Yeah, this. I feel like I should be against homeschooling because there’s no guarantee that a homeschooled kid is getting any kind of quality education… but there’s also no guarantee that a kid going to public school is either. So ban homeschooling except in very special cases once we have a decent regular school system.
I completely agree with your first sentence here, which is why I completely disagree with the second. Children have rights through the state and against the state, which is why I think it is essential that there is some separation of powers in the guardianship of a child. Through the school there is one entity that will see to the rights of the child against the parents, and the parents will see to the rights of the child against the state.
As a parent, I completely understand the desire to educate children without inflicting a useless, underfunded, bureaucratic school administration on them. There is a huge homeschooling movement in Oregon, but if you talk to any of these parents you’ll soon learn their main motivation for homeschooling is the atmosphere of “too much tolerance, not enough religion” attitude in schools.
Seriously, I just don’t see how any homeschooling advocates can explain away the lack of socialization, low curriculum variety, and parental bias inherent in homeschooling. I’d love to see a school system less reliant on standardized testing and zero tolerance policies, but homeschooling the kid yourself is not the answer, folks.
We have so much in common with our German brothers.
Ehh, some schools are like this, and some aren’t. Frankly, that is the problem: Public schools in the US vary in quality sooo much.
Totally agreed here.
Maybe it’s just me but if a family pulls their children out of school then I would certainly hope that the state makes every effort to ensure that the kid’s right to an education is not compromised by their parents. Up to and including removing custody.
Homeschooling is not quite the same as the kids are getting an education of sorts but if the law doesn’t make any provisions for that, like in Germany, then the parents should not be surprised at the extent of the response.
So much depends on the parents doing the home schooling. I have colleagues who home-school until high school, and their kids are broad minded, socially adjusted, and doing fabulously in high school. I have colleagues who have relatives who home school, and those kids are on the fast track to becoming fundie clones with an extremely narrow world view. As a teacher I see students from all types of K-12 backgrounds, and I’m not really sure I could tell you whether there’s a discernible difference between public, private, or home-school backgrounds once they get here.
I admit to being uneasy about home schooling in general, largely because I do think that the experience of going to school–leaving the home, going to a separate place and time where education is front and center, theoretically at least, and where you have to associate with people not of your choosing is valuable in and of itself. Seeing how horrid some schools are, yes, it makes it harder to wholeheartedly endorse formal schooling across the board, but I think in general it’s important for societies to have a common educational experience at some level.
Low curriculum variety? Depends on the person doing the schooling. I know homeschoolers who have a much broader curriculum b/c they can move at a faster pace and go on more field trips. It’s much easier to take a few kids to the science museum than a class project.
A bigger concern is lack of socialization but homeschoolers in other areas have overcome this through sports and even proms.
This kind of thread also highlights certain contrasts between the US and Europe in attitudes towards the relationship between parents and the state.
Well yeah… that’s why it’s a problem. We need kids to have a solid educational foundation, and just saying that they might get that with homeschooling isn’t good enough.
However, it might easily be as good as the status quo, where you might get a solid educational foundation from a public school.
I’m not holding my breath for the day this doesn’t also apply to the public education system.
So how much socialization is your minimum? I totally get this complaint, because I used it for years, but I will be honest with you. People who I would classify as “good home-schoolers” put their kids in social situations all the time. They are in sports leagues with other kids, the ones in my area have group schooling 2-3 times a week. They are in after school clubs, saturday clubs, etc. So where’s the minumum?
I guess what I am saying is that I think if you made a standard, you would find that a good percentage of home-schoolers already meet that standard. Yes, the crazy ones dont, but thats because they are crazy, not because they home-schooling.
low curriculum variety,
This one is where you lose me. If you are making the argument that someone made above that parents only teach what they know, I suppose you could, but most homeschoolers I know follow a fairly standard curriculum with all the same stuff the kid would be studying in school. Now, in the case of fundies, you may disagree on how that curriculum approaches certain topics (I certainly do, and wouldnt use those with my kids), but to say they are skipping certain topics is a little strange. When my kids learn history, their mother (a history major in college) is going to be able to take them to museums and art exhibits focusing on exactly they are studying, and the next week be able to take them somewhere else. The opportunities for an expanded and fuller curriculum is what motivates me toward home-schooling, not a detraction.
and parental bias inherent in homeschooling.
I suppose you got me here. My bias that my kids be well rounded, well read, and well educated certainly might hold them back.
I should take that back. I understand your point, but I dont necessarily agree with it. A parent who wants their kid to grow up believing exactly what they believe is going to be able to find ways to do it no matter what school they go to. A parent who wants their kids to expereience other cultures, see what others believe and not indoctrinate their kid will find ways to do it no matter how the kid is schooled.
My point is that your complaint is about the parents, not about homeschooling. Yes, there are bad home-schoolers, just like there are bad teachers, bad classmates, bad schools.
Yeah, I agree. Our public school system sucks. But at least we know what’s going on with it. The solution is to fix the problems there, not to encourage people to keep their kids at home and just do whatever they want.
There’s a lot of naivete in thinking that public school is a problem that can be “fixed.” It needs to be completely overhauled. We can’t have classes of 100+ kids, 1000+ in a graduating class. We have to tailor our lessons and our teaching to different styles of learning. We have to make sure we have individual attention to students.
Yes, some students can survive the public schooling system and do well. Some are smart enough that they manage to find ways to cope with the poor structure of the system and manage to make it work. And a good deal can’t, and are left behind, not at all because they are not capable but because the schooling system is a massive bureaucratic mess with endemic, fundamental problems that cannot be wished away.
The United States public schooling system is an unmitigated disaster. Focusing on the few districts where certain things work better than others does not negate the overall point - the public school system cannot handle public schooling. And no band-aid will help it. It needs to be completely scrapped and re-thought.
We homeschool our 3 kids. They can go to school if they like, the eldest did it in 2nd grade (he’d be a hs soph now) and the youngest did it one year as well. The eldest takes 1 class at school now.
We aren’t religious unless you consider agnostic UU’s religious. The socialization thing seems bogus, our kids do fine, but I think non-homeschoolers imagine some weird hermit freaks or something.
There haven’t been many studies of homeschoolers yet, but the data thus far seems positive on academics and social skills.
I’m glad we live in a state that doesn’t mandate the curriculum or testing. I could go on, but it would make a long post. We unschool if you want the shorthand.
My son had to take the PSAT when he took the class because he can technically qualify as a junior. He scored better than anyone in the school, National Merit whatever. So he did well even by their yardstick.
The local schools aren’t anything horrible, they’re normal US schools in an mid to upper-middle class area.
I fixed it for you. ;)
I have no problems with homeschooling in principle, but in its current form (at least in Michigan) there’s no good ways to ensure the kids are getting a proper education.
That said, I’ve known some people who were homeschooled and they were simply off-the-charts smart and certainly not brainwashed right-wingers. I have a hard time believing they’d have reached their potential in a public school system where they would probably fail to be engaged and given the level of material they could handle.
And kids in cults are great at interacting with others in their cult and not so hot with outsiders. That’s great that the kids have afterschool programs, but it’s just as important to have socialization outside their comfort zone. Kids need to interact with people of multiple races, religions and economic backgrounds to prepare them for the real world.
When my kids learn history, their mother (a history major in college) is going to be able to take them to museums and art exhibits focusing on exactly they are studying, and the next week be able to take them somewhere else. The opportunities for an expanded and fuller curriculum is what motivates me toward home-schooling, not a detraction.
Yeah, but that illustrates my point. Your wife is a history expert so of course they’re going to get extra education on that subject. What if they want to learn something your wife isn’t an expert on, like auto mechanics or trigonometery?
My point is that your complaint is about the parents, not about homeschooling. Yes, there are bad home-schoolers, just like there are bad teachers, bad classmates, bad schools.
True enough. I’m sure some parents are better teachers than others. But there is so much more to school than just reviewing some basic curriculum and reading it to a kid. If teaching and learning were that black and white we’d all be geniuses.
As I said above:
You got kids Extar? I don’t, but I’ve already considered the fact that if the public schools wherever I’m at when and if I have kids aren’t cutting it, then homeschooling is a viable option. “Fix the schools” is a great thing to rally around but it’s moot when it comes down to your own kids’ educations. If the schools aren’t there, I’m not going to screw my kids over because of the principle. And I don’t know how you can expect everyone else to as well.
Banning homeschooling is not going to fix the schools, nor is it even a viable prong in a multifaceted strategy to do so. It’s irrelevant.