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Literally I'm LMAO at the close minded posts here from of course the public school teachers
It makes me feel so much better knowing I personally did their jobs better than them-
And it really irks some.
For any parents who are looking for info on homeschooling--
A good start is w/ John Holt.....
Get his books from the library-
And just do it.
"Leaders are not, as we are often led to think, people who go along with huge crowds following them. Leaders are people who go their own way without caring, or even looking to see, whether anyone is following them. "Leadership qualities" are not the qualities that enable people to attract followers, but those that enable them to do without them. They include, at the very least, courage, endurance, patience, humor, flexibility, resourcefulness, stubbornness, a keen sense of reality, and the ability to keep a cool and clear head, even when things are going badly. True leaders, in short, do not make people into followers, but into other leaders."
-John Holt
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
No, keep the government out of homeschooling. If we give them an inch, they'll take a mile; and before we know it, they'll require parents to get teacher's certification and making the curriculum.
No, keep the government out of homeschooling. If we give them an inch, they'll take a mile; and before we know it, they'll require parents to get teacher's certification and making the curriculum.
Why shouldn't a parent have the qualifications of a teacher before taking over the roll of teacher? I wouldn't go as far as to require certification but a homeschooling parent should be able to pass the exams teachers pass to get their certs.
My concern was the success of my child, not of any program.
As a teacher, do you put more weight in your own assessment of a student's progress or on a standardized test score?
Personally, I do not think standardized test scores are the ultimate measure of success. I think this is the crux of what is wrong with our public education system. Government wants teachers to teach to the test, instead of giving them freedom to teach as s/he thinks best.
Standardized tests are one measure. Colleges put a lot of weight on them for a reason. Like it or not this is an important measure for our kids.
I don't put more weight on my own assessment of a student because usually there isn't much difference between my assessment and their test scores. I can tell you who will and who will not do well on the tests before they open the booklet. There usually isn't a disparity between the two and when there is the test score is often the better indicator (colleges know this which is why they attach scholarships to test scores as well as to GPA's). Grades are often inflated through things like extra credit and having help with the work or deflated because the student is struggling with life issues that leave little time for studies. While you can have a bad day and score lower than you should on the tests it's not likely you'll score higher than you should. You either can or can't do it on your own. I was a D student in high school but scored well enough on my ACT and SAT to get into several colleges. I was a straight A student in college. The test was a better assessment of my ability than was how my teachers evaluated me. As a teacher I cannot get into a student's head and figure out what the problem is just as my teachers couldn't. What they didn't know is that I had to go straight from school to the baby sitters and pick up my youngest siblings then get home, start dinner, get the laundry done and have the vacuuming done before my mom got home from work. After dinner I had the dishes to do. There wasn't much time for homework so it rarely got done. However that doesn't mean I didn't learn and I wasn't smart. I always did well on the tests and they were always asking why I could do that well and not do well gradewise. The issue was just not having the time to do the work.
I have no issue with high stakes testing as long as the test actually measures what it needs to measure. Write the test well and I will teach to it. There's nothing wrong with teaching to a well written test. Personally I think we're going about this wrong. I think there should be an exit exam for every grade and subject that must be passed to move on. I think we need to take the decision to socially promote away from schools and quit pushing kids forward who don't have the prerequisite skills to succeed. If I had it my way I'd toss out the standardized tests and replace them with final exams that measure what the student should have learned and needs to know to move on. Testing is not the issue. The question is how well are the tests written. When it comes to college success the SAT seems to be a good indicator of success. Grades aren't. I've seen more than one good student flunk out of college. Grades are more of an indicator of how well you play the game than anything else. I had a student a couple of years ago who'd ask questions like "What's a square?" when she was taking tests in geometry. She was an A student because she knew how to play the game...to memorize enough to get through a test...she was shocked by her low SAT score. I wasn't.
With the caveat that many students prep for the tests and have higher scores because of that, I'd say the test score is probably the better indicator. Sometimes kids just don't play the game well. Sometimes they're skilled at the game but not as smart as the appear. I can't speak to the tests used at the lower levels. My experience is with the ACT and SAT because those are the tests given at the level I teach. I have no clue how the meaps correlate to ability. I see a pretty strong correlation between the ACT and SAT and ability. Of course this is personal experience. I haven't researched how well these tests predict success.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 10-25-2015 at 06:35 PM..
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
Great minds don't even waste their time attacking someone else's belief system (homeschooling)
Great minds are confident in their own abilities & feel no need to create an
atmosphere of hostility towards people who take their kids' educations into their own hands.
Small minds....that's how some of the "teachers" posting here come across.....
My concern was the success of my child, not of any program.
As a teacher, do you put more weight in your own assessment of a student's progress or on a standardized test score?
Personally, I do not think standardized test scores are the ultimate measure of success. I think this is the crux of what is wrong with our public education system. Government wants teachers to teach to the test, instead of giving them freedom to teach as s/he thinks best.
So how do you know they are more successful than they would have been with both school and you helping them?
No, we should not give incentives for homeschooling, and here's why.
I think homeschooling is terrific, but only when done correctly by invested parents. Right now the bar to get into homeschooling is pretty high, you have to register, do paperwork, keep records, etc, and it's not completely user friendly or cheap (one parent usually has to forgo paid employment). Which limits the current homeschoolers to MOSTLY the folks who take it seriously. The parents who research curriculum, plan, teach, track progress, and care about their kids' progress. This is why currently homeschoolers do so well.
But if you start giving people money to homeschool and to get kids out of public schools, what do you think is going to happen? Who is going to be motivated to take the money? And what do you think they're going to do with it? And what will happen to those poor kids who now can't even go to school because then their parents would lose their "beer money"?
Yeah. Very very bad idea.
These are excellent points I hadn't thought of. Also a lot of us don't want gov't money. Strings come with that sort of thing. I don't want the gov't involved in my kids' education.
So how do you know they are more successful than they would have been with both school and you helping them?
I had a 9th grade algebra teacher coming after me because I taught my son the quadratic formula and had him memorize it and the process to break down the equation and assign a, b and c.
Old school. He got the answers correct on the test but marked wrong because he didn't do it "her way".
Emails didn't help so I had to go to school to the Principal.
There is more than one way to do Math but try to tell that to this first year teacher.
His test was regraded and I got him moved to another class with another teacher.
"Helping them" doesn't always work out the way you might think.
I'm far more interested in the Proof of the Success of Homeschooling.
Does anyone have any College Entry stats?
How those kids do in college, once they're outside the womb?
If you are far more interested in "the proof of success of home schooling", why is that until now you have been ranting about home schoolers being socially isolated and unable to interact with anyone but their own family?
Home schooled students are accepted everywhere, including ivy league. Do you know how to use Google?
I Googled "home schooled students finishing college stats" and one of the first hits was this article from US News which states that home schoolers graduate from college at a higher rate than their peers, 66.7% vs 57.7%, and also earned higher GPAs.
This article from CBS News claims The Journal of College Admission published a study suggesting home schooled students scored better on the ACT, have higher GPAs, and higher graduation rates.
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