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Home schooling is for people who want to shelter their kids. Period end of story.Unless you want them living with you forever and don't want them to understand the world they need to go to school
I agree that it can be done badly or not at all by "parents" who just plop them in front of video games, but standards and annual testing should keep that in check. My grandchildren are being home-schooled. They're 5, almost 3, and 3 months, so it's still very early but last week I took the "sheltered" 5-year old on a plane trip from Des Moines to Chicago, 2 nights away from her family, our 3rd trip, and we had a ball. The Children's Museum, the subway, reading maps and subway stops, looking for the right bus...she's also taking ballet, which she loves.
I've read that sometimes home-schooled kids fall short on science and math but DS has a Math degree and I'm a retired actuary so that's not going to happen, and I'm going to make darn sure every one of those kids understands compound interest. I'm also passionate about learning and maintaining fluency in foreign languages.
And yes, the school systems DO save when a "critical mass" of kids is educated at home. One kid? No. Ten percent of the kids in the district? Maybe. One or two fewer teachers and admins, no need to provide bus service or books for them, maybe a little extra cost to test them annually. If home-school and private school parents see no return on their property taxes collected for education, they're not going to be very enthusiastic about voting for more taxes and bond issues.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 10-15-2019 at 05:48 AM..
I agree that it can be done badly or not at all by "parents" who just plop them in front of video games, but standards and annual testing should keep that in check. My grandchildren are being home-schooled. They're 5, almost 3, and 3 months, so it's still very early but last week I took the "sheltered" 5-year old on a plane trip from Des Moines to Chicago, 2 nights away from her family, our 3rd trip, and we had a ball. The Children's Museum, the subway, reading maps and subway stops, looking for the right bus...she's also taking ballet, which she loves.
I've read that sometimes home-schooled kids fall short on science and math but DS has a Math degree and I'm a retired actuary so that's not going to happen, and I'm going to make darn sure every one of those kids understands compound interest. I'm also passionate about learning and maintaining fluency in foreign languages.
And yes, the school systems DO save when a "critical mass" of kids is educated at home. One kid? No. Ten percent of the kids in the district? Maybe. One or two fewer teachers and admins, no need to provide bus service or books for them, maybe a little extra cost to test them annually. If home-school and private school parents see no return on their property taxes collected for education, they're not going to be very enthusiastic about voting for more taxes and bond issues.
And who do you propose will do this?
Most states have minimal (if any) standards and even less in the way of checks for homeschooling. Social service professionals are already overloaded and underpaid and much of the support for homeschooling comes from folks who are looking to get away from government not hire more to check on them. Homeschooling can be done very well - but that's really only if the parents both care and have the abilities and resources to do it. Many do not and some would be just as happy cashing out that property tax refund/"stipend"/whatever and heading out to party with it while leaving the kids who are the most vulnerable (by virtue of being born to parents who simply do not care) and leaving them in an even worse situation.
Most states have minimal (if any) standards and even less in the way of checks for homeschooling. Social service professionals are already overloaded and underpaid and much of the support for homeschooling comes from folks who are looking to get away from government not hire more to check on them.
Easy. School districts live and die by the standardized tests they give, so they already have access to them. I'm sure that they also have access to learning objectives- otherwise, how would the teachers be able to continue their obsession to "teach the test"? Share the objectives with parents. Test the home-schooled kids at the same time you test everyone else, giving the home-schooled kids a different "school code" on their test sheets so their results don't get mixed in with those of the brick-and-mortar class kids. Parents of home-schooled kids whose scores fall below certain standards will be informed that their kid(s) must be in school in September or the appropriate punishments for truancy will apply.
How overpriced are those tests, anyway- $100 per kid? The district is still saving money if, as I noted, there are sufficient kids who are being home-schooled. Even if there's only one. they probably save that much in "free" lunches during the year.
Most states have minimal (if any) standards and even less in the way of checks for homeschooling. Social service professionals are already overloaded and underpaid and much of the support for homeschooling comes from folks who are looking to get away from government not hire more to check on them. Homeschooling can be done very well - but that's really only if the parents both care and have the abilities and resources to do it. Many do not and some would be just as happy cashing out that property tax refund/"stipend"/whatever and heading out to party with it while leaving the kids who are the most vulnerable (by virtue of being born to parents who simply do not care) and leaving them in an even worse situation.
It’s true that standards differ from state to state. In Colorado, testing is required every other year starting in third grade. Parents can either do an evaluation with a teacher (parent finds the teacher and pays the teacher a fee to do the evaluation) or they can take any standardized test of their choosing, Iowa test is popular. Parents can order the test and administer it at home. The test results or the teacher evaluation gets turned into the homeschool coordinator for the school district. Colorado is pretty middle of the road in terms of oversight. There are some states with a lot more rigorous standards and states with a lot more lax standards. Some of the states that are more rigorous do give money to homeschoolers for supplies, curriculum etc. I think CO has a good balance. No money for homeschoolers and pretty reasonable oversight without being too much.
It’s true that standards differ from state to state. In Colorado, testing is required every other year starting in third grade. Parents can either do an evaluation with a teacher (parent finds the teacher and pays the teacher a fee to do the evaluation) or they can take any standardized test of their choosing, Iowa test is popular. Parents can order the test and administer it at home. The test results or the teacher evaluation gets turned into the homeschool coordinator for the school district. Colorado is pretty middle of the road in terms of oversight. There are some states with a lot more rigorous standards and states with a lot more lax standards. Some of the states that are more rigorous do give money to homeschoolers for supplies, curriculum etc. I think CO has a good balance. No money for homeschoolers and pretty reasonable oversight without being too much.
I have no issue with homeschooling in general - I agree some oversight is needed. I do have issues with taking already stretched thin funding earmarked for public education and potentially incentivising some parents to not send children to school at all.
I have no issue with homeschooling in general - I agree some oversight is needed. I do have issues with taking already stretched thin funding earmarked for public education and potentially incentivising some parents to not send children to school at all.
I agree about the funding. I think a lot of homeschoolers do as well. Giving funding to homeschoolers would lead to increased oversight of homeschoolers and while I think some oversight is ok, too much would not be good overall. I also agree that some parents would abuse it.
I don't know if there's specific evidence confirming or refuting this, but as a person on the autistic spectrum, I definitely feel like my social intelligence is higher as a result of going to real public schools vs. if one of my parents had taught me at home (they're ambitious career types anyway so they wouldn't have enjoyed doing so) and I'd been left to the scraps of what socializing you can get from controlled activities where the kids are mostly demographically similar to yourself.
You clearly know nothing about homeschooling. My homeschooled "little leeches" all earned full or nearly full academic scholarships to college. The oldest also earned full tuition at Vanderbilt for his Masters degree. Middle son is an engineer. Youngest is a dentist and became 50% owner of a practice at age 26. They are all wonderful young men, functioning quite well in the world, have many friends, and are well respected.
Now, I will say that sometimes I wonder if the sacrifice I made to my own career was worth it.(because despite what someone posted above about there being plenty of hours in a week to work full time and homeschool, I disagree). I put tremendously long hours into lesson planning, setting up science labs, being active in a homeschool group, doing field trips and community service. Homeschooling was more than a full-time job for me (which is probably why my sons are all so successful now). Who knows how my boys would have turned out if I hadn't homeschooled? So, yes, I guess it was worth it, but I do wish I could have achieved more in my own career.
Kudos to you for your efforts. However, I would guess the odds are good that your boys would have also excelled if they were in the public school system. You still would have been their mother.
Diverting public funds for home schooling would light up the "where's my property tax refund" crowd and not really increase the dedicated home schoolers (like you).
Home schooling is for people who want to shelter their kids. Period end of story.Unless you want them living with you forever and don't want them to understand the world they need to go to school
This is the typical mindset of someone who has been sheltered from homeschoolers. I don't personally feel that breathing the same air as 25 other kids born the same birth year and living in the same zip code is necessary in order to "understand the world." YMMV.
We have homeschooled all the way through (with one year as an exception; they went to a charter school). My son is 18 and all done homeschooling; he graduated in June, just like most other people born in the first 3/4 or so of 2001. He works full-time and travels all over the place. In the past year, he's been to Europe, Australia, South America, and all over North America.
My daughter is a junior in homeschool high school. In addition to her regular course load, she is taking outside art classes and participates in community theater.
If the main objection is socialization, I find that they are exposed to a lot more diversity than they would be at school. We hosted foreign exchange students throughout their homeschooling experience (the students went to public school), in part because we wanted to expose them to as much culture as we could outside of our fairly homogeneous community. We have taken them to many different cities in the U.S. and in Europe (we haven't traveled as a family as extensively as my son has on his own with friends). With all of the traveling we've done, of course we have been able to get to know people of various cultures. Both kids are comfortable traveling on their own; they can navigate airports and metro stations despite living in a suburban community.
They seem to be doing just fine "understanding the world." Since they spent a year at a school, they even have had the experience of sitting in the same space as other kids their age living in the same socioeconomic group. I wouldn't say that that is what gave them the most "understanding of the world," though.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 10-15-2019 at 05:50 AM..
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I don't personally feel that breathing the same air as 25 other kids born the same birth year and living in the same zip code is necessary in order to "understand the world." YMMV.
