Not a thread about this one: Common Core (no?)Follow

Yeah, more like the "what makes milk a liquid" question, and your response was more or less the conversation in a nutshell. She's more interested in the basic questions of her reality right now it seems "Why is this piece of paper red?" Spoiler(no not red dye, because that becomes "why is the dye red...") or "why do sharks have fins?" and stuff like that.

Kids and their questions and such.

Racism.

Mom forgot to add the chocolate.

Oldest would be starting kindergarten, but even then we've always been into answering everything anyway, it just backs you into a corner sometimes. But hey at least we know how babies are made now.

People these days ya? There's work arounds for it though. For example just implant a couple of electrodes and you have a radio controlled kid.

Or, Ice Cream. (Don't tell the cows!)

Oh. And on the original topic, the opposition to common core isn't necessarily found in the specifics of the education itself, but with the idea that we should be mandating so much of what is taught in schools at such a high/broad level in the first place. The more you mandate, the less flexibility individual teachers have to construct their classes. While this may be a good thing with regard to under performing teachers, in our pursuit of standardization, we're also cutting off the outstanding/creative teachers.

We could talk about the data, but it's already established that we disagree on that point, and there are other people capable of discussing that angle with who you might engage or might engage you.

What I would like you to know is something else--purely on anecdotal experiences and lacking as a representative sample--is that you are personally insulting me. I don't know what what your experiences have been, but I believe it's likely I have more interaction with the home-school community than you do. You have not likely had to speak with suicidal children who believe they have no future. You have not likely had to watch those children grow up and struggle to obtain better than minimum wage jobs. It's insulting because I feel you're being so flippant in accepting research which suits you, when the problems of those affected by your position will never be your problems. It seems to me that you have the certainty of someone with nothing to lose.

There is nothing I am asking of you. But I did want you to have this information.

Wow. Completely false. Home schooled kids do significantly better than traditionally educated kids on standardized tests (by a large margin).

Wow. Completely off topic. I said "fail horribly at the University level". Which they do. Not really arguable. They get degrees at a wildly lower rate than public school kids (who do at a lower rate than private school kids, BTW if you're looking for something to hang your hat on). They also attend at a wildly lower rate. They actually score at about the median for standardized tests, but, and this is incredibly important, there is a massive amount of selection bias there. Public school kids are actively encouraged to take SAT or ACT, and nearly all do. The only home-schooled kids who take it are those who are most likely to do well...and they still end up at about the median for public school kids where the group taking the test is far more diverse. If you eliminated the bottom quintile of public school SAT takers, which would bring the per capita test taking cohorts about in line for each group, home-schooled kids do quite poorly.

'm not sure where you got "by a large margin". Either the typical wild fucking guess or an article written on a pro homeschool blog inflating a marginal difference. The last large survey of this kind was in 2002, the national average for SAT was 1020. Homeschooled kids averaged 1092. That's a marginal difference. Kids from my high school, for reference, averaged 1410. That's "a large margin". We could pretend it's because the teaching corps there are magical super heroes or we could just acknowledge that it was an extremely selective high school with massive resources.

I appreciate that this may be an emotional issue for you, and want to make it clear that I have no intention of insulting you in any way (heck, I don't know what your personal connection to the issue is). Having said that, the statistics are pretty well established. And lest we assume this is some kind of partisan divide, even Huffington post accepts the data.

For the benefit of Smash (and others):




As to anecdotal connections, I have an entire family of in-laws heavily involved in both special needs education and home schooling. One family has adopted three children, two of them from the same woman (crack addict who had a second child while they were adopting the first, so they took the second as well). They home school. They are not rich by any means (mother is a stay at home mom, father works in the shipyard, so decidedly blue collar). They've had their ups and downs. Right now, the oldest child has gotten into trouble with drugs and is currently in a treatment program. The middle child (biological sibling to the oldest), is doing much better. She's on track to compete on the Olympic rowing team and is competing right now in some Scandinavian country somewhere.

The sister of that mother (both of whom are siblings to my sisters husband), teaches special needs kids. We're talking about middle school age kids in diapers level special needs. Both of them volunteer through their church and other local social organizations and are ridiculously active. It's just something they do, largely because someone has to. And I hear all the stories, both wonderful and horrific. I'm not unaware of the struggles that people endure in the world around me. However, I'm not sure how any of this invalidates the concept of home schooling, nor why some people seem to view it as such a threat or something. Like they have to convince people that it's some kind of evil thing that must be stopped.

I just don't get it. Also, as I've mentioned many times in the past, I know many people involved at many levels in education. I have two sisters in law who are teachers (both my brothers married teachers, go figure). My best friend is a high school teacher. I've known his family since I was in high school. His dad was a high school teacher. His mom was a school administrator. His sister is a middle school teacher. He married a woman whose father was a district administrator. One of our mutual friends is a middle school teacher. One of my old friends from back in the day is a teacher at one of the juvy schools (where they send kids who have serious violence or anger problems, but still have to receive an education). I lived with a woman for nearly a decade while she pursued her advanced degree. She's currently a professor at some university on the East coast (and doing quite well). One of my other best friends (guy I play RPGs with) wife is a public school teacher.

My point is that, anecdotally, I have direct connection to nearly every level and type of eduction. From K-12 and through the university level. District and local administration levels. Public schooling, home schooling, and special needs (multiple types of special needs). I've heard them all talk about the problems they face, and the restrictions they have to deal with when facing those problems. That doesn't make *me* an expert, but it does mean I'm at least familiar with what people actually doing these things are talking about. I'd never argue that home schooling is the perfect answer for everyone. But I do think that there are a lot of people who disparage it for reasons that are less than honest.


And again, at the risk of pushing this back on topic, the problem with common core is that its another step in the direction of "one size fits all" education. And I've learned anything from discussions with all of those people and all of their different perspectives is that education can't work with a one size fits all model. We need maximum flexibility in education, so as to deal with all of the different needs of different kids. Going in the other direction is a mistake IMO.

The SAT and ACT are not the only standardized tests in existence. Homeschooled kids take the same standardized tests during their education that public school kids do

Nope. They do not. Guessing is fun, huh? Hey, link your imaginary source for your assertion, that'll be a blast. I want to see these "same standardized tests" that homeschool kids take and then report data about to someone where you've shown they perform better than public school kids.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

I kid, I kid, just pretend some more.

First off, let me add in the next sentence, on the off chance you're taking my "same standardized tests" in the opposite direction than that meant:



Sure. Here's the requirements for Virginia (just one of the first random hits on google):



California does not have an actual homeschool law (last I heard anyway). Parents homeschooling their children have to actually declare themselves to be a private school, which places them under the same requirements as a private school (which includes testing).

Here's Florida's requirements:




Most Homeschoolers use standardized tests. They go to the public school district they live in and actually pay to have their child take the same tests that the public school kids, and have them scored by the same test organizations. They do this because it's the easiest way to meet the evaluation requirements. You get to leverage an already existing testing system. I suppose this doesn't preclude some parents working around this, but they'd have to spend more effort avoiding testing of their children than it would take to just sign them up for the tests.



You really do have no clue what you're talking about, do you? I've already provided sources which any reader could easily follow to obtain this information. Again: WTF?

You also have provided zero sources to back up a single thing you've said. Are you even going to bother trying here? The evidence in support of what I'm saying is overwhelming and easily obtained via 10 seconds of searching. Your position? Totally absent. It's not just wrong, it's dead wrong. Did you just set out to pick the most wrong position possible and then repeatedly insist it's right? Is this like your brand of strange humor?

It's not like this is even the first time you've done this on this same topic. And you provided no support for your position last time either. Apparently, you didn't learn anything then. Suppose you wont learn anything this time either, and the next time the subject comes up, you'll once again declare with total confidence the same completely false statements. I guess for you it's more about being loud than being right. This is a bit ridiculous though, even for you.

Sure. And I have the same concerns. But someone has to collect relevant data about home schooling, and it's going to tend to be the organization(s) most involved in home schooling. Doubly so if the data out there supports their position, right?

Is there data that refutes theirs? I guess what I'm getting at here is that if the only people doing studies of education statistics involving home schools are those who are pro-homeschooling, it's not fair to dismiss their findings on that basis alone. Because by that argument, the counter position wins by *not* collecting or evaluating data. Which is a bizarre concept. If there's data out there showing the negatives of home schooling, it's kind of the responsibility of those opposed to home schooling to collect and present it. So where is it?

It is kind of interesting that if you do a search on something like "positive effects of home schooling", you'll get a ton of hits for sites quoting all of the positives associated with homeschooling, including the kinds of stats I've mentioned earlier. But if you search for negatives, you don't get a ton of hits of sites showing that home schooling is bad for children, or produces poor education outcomes, or hampers children's development. You get sites talking about the challenges of home schooling. What to expect if you want to do it. What legislation you may have to deal with. How much time and effort it takes. Etc.

That alone is pretty telling, right?