I don't have time to launch into a complete discussion regarding Mr. Card's most recent review article, but I was concerned by the following little bit:
quote:...the best writers, the best thinkers, the most broadly educated among my students are the ones who were home-schooled.
Think about that. And then think about this: Most of those home-schooled kids get their schooling in a few hours a day....
Meanwhile, the educational establishment makes ironclad, unbreakable rules about how many days and hours our children must be put under the control of the "experts,"....
(I apologize for the bits I cut out, but I wanted to save some space here. Please DO check out what Mr. Card says in the context of his article)
While I agree that a lot of administrators and teacher education programs are full of it, and do a lot of things to actively HAMPER a teacher's ability to teach (e.g. block schedule, small learning communities, cutting back on electives, waaaay too many meetings, etc.), I disagree on a separate point. Mr. Card makes the assertion that his best college students are the ones that were home-schooled. I contend that it is not the location in which the students were educated that makes the greatest difference. It is, rather, the degree to which parents are involved in the education and life of their child/student. Yes, it so happens, that home-schooled children CLEARLY have a great deal of involvement, both academic and social, with their parents. But it is possible for parents to achieve similar results with public schooling.
Yes, I know that the vast majority of those who, like me, attended public school are dunderheads. But I was fortunate enough to have parents who cared, checked my homework and schoolwork with me, pushed me do my best, made me think critically, and all of this while being loving parents who were (for the most part) fun to be around!
Home-schooling is ONE answer, but NOT the be-all, end-all answer, even if it is quite effective.
(I hesitate to add this, because I don't have the research available to cite, but here goes. I remember a professor of music education telling me about several studies that looked at a wide range of students (public school, private school, charters, home-schooled, etc.) and determined that the single-greatest predictor of student success was parental involvement. Unfortunately, the greatest single predictor of parental involvement was socio-economic status, meaning that poor parents who must work at 4 jobs between the two of them to make ends meet don't have the time do be involved in the students' lives. They also don't have the time to home-school.)
As always, Hatrack, your input is looked forward to with great anticipation. It was not my intent to antagonize ANYONE, and certainly not advocates of home-schooling. Posts: 1099 | Registered: Apr 2005
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There are ample studies of this phenomenon, and you're absolutely right: the extent to which parents are involved in the lives of their children is the strongest correlative factor in the academic and professional success of those children.
Obviously, parents who homeschool are to a certain extent defaultly involved. But it is not the quality of the instruction which is necessarily superior in a home-school environment; it is the presence and active interest of the parent.
Parents who enroll their children in a school with good teachers and still exhibit curiosity and interest in their kids' educations will, by and large, produce more successful children than parents who home-school, unless the parents themselves are extraordinary teachers.
OSC falls into his typically arrogant generalizations with this bit:
quote:There is no such thing as an "educational expert."
There are people who have snookered us into paying them a lot of money because they claim to be experts on education, but it's all a game. They collect degrees by taking classes from people who don't know how to teach and don't recognize good teaching when they see it. Then they come to the school districts and get ridiculously high salaries for thinking up ways to keep teachers from doing their jobs.
When you look at the actual "research" and "science" they claim as their authority, you quickly recognize that what you're seeing is not science at all.
Consider, when you read his criticism of educational "experts" and the scare-quoted "science" underlying that "research," that his counter-example -- that the smartest kids he's met are the home-schooled ones -- is anecdotal.
His broader point -- that schools are shedding freedoms like dander to try, in increasing desperation, more and more measures intended to comply with federal NCLB measures -- is a good one. Certainly things we took for granted about our education are being stripped away in an effort to flatten performance, to reduce the dreaded "achievement gaps" to which funding is often tied. And in some areas, the public schools may in fact be so broken that alternative options are the best ones.
But this doesn't mean that "education experts" are necessarily making it up as they go along. Novelists do that, but it's hubristic to assume that researchers are in the same line of work.
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I agree with much of what you say, particularly in the first three paragraphs you wrote. I also thank you for pointing out that Card's broader point is accurate. However, while most of us first became acquainted with Card's work through his novels, I don't think it is quite right to call him a novelist in this context. Perhaps 'columnist' would be more apt. As far as making it up as he goes along? I doubt that is the case with this particular column. I simply imagine it's a case of misapplied generalization.
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Bando, But do you agree that there are people who could accurately be termed "educational experts" who do in fact have solid scientific research to back up what they say?
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I know kids who blossom into very intelligent young adults through home-schooling; and I know children who can't even do basic math because their homeschooling parents are more interested in passing down their religion and family traditions than in teaching arithmetic.
Let's be specific about the nature of OSC's rant. The beginning of the rant states his argument well: he's against extending children's time in schools. He blames the educational experts hired by the school board for instituting this idea.
Is there research that shows that extending the school year benefits children in typical American society?
(There is; there is also research showing the opposite is true)
What do you do when your experts disagree?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:He blames the educational experts hired by the school board for instituting this idea.
He goes slightly further than that. He says that there are no "educational experts" and that the people who claim to have scientific research about this are liars or at the very least greatly mistaken.
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quote:But do you agree that there are people who could accurately be termed "educational experts" who do in fact have solid scientific research to back up what they say?
You weren't asking me, but I do! Of course, all I have is anecdotal evidence to back up my knowledge of scientific evidence. My mom's a special education specialist, making her an expert. She goes to seminars and classes regularly to gain as much current research as possible, so that she can go tell the teachers how to teach the most effectively. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Don't you talk about my momma!
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I tried homeschooling and hated it. Yeah I could get through stuff faster than if I were in a regular school but I missed the social aspect of school. I had been in band for three years and started home schooling the year I would have started marching band. No one wants to see one kid marching with a tuba in his front yard.
Homeschool is great for some people. Just not me. I don't think my kids would get a lot out of it either.
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I wonder if homeschooling is even possible in Finland. I've certainly never heard of anyone who'd been homeschooled. How long is the American summer holiday, usually?
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OK. It's two and a half months in Finland starting the end of May and ending in mid-August... which apparently is what they're now suggesting in North Carolina if I understood correctly? The reason it's only two and half months is, I remember reading, that the remaining days are used to lengthen the Christmas holiday and then to form a week long autumn holiday in October and another week of skiing holiday in March.
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quote:No one wants to see one kid marching with a tuba in his front yard.
I kinda do.
I used to have a picture of me standing in the front yard with my tuba (after I started back at school). I looked for it, but couldn't find it. Maybe my parents have it. That would have been funny to post.
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quote: I had been in band for three years and started home schooling the year I would have started marching band. No one wants to see one kid marching with a tuba in his front yard.
Most states will allow homeschoolers to still participate in activities such as band.
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Now they do. This was back in 1990. The best I could do was get a GED. When I went back to school I did not get credit for any classes I had taken. They did not even let me try to test out of the classes. In one year I had finished Algebra I & II. When I went back to school they stuck me in Pre-Algebra. I took summer school and night school for two and a half years to catch back up and graduate on time. Needless to say, I got very upset with the whole situation and underachieved for the rest of my high school years.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Bando, But do you agree that there are people who could accurately be termed "educational experts" who do in fact have solid scientific research to back up what they say?
Of course I do. It is an over-generalization to refer to all educational experts as idiots. The unfortunate thing is that policy decisions are too often made without adequate scientific research, and the students (and therefore, our society) pay the price.
The original question, "does extending the school year truly benefit students?" is valid, but it won't be answered by making an unwarranted assumption as to the infallible superiority of home-schooling. I'll grant, however, that taking family time away probably does tend to reduce 'parental involvement', which, as discussed, is the strongest correlating factor in student achievement. But one does not necessarilly equate to the other.
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quote:Originally posted by brojack17: I tried homeschooling and hated it. Yeah I could get through stuff faster than if I were in a regular school but I missed the social aspect of school. I had been in band for three years and started home schooling the year I would have started marching band. No one wants to see one kid marching with a tuba in his front yard.
Homeschool is great for some people. Just not me. I don't think my kids would get a lot out of it either.
I should mention that homeschooling does not always mean students can't participate in band classes. I have several home-schooled students participate in band every year.
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Well, even now, there is so much red-tape that home-schoolers are forced to work through, that it's almost not worth the effort to take any courses at the school. For instance, one family has a mother attending band with her daughter. The mother wanted to learn flute, and also wanted to be able to help teach at home. Well, the mother is supposed to sign in as a volunteer every day. I understand the reason for the rule, but it is quite inconvenient for her. And, yes, I know that's small beans to not getting a bonafide diploma, but there it is.
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I didn't read this as: "Home-schoolers I've met are better educated than public schooler: Everybody should home-school their kids!"
I read it as: "Home-schoolers I've met are better educated than most public schoolers. I think we should figure out why and change public schools so that we get similar results across the board."
Posts: 368 | Registered: Dec 2005
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My cousin, a teacher, is taking time off from school right now to homeschool her kids, so I guess that'd be the best of both worlds, as she's a teacher and a parent. Of course the reason she took them out of the school system was because public schools teach devilry and not enough Bible, but I'll save that for the dinner table at Thanksgiving My other cousin in the same family is sending his kids to a Christian private school.
Anyway, both her kids are rather on the shy side (but they are a BLAST to babysit, seriously, they rock), and I often worry/wonder how they will turn out without the daily interaction with other kids that most kids in regular schools get. I don't necessarily fault the educational benefits of homeschooling, but I do wonder about the social skills aspect.
We had two brother in high school who came in their sophmore and junior years who had previously been homeschooled. Both of them were incredibly smart, both of them could play the piano in ways I thought weren't possible for human beings. One of them was shy, but once you drew him out he was just like any other kid. His brother on the other hand was just weird. He had zero social skills and it haunted him all through high school, and I haven't heard a word about him since he graduated.
I know anecdotal evidence doesn't always play strongly here, but that's been my experience with homeschooling. For me, when I have kids, I wouldn't even consider it. The time I had in junior high and high school was the absolute best time of my life to date. I would NEVER want to rob my kids of the same benefits and memories.
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I always wanted to be home schooled when I was younger. I was much more eager then, and wanted to get through everything really quickly. I think I likely would be more driven than I am now if I had been able to learn as quickly as I wanted to when I was young, but I was never really presented with ways to do so.
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quote:Meanwhile, the educational establishment makes ironclad, unbreakable rules about how many days and hours our children must be put under the control of the "....
I think this is a perfectly legitemate gripe with the public education system. From what my friends tell me, it's like pulling teeth to get your kids excused from school to travel to weddings or even funerals. I've seen in our district ther need to fulfill the letter of the "school-hours-for-the-year" taken to ridiculous extremes. For example, last year the full and half day closures combined to have the school year end at noon on a Monday. That's plain silly. Just give them the half day. All the kids I talked to said nothing got done. That said, I think it's very true that attention, not school location, is what matters. Most homeschooling parents do so, more than any other reason,because we want to be with our kids all day and pay attention to them. (Never mind that right now they're out back hitting each other with sticks while I type this and read OotS). I know some incrdedibly involved parents of PS kids and some HS parents who are neglecting their kids eductaion. And vice versa, of course.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:There is no such thing as an "educational expert."
If someone said this to me, I would not hesitate to assume that they were mouthing off and did not have a clue about what they were talking about.
When I read this citation, I went to check out the rant in question and it is ... well, frighteningly disappointing, on account of these arrogant platitudes that seek to completely discount subjects based on useless anecdotal supposition.
posted
My husband works at Sylvan and he had a student who was homeschooled and the parents were falling behind a lot on this kid's education- like years behind his peers. Sylvan was thrilled of course since he needed a lot of tutoring and structure to catch up. But I think that the problem with homeschooling is that it can be so, so variable. My husband and I talked about homeschooling little Bin but decided unless we have a safety concern (and at some of the schools my husband has taught at, we would), we will just try to supplement her education.
edit to add- Scott- you could put up the recipe for your guacamole and then review it.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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OSC's rant does serve one very, very important purpose, no matter what side of the debate you're on.
It will hopefully serve to inspire parents to take an active role in the government of the schools that their children attend. There's very little harm in being skeptical of the experts-- if they are experts, then they will know how to explain their ideas.
I have absolutely no problem with parents standing up and demanding explanations for changes to their childrens' school, and sticking to their guns until the school shows the logic of their decisions.
I also have utterly NO problem with decreasing the amount of money paid to administrators for the express purpose of putting more money into the teachers' pockets.
I agree with whoever said that a student's academic success is largely impacted by their parents' involvement, and less by the programs the school institutes.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I have no research to back this up, but speaking anecdotally...I think that few parents can effectively homeschool their kids all through high school. But the ones that can, do a bang-up job.
Since the kids you see in college are those that had parents who did, by and large, bang-up jobs, you may be seeing a slanted view. The kids who never learned enough to pass college entrance exams you are NOT going to see in college, obviously.
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I live near a college intended mainly for the homeschool community. The students I've met aren't necessarily better educated than my peers when I was an undergrad--but a lot of them are, or at least seem to be. There's no question that they've gotten a fantastic education.
I also teach in a public school, and the formerly-homeschooled kids I've encountered there, with exactly one exception, have been YEARS behind their peers in reading and writing skills.
When it works, it really, really works and we should figure out what works and emulate it as much as possible. When it doesn't work, it's a crying shame.
Kind of like public schools, actually.
FYI: Attendance records are part of No Child Left Behind. Schools can fail to make AYP if attendance rates are too low, just like if reading scores are too low. So while I will always respect a parent's right to pull his or her child out of school, I don't think it's unreasonable for a school to require some sort of paperwork. Also, in response to romanylass's comment about the half day for the last day of school--usually state law requires a certain # of days or hours. It's likely that the school had 2 choices: Have a full day of school, or a half day. Not having the day at all wasn't an option. (And trust me, nothing gets done or learned on the last day of school no matter how long it is. )
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I'm almost to the point where I'm going to stop reading OSC's columns and just stick with his fiction. I still love the powerful writing and incisive comments but I'm getting a little tired of seeing reviews of grape jelly turn into diatribes against Bush-haters.
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Reading the article, I think it is clear that OSC has never taught in a high school. He seems to have a good family and I don't think he realizes that he is in the minority.
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Whoops. So for the record I completely misremembered the length of the Finnish school year - it's more like 188 days (give or take a few depending on which days of the week the national holidays are), not 170 days.
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Interestingly, my parents specifically sent me to public school, instead of homeschooling me (which they considered) because they thought the social experience I'd gain there would far outweigh any drawbacks. So now, years of teasing later, I'm fully equipped to deal with harsh social situations as an adult Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I don't like school for the same reason I didn't like being a teller. I don't like some pompous authority figure standing over my shoulder dictating to me what I can do and when and how. My current job is in the back office. If I want to go tot he bathroom, I can. I don't have to worry about enough people standing there or getting anyone's permission. If I'm hungry, I can have a snack while I work. No one's going to write me up for having my stomach out of synch with the approved schedule.
I think the public school vs. homeschool debate ultimately comes down to how people deal with rules and structure. I like a little of both, but the standard amount is stifling to me. I did not thrive in the public school even though I graduated 8th in my class with a 3.88 and my freshman year of college done. Success is such a personal term, how can someone else decide if you did or not? The school achieved its goals, but I still consider it to have been a failure.
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quote:Scott R posted: I also have utterly NO problem with decreasing the amount of money paid to administrators for the express purpose of putting more money into the teachers' pockets.
I don't understand this position. From what I know of the local (Harris & Montgomery TX) ISDs, the administrators aren't making "bank" by any means. They make more than the teachers, but isn't that kinda the point? If you paid the administrators and the teachers the same, what would be the teacher's incentive to attain more education, and work harder, in order to be an administrator. We need administrators (specifically good administrators) and I don't really understand why this employement hierarchy should be any different than every other: supervisors get paid more.
Of course, if it were a very significant wage gap, I would probably change my tune. Off to see if I can't look up teacher/administrator salaries!
edit: also, I guess I'm assuming which administrators your talking about. Super Intendents are obviously on a much different level than a teaching specialist or coordinator.
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