Bill Gates was a genius too and made gajillions. So what? these two were unique and not indicative of the public school system as a whole. If they were the norm we wouldn't be using incandescent light bulbs and computers, we'd have cold fusion for energy and would communicate by telepathy.

Let's agree, at least, that private schools, dollar for dollar educates more efficiently than public schools, be that in terms of test scores, college bound freshmen percentages, or class size.

Totem

Let's agree, at least, that private schools, dollar for dollar educates more efficiently than public schools, be that in terms of test scores, college bound freshmen percentages, or class size.

They don't. What they may do is do a better job with very gifted students. I won't argue that public schools don't do a very job with gifted kids. They can't afford to, because their mandate is to do the greatest good to the greatest population, while private schools can cherry pick the most talented students and afford faculty that can engage them. I had quantum physics my junior year of High School. I recognize that it's not practical to ever expect a public school system to offer that course even if there were a few students who could handle it.

Ahh, that's what he got then. I'm not too up on those college entrance exams, but this is what I heard from my brother, my parents, and the newspaper article he was in.

Totem

The jury's still out on that.Reviews of the testing done in Cleveland's school voucher program showed slightly higher math skills and slightly lower language skills when compared to public school testing.

As Smash notes, it's 'easy' for a private school to have better students when it can select better students from the start. Whether their teaching methods innately produce better students from any given lump of clay is well open to debate.