Homeschooling (IEP, boarding school, wages, costs)

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

I won't wade into the rest of this, but I think for most people it's highly unrealistic to think that a parent (mom or dad) can successfully homeschool while working; yes, school doesn't have to be done during traditional hours, but being a good teacher (of any type) takes a lot of time and effort. The average parent who tries to work, maintain a house, have time for non-school family pursuits (including a relationship with the other parent) AND teach their children is setting themselves - and their children - up for failure. There may be certain cases, or certain types of work, in which it's possible, but in most cases it's just not realistic.

I think it's probably unrealistic to think most people can homeschool, period-- if only because of unrealistic ideas and expectations on the part of most non-homeschoolers about what, exactly, homeschooling is and is not. That having been said, there are a few families in our wider homeschooling circle who are dual-income (or single parent). It helps if one remembers that not only homeschooling can be done at odd hours; so can employment-- and while Florida law requires that one residential parent oversee teaching, it is not required that that one parent actually do it all. Especially when kids approach adolescence, online resources are often utilized. (And then of course there's that elephant in the room--unschooling-- which would no doubt make Ivory's head completely explode.)

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

I hold two masters degrees and I am not a subject matter expert in all subjects.

Ivory, one may assume by this and by your statement that you're just off your first year teaching that you are a second-career teacher, which would explain the evangelistic zeal. Either that, or very young...which would also explain it. Would it be impertinent of me to ask which?

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

I know I would not want children's educations limited to that of their parents and that's what you do when you have everyone homeschool. We did that before and decided it was inadequate.

This is somewhat of a strawman wrapped in an inaccuracy. First, you've singlehandedly redefined terms to assume there is some sort of Homeschooling Great Commission, that we are out to get the nation to homeschool. Even the most rabid rarely go there.

And of course second is that "we" decided "it was inadequate"-- in fact, compulsory public schooling was imported wholecloth from Prussia in the nineteenth century as a form of social engineering. It was intended to mold low income immigrant children-- socialize, if you will-- into compliant, completely assimilated and obediant adult workers. Hence the fragmentation of complex or abstract ideas (mentioned upstream) and the reliance on rote learning and strict discipline. That that has fallen apart over the years is not surprising, given the changes in our country. However, if educational policy has valued discipline and assimilation to the expense of teaching children to think creatively and independently, and the rote learning fails, what you have is chaos. And indeed, on this forum, several (both teachers and parents) have described exactly that in their local schools. The teachers-- and the children-- are left to deal with this, while the policy-makers apply band-aids and determine that what is needed is testing, or an ever-earlier (and often developmentally inappropriate) start to desk-sitting.

[flik_becky]

You can get data on private and public schools on line. I only know what happens here WRT private schools but the Harvard article supports that they are better than public schools. Homeschooling data is hit or miss but there are sites that report it. WHERE ARE THESE SITES!As I've said, repeatedly, if for no other reason (and there are other reasons) than the fact you are only looking at success stories when you compre ACT and SAT scores for homeschooling, they ought to be fantastic. They're above average but that's nothing to write home about given the advantages students who are homeschooled start with.

You are right about the SAT & ACT scores. But one thing you are neglecting to point out. Homeschooled students are ready to take these tests on average FOUR years before public schooled students. While the test grades do not vary, you are comparing 14-16 year olds with 18 years olds.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

I wish parents policed public schools as closely. I wish they demanded the kind of quality education that kids get in private schools.

And when they do, they are derided as "helicopter parents", and universally loathed. IME, teachers and administrators want parental involvement only as cheerleaders, part-time tutors, or as purveyors of Cheez-Its at snack time. Gods help the parent who dares to suggest that perhaps s/he knows a situation better than the self-styled experts, and there are no words to describe the situation when those experts are required to admit it on paper, and by making actual concessions.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

You need stats for separation of church and state? It's in the constitution.

Ivory, the first highlighted statement was Around here, kids who go to private schools score much higher than those going to public schools or homeschooled.

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

According to a Harvard study, children who attend private schools outperform children who attend public schools in 11 ouf of 12 areas. Here, I believe math is the exception. I want to say public schools students do better in math but I'd have to look it up to be sure. You're also more likely to get accepted to college if you attend a private school here. Some of our private schools come pretty much with a guarantee of scholarship money for college. Of course, I can't afford them.

Whitney Tilson's School Reform Blog: Students do better in private schools, researchers find


Where I am, the ranking is private, public then charter. The private school advantage isn't demographics because many private schools have a sliding scale for tuition for lower earning families. Charter schools tend to get kids who are struggling so it's understandable that they are lower performing (logically, parents won't decide to uproot their children and drive them however many miles to school without a reason. Parents don't generally inconvenience themselves for nothing.).

I will pause here to note that the charters in this area range from A schools with long waiting lists to wretched and abysmal. Private schools also run the gamut from Jesuit and chi-chi college prep (though nothing, certainly, of the Phillips or Miss Porter's quality) to Our Lady of Perpetual Subdivisions to Yeehaw Country Day and Bait Shop. One can only with difficulty wield a broad brush in such a diverse bunch.

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

As to knowing what is best for children, the state certifies teachers for a reason. If there were no advantage in having teachers who are subject matter experts and certified, they wouldn't waste their time on it. I find it odd that the requirements to be a teacher get dropped if the teacher happens to be the parent. Why wouldn't their children benefit from having teachers who are subject matter experts too?

Ivory, I took the liberty of searching the Florida requirements for certification. There are three components: a processing fee, a transcript, and an application (which includes inquiry into criminal background, citizenship, etc). Now I'm guessing we are agreed that the fee and the US citizenship aren't what determines competence to teach, so presumably it's about the coursework.

So I hied myself off to the University of South Florida's website (chosen purely because I had it favorited anyway). I will note first that one need only have a 2.5 GPA to be admitted to the College of Education, which is not exactly a testimonial to your claims that teachers should be educational experts. I will also note that there are two routes, BA and BS (BS is less stringent), which have different requirements but which offer the same ability to become certified (thus indicating that the additional work to achieve a BA is vocationally wasted, even if one concedes that all education has some sort of intrinsic value).

Okay. So to get into the College of Ed you have to take the university's core courses, required by any major. (I will note in comparison that the school of nursing at our local community college, for example, requires higher than that 2.5 for admission.) Then you have to take classes in the following to be able to teach elementary or early middle school students:

Foundations:

• EDF 3122 Learning and the Developing Child (3)
• EDF 3604 Social Foundations of Education (Exit) (3)
• EDF 4430 Measurement for Teachers (3)

ESOL:

• TSL 4080 Curriculum and Pedagogy of ESOL (3)
• TSL 4081 Literacy Development in English Language Learners (3)
• TSL 4251 Applying Linguistics to ESOL Teaching and Testing (3)

Exceptional Students:

• EEX 4070 Integrating Exceptional Students in the Regular Classroom (2-3)

Internships:

• EDE 4940 Internship (10-12)

Specialization (41 credit hours):
Childhood Education:

• EDE 4223 Creative Experiences (3)
• EDE 4301 Classroom Management, School Safety, Ethics, Law, and Elementary Methods (3)
• RED 4310 Reading and Learning to Read (3)
• LAE 4314 Teaching Writing (3)
• LAE 4414 Teaching Literature in the Elementary Schools (3)
• RED 4511 Linking Literacy Assessment to Instruction (3)
• EDE 4941 Childhood Education Internship Level I (3)
• EDE 4942 Childhood Education Internship Level II (6)

Content Areas:

• MAE 4310 Teaching Elementary School Mathematics I (3)
• SCE 4310 Teaching Elementary School Science (3)
• SSE 4313 Teaching Elementary School Social Studies (3)
• MAE 4326 Teaching Elementary School Mathematics II (3)
• HLP 4722 Health and Physical Education for the Child (2)

What I see here are classes designed to create competence in classroom teaching. Not in actual subject matter, but in a specific style of conveying information in a specific setting. All of which is great, if you're going to be doing such a thing. However, if you don't need the lessons in crowd control, or in teaching English Language Learners, or in negotiating the maze of paperwork and state standards and "measurement for teachers"...it's really only of value in the sense that all information one posesses is of value.
And yet, you maintain that somehow, despite the fact that this faceless USF grauate knows nothing of teaching gifted children, may have barely gotten a C average in math or science or English, and has only the barest knowledge of ADHD or autism spectrum disorders (and that only as a problem to be integrated into a classroom-- or not)...that person is automatically better equipped to teach my children than I (of whose qualifications you know nothing) by virtue of a passing grade on the PRAXIS and fees paid.

The vocabulary word for today, my friends, is illogical.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by wolfeyes

Again I like how you assume that I am not an educated person! What only teachers are educated?

If that's the case, I am in permanent debt to the Student Loan Commission for...what? Gambling debts?

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

Never heard of public school at home. Unless you're talking about something like the OCD child I had last year who only attended about 1 in 10 days. I coordinated his work for him and tutored him when he did come in. He barely passed. Bright kid but just couldn't get to school.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..."

As I've noted previously, homeschooled students in many states can take classes through virtual school-- either one class, or several. These students are theoretically only able to work at grade level, but the beauty of homeschool is that, when my daughter is ready to take geometry, I can call her an eighth-grader and be done with it, no matter her chronological age. There are also homeschooled kids who attend public school in the school building for one or two classes-- usually elementary gifted pull-outs, IME, but not exclusively so.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

Sorry but, to my knowledge there hasn't been a nationwide study done on private vs. homeschooling because homeschooling is no threat to private schooling.

And here we have the crux of the matter. School personnel are feeling threatened-- and rightly so. Because logically, if a homeschooler can teach two children (both gifted, one ESE) on a budget of less than $2000 a year, why should taxpayers pony up ten times that to a school system which does a lesser job of it?

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by Aconite

Ivory, one may assume by this and by your statement that you're just off your first year teaching that you are a second-career teacher, which would explain the evangelistic zeal. Either that, or very young...which would also explain it. Would it be impertinent of me to ask which?



This is somewhat of a strawman wrapped in an inaccuracy. First, you've singlehandedly redefined terms to assume there is some sort of Homeschooling Great Commission, that we are out to get the nation to homeschool. Even the most rabid rarely go there.

And of course second is that "we" decided "it was inadequate"-- in fact, compulsory public schooling was imported wholecloth from Prussia in the nineteenth century as a form of social engineering. It was intended to mold low income immigrant children-- socialize, if you will-- into compliant, completely assimilated and obediant adult workers. Hence the fragmentation of complex or abstract ideas (mentioned upstream) and the reliance on rote learning and strict discipline. That that has fallen apart over the years is not surprising, given the changes in our country. However, if educational policy has valued discipline and assimilation to the expense of teaching children to think creatively and independently, and the rote learning fails, what you have is chaos. And indeed, on this forum, several (both teachers and parents) have described exactly that in their local schools. The teachers-- and the children-- are left to deal with this, while the policy-makers apply band-aids and determine that what is needed is testing, or an ever-earlier (and often developmentally inappropriate) start to desk-sitting.

I'm a career changer but I'm no newcommer to education. I'm raising my second set of children. My zeal stems from having evaluated homeschooling and finding it wanting. It's simple logic. Homeschooling does not meet the expectations I'd have based on demographics alone. I call them as I see them. When demographics tells me a particular group should be doing fantastic but all you can say is they do better than average, the correct response is to ask why. So far, I've seen no explanation for this. You'd think homeschoolers would want to explain this one. If homeschooling is so great, where are the great results? Just the fact that you're looking at only homeschooling successes by the time students finish high school should be yeilding FANTASTIC results. Anyone for whom it didn't work will quit along the way. As I've said, repeatedly, give me the ability to send students for whom my teaching methods don't work somewhere else and I'll deliver FANTASTIC results with the kids who are left. Who wouldn't? Homeschoolers, I guess.

Usually, you can explain why a particular schooling choice yeilds the results it does. Take private schooling. Kids in private schools are more likely to have parents who care about education (remember you get all kinds in public school) and you see higher results for private schooling. Here (I can't say this is true of all private schooling situations) it's a lot better. Enough that it makes me ask why they're as high as they are. Seems higher than demograpics would indicate. My guess is that it's because they control the environment and can make higher demands since they don't have to take every student (though they often do for the tuition).

Given the way our society functions, I'm in favor of education methods that involve cooperative learning and mentoring. I'm not in favor of methods that have kids learning on their own. Our work world is becomming more and more about cooperation and group work and less and less about the individual. I think our education methods should reflect that. I'm so commited to this idea that I choose not to allow my younger daughter to move ahead of her peers even though she could. I feel it's more important that she learn to interact with her peers, work with others and avoid becomming arrogant enough to think others who can't do what she can are stupid.

Sorry but my zeal was there years ago. It's my zeal that lead to my getting an education degree and changing careers. Without it, I would have stayed in engineering. I was working with the school board and currciulum committee years before I took my first ed class. I like challenges. How to educate our children to create the best possible future for them is one of them. Just because someone has zeal doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about. Just because they're new doesn't mean they don't know anything. I spent 18 years in industry where I did things like volunteer to work with inner city kids at science camps long before I started taking classes towards my teaching degree. That industrial experience counts for something. For one, I know what you use this stuff for. I've also seen two kids through to graduation and have two more halfway there. I woudln't change how my step sons were educated. There were some rough spots but, all in all, they did well and their educations have served them well. More than anything, the ability to work with others and work cooperatively. Naturally, I see working with the system (cooperatively) as a good thing and the individualistic "I'll do it my way or the highway" way as suspect. I know what worked when I was out in the real world and it's not "my way or the highway". In fact, that will land you without a job.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by Aconite

And here we have the crux of the matter. School personnel are feeling threatened-- and rightly so. Because logically, if a homeschooler can teach two children (both gifted, one ESE) on a budget of less than $2000 a year, why should taxpayers pony up ten times that to a school system which does a lesser job of it?

Why would school perssonel feel threatened when homeschooling doesn't deliver the results demograpics alone would predict?

Could you please post which school systems are spending 10 times $2000 a year to educate students? I'd like to go work there . Seriously, who is spending that much to educate children? The best private school around here only costs $18K/year. That much money would buy one heck of an education.

As they say, you get what you pay for. $2000 a year won't buy much. It's not going to give kids a proper science lab to learn in. It's not going to buy them subject matter experts as teachers. It won't even keep them up to date on computer technology (I just spent $1000 on licenses so that our software at home is the same level my kids are using in school). I pay more than that in music lessons for my dd. Granted she's gifted but you get the point. If she were an average kid, I'd have to spend that to replace the music classes she would have gotten in school.

I can't imagine you can get much for only $2K per year. Maybe that's why homeschooling isn't delivering results.

FWIW, my dd's music teacher charges $800/year to teach classes to homeschooled kids. That's nearly half your budget for one subject. I'd hazard a guess that homeschoolers around that area are spending a bit more educating their children. I'm not sure how much but I know a few and they have to pay for things like access to chemistry labs, music lessons, and group sports. I'd think those three alone would eat up $2K in a hurry and that's before you buy a computer, on line access to educational software, internet service, etc, etc, etc...

Out of curiosity, what does it cost to rent a lab to do chemistry experiments or physics experiements? One mechanical lab station can have $2K worth of equipment. A single organic lab set up has over $500 worth of glassware. Do you rent the equipment? Or do you pool resourses and share it? Also, off topic but, how do you handle chemical disposal? We pay about $1000 a year to dispose of the waste generated by my school's lab and we are a very small school. What about disposal of things like animals dissected? I don't believe you can just throw them in the trash (Or can you? Any bio teachers want to chime in here. I only know chemical disposal.).