Hatrack River Forum: Homeschooling in California

This is topic Homeschooling in California - a thing of the past? in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
http://www.hatrack.com/ubb/main/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=052169

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

The LA Times is reporting that a California state appellate court ruled that parents without teaching credentials will not be allowed to homeschool their children.

I hope this gets repelled very, very quickly in the state's Supreme Court. For a (small ell) libertarian, this is rather worrying.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

I've been discussing this on different boards for days. These rulings have come and gone many times over the years in CA. People are still homeschooling. I'm betting it will get overturned pretty soon, especially once HSLDA gets involved.

Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :

I can think of legitimate reasons to restrict which parents can homeschool their children. However, I haven't really thought about the issue until now so I won't commit to a position.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

If this is actually upheld, CA will have the most restrictive homeschooling laws in the country.

I don't think it will be, though. It's based on a few cases from the 50s and ignores a whole bunch of cases that have taken place since then.

Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :

Maybe they should offer a way for parents to earn a homeschooling credential so that the state can be sure their children are receiving and adequate education.

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

I'm all for educational standards being met, requiring the kids to pass annual standardized testing, etc. But obtaining good educational outcomes in homeschooling does not require teaching credentials.

For instance, I'm currently in a Ph.D program for economics. In a few years I'll be qualified to teach the subject at the college level. I've studied a lot of mathematics, sciences, and social sciences, and have plenty of experience tutoring and teaching. While I doubt I could walk into a high school classroom tomorrow and teach any of the subjects (except math & econ), I don't doubt that I could very adequately homeschool a handful of children. (Abhi could take care of English and some of the sciences. Our knowledge bases are very complementary. [Smile]

)

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
These rulings have come and gone many times over the years in CA. People are still homeschooling. I'm betting it will get overturned pretty soon, especially once HSLDA gets involved.

*nod*

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

quote:
I'm all for educational standards being met, requiring the kids to pass annual standardized testing, etc. But obtaining good educational outcomes in homeschooling does not require teaching credentials.

For the record, I am against requiring standardized testing of homeschoolers and state evaluations of curriculum, etc. Kids moving at paces different from the "norm" is a major reason parents homeschool.

Posted by just_me (Member # 3302) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ketchupqueen:

quote:
I'm all for educational standards being met, requiring the kids to pass annual standardized testing, etc. But obtaining good educational outcomes in homeschooling does not require teaching credentials.
For the record, I am against requiring standardized testing of homeschoolers and state evaluations of curriculum, etc. Kids moving at paces different from the "norm" is a major reason parents homeschool.

I haven't given this lots of serious thought, so this isn't intended to be a snarky or leading question, I'm just curious.

How would you recommend "checking up" on the homeschooled kids? It seems to me that some minimum standard of progress are important...

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

I don't recommend checking up on them. At least, not until they are ready to graduate high school.

I am okay with requiring them to pass the state equivalancy test or whatever (in CA it's the CHSPE) if they want to claim "graduation" from high school. But until then I think it's important to allow parent- and even child-directed learning. (I lean toward unschooling in my philosophy, if you couldn't tell. [Wink]

)

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

(Again for the record: CA law, and for that matter most other states' laws, does not, as far as I know, require that kids learn at school, only that they attend it. Testing them to see if they are learning would require making new laws that specify exactly what kids should be learning at what age-- or at least a law that says that kids should pass tests established by the state at certain ages or their education is inadequate. There are simply too many variables in how and when children learn for me to be okay with that.)

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

California law currently requires that public schools do yearly SAT 9 testing, and most private schools do so on a voluntary basis. (In specific cases CST, CAPA, or CAT 6 is used instead.) Funding for public schools is partly dependent on scores, so saying that the law does not require kids to learn at school is at the very least inaccurate. I think yearly testing is excessive -- public, private, homeschooled, whatever -- but every 3-4 years seems like a good idea. And as long as the tests actually have something to do with the state standards (the current tests really do not), I see no reason homeschooled kids should be exempt.

And if homeschooled kids are going to be tested after high school, it should be with the CAHSEE, not the CHSPE. For several reasons, including the fact that you probably don't want colleges to stop accepting the validity of a homeschooled student's diploma.

Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :

I am not planning on having kids, but if I do, then I will sure as hell homeschool them. I do not trust the public education system, and am sure that it would be much more beneficial to educate them in the classes, etc. in addition to how to spell apple. Not to mention teaching them foreign languages.

Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :

It seems to me that a school education can be quite valuable, and if necessary can be augmented with additional knowledge from home. I know that while I wasn't in the best school in the country by any means, I learned a lot of things that I think would have been entirely absent in a home schooling environment.

Anyway, I'm glad that I went to school. I got cranky enough at my parents when they sat down to do my homework with me [Smile]

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

I suppose what I should have said, rivka, is that schools (other than public schools, which are directed by the state) are not required to teach anything specific. Private schools are exempt from testing. They may voluntariy choose to participate but a private school does not have to be accredited to operate, and a non-accredited public school can pretty much teach on whatever level it wants as long as primary instruction is in English and I think there may be a provision about "subjects should be equivalent to those taught in the public schools" but that doesn't mean that they have to be taught on the same level. And really, even if public schools consistently underpreform (graduate kids who can't read, etc.), they may lose funding but they're not generally shut down...

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Oh, and after what I suffered as a gifted child with sensory issues in the local public schools, no, I'm not sending my gifted/SPD child to them. (And I lived in the district next door, which is supposed to be "better" than the one I'm in now.) And there's no private school around that we can afford, even if I trusted them to do a better job. And I don't.

So, yeah, she'll be home-schooled.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

California private schools don't have to comply with many of the laws the public ones do. However, if they want to get and keep WASC accreditation, that's another story. And lacking accreditation can spell doom for most private schools -- especially high schools.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Isn't that what I said? [Smile]

And the testing, AFAIK, is not a law-- it's a regulation that the public schools comply with. Isn't it? Or did they change that?

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

(I am not expressing myself very well tonight, probably because I'm very tired. I think I'll stop trying now.)

Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :

quote:
"Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey in a Feb. 28 opinion signed by the two other members of the district court.

A quick search indicates that the only Supreme Court case referring to "home school" in this context was the recent "Bong Hits for Jesus" case, in which Justice Thomas, in his concurrence, said, "If parents do not like the rules imposed by those schools, they can seek redress in school boards or legislatures; they can send their children to private schools or home school them; or they can simply move."

Here's one professor's analysis on this. Quick summary:

1.) There's no established constitutional right to home-school, and there is at least one SCOTUS case saying states can require school attendance.

2.) There are some constitutionally mandated religious exemptions to mandatory school-attendance.

3.) States have statutorily created the right to home school; there isn't a state where the right is deemed constitutional.

His personal opinion is that home schooling with some accountability ought to be legal; his constitutional analysis is inconclusive.

Posted by DeathofBees (Member # 3862) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
Oh, and after what I suffered as a gifted child with sensory issues in the local public schools, no, I'm not sending my gifted/SPD child to them.

Hey, kq, have you read this site? Also, are you on AlwaysLearning or UnschoolingDiscussion?

Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :

While I completely disagree with this ruling and hope it will be overturned soon, I don't see how we can let children reach adulthood without some check that they are getting the education they need to survive and thrive. It's not common, but there are parents who don't put their kids in school and don't teach them anything either. IMHO, that is a form of neglect. Granted, standardized tests are one of my least favorite things about the school (mostly the part where they teach to the test) but on the other hand, I understand the difficulty in coming up with something -- anything -- that gives us some idea how students are doing and what they are learning.

Even if state tests are part of a home school requirement, I don't see why home school can't be more student centered, go at your own pace, and focus on material that regular schools wouldn't normally cover. I just think it's a good idea to make sure they're also learning to read.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
Isn't that what I said?

Kind of.

Except you implied that being non-accredited was not a big deal, and I can tell you from personal experience that it is a HUGE deal.

Isn't yearly testing required by NCLB? And that's law, neh?

quote:
Originally posted by Christine:
While I completely disagree with this ruling and hope it will be overturned soon, I don't see how we can let children reach adulthood without some check that they are getting the education they need to survive and thrive. It's not common, but there are parents who don't put their kids in school and don't teach them anything either. IMHO, that is a form of neglect. Granted, standardized tests are one of my least favorite things about the school (mostly the part where they teach to the test) but on the other hand, I understand the difficulty in coming up with something -- anything -- that gives us some idea how students are doing and what they are learning.

Even if state tests are part of a home school requirement, I don't see why home school can't be more student centered, go at your own pace, and focus on material that regular schools wouldn't normally cover. I just think it's a good idea to make sure they're also learning to read.

I agree completely.

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :

Does California not have a Course of Study that all schools should adhere to? Alabama has one, but maybe it only applies to public schools, I guess I don't really know.

I know in Alabama you cannot homeschool your children on your own - you must belong to a cover school, and that cover school has to meet certain requirements with the state, including attendance requirements.

I also agree with both Christine and rivka, I'm not the world's biggest fan of standardized tests but there must be SOME check to ensure homeschooled kids are being adequately prepared for higher level schooling and beyond. I have a friend who used to work for a cover school, and she quit because she was so frustrated with parents who really had no interest in schooling their kids at all, just wanted to keep them at home and keep them out of trouble. We forget that not every homeschooling parent is like kq - there are some that say they are homeschooling because the kid has been expelled for disciplinary or other issues, and instead of fighting with the state, they just claim they are homeschooling but are doing nothing at all.

In my experience, a fair percentage of kids in private schools have been expelled from public schools and the number of those that are being "homeschooled" is growing at a very fast rate.

I even know of a case where a gymnast who was seriously injured (not at the gym, believe it or not) was "homeschooled" while she recovered from her surgery but the mom admitted to us that no one was home during the day - the child was by herself, with no adult, mom didn't see a problem because "she slept most of the time." No one checked to be sure they were following the rules for homeschooling, which in Alabama states there must be an adult home with the child during school hours, and that the adult must be either a parent or grandparent. They just manipulated the system so they could leave their kid home and not bother with the local school's requirements for her education during her convalescence.

As I've said in other threads, I support parents' rights to homeschool, but I also think for the kids' sakes, we need tighter controls and regulation to make sure these kids are truly being educated. If we expect a standard of education for our kids in public schools we should expect no less for the kids educated at home.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
I'm not the world's biggest fan of standardized tests but there must be SOME check to ensure homeschooled kids are being adequately prepared for higher level schooling and beyond.

Even without such checks, a kid who is homeschooled is likely to be be better educated (reading ability, etc.) than a kid in public school.

There doesn't generally appear to be a need to make sure that most homeschoolers are being adequately academically prepared for higher education.

If there is a need for such checks, it is only for a small minority of homeschoolers.

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
Even without such checks, a kid who is homeschooled is likely to be be better educated (reading ability, etc.) than a kid in public school.

There doesn't generally appear to be a need to make sure that most homeschoolers are being adequately academically prepared for higher education.

I'm pretty sure there is good evidence for this holding true in the past. However, the numbers have been going up dramatically and the demographics seem to be changing, so I'm not sure we can rely on past data to predict future outcomes.

What to do with that concern is another question, but I do think the concern itself is a reasonable one to raise at this time.

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

I've read a few threads on the subject of homeschooled kids on the Chronicle of Higher Education's forums. Generally the opinion is that homeschoolers tend to lump into two groups: those prepared pretty decently to very well for college, and those who have been very poorly prepared for college. While the percentages change depending on who you talk to (I haven't seen a study, so all the evidence is anecdotal, although some professors have been around a loong time), I'd guesstimate that at least 20-30% f the homeschoolers going to college (a self-selected bunch, remember) would have been better served academically by attending public education. One major issue is that the kids' strengths tend to reflect their parents' interests/strengths: a lot either can't write an essay to save their lives, or have very little grasp on mathematics beyond algebra.

My own cousins, who were educated by my (very religious) aunt, have been misserved by homeschooling. She doesn't know much about mathematics or the sciences, so she can't teach it to them, and doesn't emphasize the subjects at all. So far none of them have gone to college, and I'm not sure if any of them will be able to do well at a liberal arts type school that requires them to study these subjects.

Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :

quote:
Generally the opinion is that homeschoolers tend to lump into two groups: those prepared pretty decently to very well for college, and those who have been very poorly prepared for college.

Isn't this true of school-educated students as well?

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Background for those who may not know: I was homeschooled until college in the state of California.

I started reading the opinion. It can be found here.
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B192878.PDF

The interesting thing is that as far as I know *legally* there was never any allowance for "homeschooling" in the state of California. The compulsory attendance law states that the child must be enrolled in a public or private school, or be tutored by a credentialled teacher. This family's children did not fall in any of the three categoriies.

So, to legally "homeschool" on your own in California, you had to file an affidavit to become a private school. (Ours was named Lodgewood Academy, because we lived on Lodgewood Way.) This puts you in compliance with the attendance regulations. (The other option is to enroll your kids in a public or private school that has an "independent study" type program)

EDIT: These children were enrolled in an independent study program and this decision declares independent study programs to be invalid. That is definitely VERY BAD.

But, if you are your own private school, however small, and you keep attendance records as all private schools are required to do, then there isn't much legal room to stand on.

The fight in California has always been to keep this private school exemption open to parents who want to teach their children at home.

There is some language in this document about the administrative supervision of the "persons capapble of teaching" in a private school that is somewhat concerning.

The bigger issue is that legally speaking they don't want the words "homeschooling" legally defined in CA, because that also might affect the private school route.

My mother, who has been a staunch advocate of homeschooling in CA for about 3 decades, thinks that some parts of this ruling may be a good thing, becuase it will crack down on the people who don't comply with the private school requirements, and really are letting their children run amok. Her thought is that having the parents put at least enough effort into the process to having them register as a private school, and keep attendance records, will cause them to be slightly more responsible for the children's education overall.

I personally recieved a fabulous education from homeschooling. My 2 brothers and I have all recieved bachelor's degrees from state universities. However, seeing the current state of many homeschoolers has caused even my ardent mother to reconsider. She bent over backwards to give us as much "socialization" as possible, and the isolationist types really bother her.

Mom was running her own homeschooling consulting business and she stopped, precisely because she didn't like some of the trends in the "next generation" of home schooling. However we all defend their right to do so if they are legally registered as a private school in the state of California.

AJI

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

In response to Kat:

I knew that one was coming. [Smile]

I'm having difficulty getting the words to come properly today.

What I meant is that you see two very distinct groups of homeschoolers: abysmal and pretty decent/good. On a distribution curve you'd see two major humps: one sharp one down near the bottom, and a smoother one in the 75 quartile area. While with school-educated students you'll get your typical normal distribution.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
Originally posted by katharina:

quote:
Generally the opinion is that homeschoolers tend to lump into two groups: those prepared pretty decently to very well for college, and those who have been very poorly prepared for college.
Isn't this true of school-educated students as well?

For home-schooled children, the gulf tends to be wider, with fewer children in the middle.

Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :

I know I've posted this before, but I thought it was pertinent.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Here's the bad stuff in the ruling from section three. It is clearly banning the "independent study" option for private schools. There are hundreds, if not thousands of these types of schools throughout CA.

Now, if they had been registered as a unique private school, I think legally the judge would be harder pressed to come to this same decision. Although, I think the judge wanted to come to it regardless so that language might have been even worse.

When my mother supervised an "umbrella school" program, she required all parents to join HSLDA, because two decades ago they weren't as sure of their legal rights. (And actually they would have probably been ok even under this decision because my mother *is* a state credentialled teacher... but that isn't the point.)

Today the "umbrella schools" were generally viewed to be legitimate and offer maximum legal protection, so paying fees to a legal defense association seemed unecessary.

quote:
The parents in this case assert that when the mother gives the children
educational instruction at home, the parents are acting within the law because mother
operates through Sunland Christian School where the children are “enrolled.”4

(4 In support of the parents’ home schooling, Terry Neven, Sunland Christian
School’s administrator, submitted a letter in which he stated the school is a private
school and the two younger children are enrolled there. The letter fails to mention that
the children do not actually receive education instruction at the school.)

However, the parents have not demonstrated that mother has a teaching credential such
that the children can be said to be receiving an education from a credentialed tutor. It is
clear that the education of the children at their home, whatever the quality of that
education, does not qualify for the private full-time day school or credentialed tutor
exemptions from compulsory education in a public full-time day school.

The parents are not aided by a letter from the Lynwood Unified School District
stating that Sunland Christian School “appeared to be a valid charter school.” Aside
from the fact that Sunland Christian School cannot be a charter school unless it is,
among other things, part of California’s public school system and nonsectarian,5 the
parents present no authority to the effect that a charter school can excuse the statutory
requirement that tutors be credentialed if their students are to come within the tutor
exemption to compulsory public school education.
Likewise, an affidavit of Sunland Christian School administrator Terry Neven
provides no authority for the parents’ home schooling. In the affidavit, Neven talks at
length about “independent study” programs, including his school’s independent study
program. He does not mention any Education Code section that provides for parents
teaching their children by “independent study” through private schools.
Section 51745 et seq. provides for independent study for students, through a school
district or a county office of education; however, its purpose is to provide students with
certain educational opportunities, such as education during travel, or individualized
5 Charter schools are part of, and are under the jurisdiction of, California’s public
school system. (§ 47615; Wilson v. State Bd. of Education (1999) 75 Cal.App.4th 1125,
1137 et seq.) They must be nonsectarian in their programs and all other operations, they
cannot charge tuition, and they cannot be conversions from private schools. (§§ 47605,
subd. (d)(1) & 47602, subd. (b); Wilson, at p. 1131.) Their teachers must be
credentialed as teachers in other public schools would be required to be credentialed.
(§ 47605, subd. (l); Wilson, at p. 1137.)
study in an area of interest or subject not currently available in the regular school
curriculum. Clearly, section 51745 does not apply to mother’s home schooling of the
children.

(5 Charter schools are part of, and are under the jurisdiction of, California’s public
school system. (§ 47615; Wilson v. State Bd. of Education (1999) 75 Cal.App.4th 1125,
1137 et seq.) They must be nonsectarian in their programs and all other operations, they
cannot charge tuition, and they cannot be conversions from private schools. (§§ 47605,
subd. (d)(1) & 47602, subd. (b); Wilson, at p. 1131.) Their teachers must be
credentialed as teachers in other public schools would be required to be credentialed.
(§ 47605, subd. (l); Wilson, at p. 1137.))

Nor is there importance to Mr. Neven’s statement, in a letter to the Lynwood
Unified School District, that Sunland Christian School “has been evaluated by both
Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles County Office of Education
to be in compliance with state laws.”6 Such representation does not constitute
a statement that the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles County
Office of Education knowingly gave their stamp of approval to children being deprived
of an education in a public or private full-time day school setting, or by a credentialed
tutor, through the ruse of enrolling them in a private school and then letting them stay
home and be taught by a non-credentialed parent.

(6 Both the Lynwood and the Los Angeles school districts are mentioned in
Mr. Neven’s letter because the children live in one school district, and the Sunland
Christian School is in the other school district.)

Although Mr. Neven reported to the Lynwood Unified School District that he
makes visits to the parents’ home about four times a year, and although some of the
children in the family reported to the Department of Children and Family Services
social worker that they were given tests at the end of some school years and they took
the tests at the Sunland Christian School, the fact remains that the children are taught at
home by a non-credentialed person. Moreover, the very language of section 48222 is an
implicit rejection of the parents’ position that having someone from Sunland Christian School
monitor mother’s instruction of the children is sufficient. Section 48222
provides an exemption from compulsory public school education for “[c]hildren who
are being instructed in a private full-time day school.” (Italics added.) It is the
language of the statutes that constitutes California’s plan for education of its children.
Thus, under California’s compulsory public school education law, Mr. Neven’s
occasional observation of mother’s instruction of the children and their occasional
taking of tests at the private school is without legal significance.

(edited to clean up footnotes and hopefuly make it more readable)

AJ

[ March 07, 2008, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]

Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :

I can understand someone's reaction to the idea that their children belong to the State, but it's no more true that the children belong to their parents. The children ultimately belong to themselves, and they deserve the best chance they can get to become educated and grow into adulthood. I've been in school districts where I thought homeschool would be preferable.

It may seem offensive for someone to suggest that a parent wouldn't have their child's best interest at heart, but we all know those parents exist, just as such schools exist.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
I can understand someone's reaction to the idea that their children belong to the State, but it's no more true that the children belong to their parents.

I disagree. I think it is more wrong to say that the children belong to the State than that they belong to their parents.

quote:
they deserve the best chance they can get to become educated and grow into adulthood.

The best chance? I certainly didn't get the best chance to become educated -- I only got to go to public school.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

This sounds promising.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/03/07/gov_overturn_calif_home-school_ruling/3959/

Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

quote:
I'm all for educational standards being met, requiring the kids to pass annual standardized testing, etc. But obtaining good educational outcomes in homeschooling does not require teaching credentials.

quote:
For the record, I am against requiring standardized testing of homeschoolers and state evaluations of curriculum, etc. Kids moving at paces different from the "norm" is a major reason parents homeschool.

One of the failings I see in our education system is a lack of trade skills being taught and an emphasis on going to college. I think the standardized tests reflect this. And of course there is a oddly enough corresponding lack of focus/money/testing for the arts like drama and music.

That funding (and PE) has a trend of getting cut so that more focus can be on testing.

I also believe that parents have an inherent right to homeschool (regardless of constitutional precedent), but I think the students need to be tested.

My scenario is for the students to be tested each year on reading and analysis, basic math, and writing.

If a student can read, write, and do basic arithmetic within 2 grade levels, then the parent should be free to direct them on whatever direction they value. If they don't push them beyond those three skills, I am OK with that.

The children will at least have the basic skills to decide for themselves their future. You don't need a certificate to teach those three things.

If the child is woefully lacking in those skills, I think the parent should be charged with neglect and the child placed in a certified program (public or private).

I have a strong belief in the parents right to homeschool; however, at our school we had a 14 year old girl who was placed into the public school because she was home schooled and didn't know her alphabet and couldn't add double digits or do simple multiplication and division.

She was not handicapped, she was just neglected.

On the flip side, I do inputting of our reading scores and 1/3 of our students (at one of the better performing schools) are reading at or below 4th grade level with 90% comprehension.

I was stunned because this is a good middle school! I have no problems if parents want to take their children out and are only teach them reading, writing, and basic arithmetic.

I think most home schoolers would excel beyond that minimum requirement. I don't think a certificate should be required to home school.

Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :

quote:
It may seem offensive for someone to suggest that a parent wouldn't have their child's best interest at heart, but we all know those parents exist, just as such schools exist.

The problem is when the government has to decide how or whether to restrict parents who do have their children's best interests at heart but happen to be "wrong" about how to act in those interests. There's a lot of potential for government abuse there.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

What Dagonee said.

I have extremely mixed feelings but tend to come down on the libertarian side of things.

Many homeschooled families have gotten prosecuted by the DCFS for spanking, because many DCFS types consider spanking abuse. While it sounded like this family had exacerbating issues beyond that, it also sounds like this was one of them.

It also sounds like some of the older children are totally against their parents and were the ones involved in the complaint. There are two sides to every story, but I remember as a kid thinking that knowing what I knew about "the system" because I'd hear my mother talking about it, that if I'd really wanted to screw my parents, I'd call DCFS myself.

AJ

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :

I would not be opposed to requiring parents to belong to a cover or umbrella school, and then the state requiring those schools have on staff certified teachers whose job it is to review the academic work of students and ensure their educational needs are being met. A cover school that is k-6 would need an early childhood/elementary teacher but schools that go k-12 would need secondary teachers as well.

It would be really nice if the cover school had secondary teachers certified in language arts and social sciences and some certified in math/science as well, but I don't know how possible that's going to be. We're having enough trouble getting certified teachers in all areas in the public schools. If the cover school offers a competitive salary, then it may be possible.

The parents would be free to teach their kids how they wish, but would be subject to audits of their attendance records and their lesson plans by the supervising teacher. How their progress is assessed can be decided by the cover school, and doesn't have to be standardized tests - portfolio reviews may work as well, so long as the parents know there needs to be some way of tracking where the child is. For younger children, I think there absolutely needs to be someone coming in and checking how they are doing in their reading and basic math skills.

For older kids, junior high and above, I don't see any way out of requiring some standardized testing, though. They're going to have to take standardized tests for college entrance anyway, may as well begin requiring it.

I'm not talking about parents having supervising teachers hanging over their shoulders - that's not practicial anyway, but something along the order of once every six weeks you take your school records - attendance, lesson plans, etc. and your child's portfolio to the cover school location, and the supervising teacher lets your child read, and assesses their reading level and looks over your paperwork, and then you go back home. That way if there is a problem - a child reading way below grade level for example - the cover school can recommend strategies to help remediate the situation.

If there are significant gaps in the child's education - a high school junior who reads and writes on a college level but struggles with basic algebra - the cover school can either offer classes with a certified teacher or recommend tutors that can help.

All children, public, private, and homeschooled - need to pass state high school graduation exams, IMO. All kids should have to meet the exact same college entrance requirements, and I see nothing wrong with requiring placement tests from homeschooled students to ensure they are ready for college level coursework.

As I said in other threads, my friends who teach on the college level (all of them are either professors in the English departments or they have master's degrees in English and teach freshman comp and sophomore lit classes) have told me that the homeschool population is definitely changing. They are getting more and more homeschooled students who cannot do basic essay writing. We do not need to jump to the conclusion that a homeschool education is necessarily a better one. Like CT, I think new studies need to be done, because my experience tells me the homeschool population is not what it used to be.

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Christine:
While I completely disagree with this ruling and hope it will be overturned soon, I don't see how we can let children reach adulthood without some check that they are getting the education they need to survive and thrive. It's not common, but there are parents who don't put their kids in school and don't teach them anything either. IMHO, that is a form of neglect. Granted, standardized tests are one of my least favorite things about the school (mostly the part where they teach to the test) but on the other hand, I understand the difficulty in coming up with something -- anything -- that gives us some idea how students are doing and what they are learning.

Even if state tests are part of a home school requirement, I don't see why home school can't be more student centered, go at your own pace, and focus on material that regular schools wouldn't normally cover. I just think it's a good idea to make sure they're also learning to read.

I homeschool, and I agree with this.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Belle, in CA, no private school is required to have credentialed teachers. I believe *all* public school teachers must be credentialed or actively working towards that credential.

Subjects are supposed to be "comparable to public schools" or something like that, I can't remember the exact language, but there is a lot of leeway, specifically because of private schools that include religious education in their curriculum.

Some private schools are "accredited" but the accrediting bodies are also a private organization, not necessarily recognized directly by the state.

There is no requirement that a private school must be accredited or working towards any sort of accrediation.

AJ

[ March 07, 2008, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Also, the Christian school that was the "umbrella school" mentioned in this legal case, met with the parents 4 times a school year. (read the last paragraph) The kids were also tested at the private school using a nationally recognized standardized test. It doesn't say how they scored on those tests, which would be the most revealing bit, but there was some diligence there.

AJ

Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :

¨My own cousins, who were educated by my (very religious) aunt, have been misserved by homeschooling. She doesn't know much about mathematics or the sciences, so she can't teach it to them, and doesn't emphasize the subjects at all. So far none of them have gone to college, and I'm not sure if any of them will be able to do well at a liberal arts type school that requires them to study these subjects¨

This is, I have heard, by far the most common problem with homeschoolers. Another one would would be my friend Trevor´s situation. He was homeschooled until the 3rd grade. He basically couldn´t read until our 3rd grade teacher helped him, even though he was in the academically gifted classes the very next year, because his mom had refused to teach him or his 3 brothers reading from anything but the Book of Mormon or the Bible. The funny thing is, she heads up the reading program for a large public school system now, and she was an elementary school teacher and principal for many years before that. His mom has her Master´s in Education, and that was her approach.

I´m not necessarily against homeschooling, I think required distance-learning may be the answer to the whole problem. Maybe. That´s a big maybe.

Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :

What a wonderful conservative conflict.

The conservative Republicans want three things in education:

1) Detailed accountability by all governmentally run education programs. If we are spending our tax dollars to educate kids, we need proof that education is happening. They believe this can best be achieved through standardized testing.

2) Home Schooling as an option for all parents. Parents should have the final say in what their children learn, and Home Schooling is one, if not the last, option to turn too when the school system insists on teaching things you do not want taught (Evolution, Sex Education, Liberal Ideology, or the lack of any of the above).

3) Vouchers--so that our tax money paid to teach children in public schools can be used to pay for the teaching of children in private schools, or even children in Home Schooling.

Now here comes the problem.

One of Home Schoolings biggest advantages is that its free of the Educational Industrial Mindset, free from its political bent, and the teachers are free to teach their children at a pace that is not part of that mass-production of education.

Testing would put an end to that freedom. The tests themselves are part of the Educational Industrial Complex, and any "Umbrella School" is possibly a link to that Mass-Production system.

This is not important now because private and home schooled children are not supported by public funds. As such the public does not have the right to demand proof that education is happening.

However, if vouchers were to go into effect, then such private schools and home schooling parents that take them would be using public funds to teach their children. As such the public would have the right to know that their funds were being used to actually teach--and tests would be mandated, as well as a bunch of other provisions that would lead to them being just another cog in the Educational Industrial Complex.

I look forward to seeing how the conservative Education thinkers solve this problem.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

quote:
I think required distance-learning may be the answer to the whole problem. Maybe. That´s a big maybe.

A lot more parents would have a big problem with this one. Because another major reason parents homeschool is that they do not agree with some of the things taught in the public schools (usually for religious reasons.)

Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

quote:
I look forward to seeing how the conservative Education thinkers solve this problem.

quote:
1) Detailed accountability by all governmentally run education programs.

Get rid of No Child Left Behind. Giving the Federal Government more power of education is not a conservative idea. At the very least take out any requirement of NCLB that the Federal Government cannot finance.

quote:
2) Home Schooling as an option for all parents...Testing would put an end to that freedom.

Provided there is no neglect in Reading, Writing, and basic arithmetic, I think home schooling should be supported. A reasonable standard can be agreed upon. I suggest requiring the child to be withing 2 grade levels of his/her current age.

Having a minimalist approach to testing would leave out a the mass-production quality some feel in education while still giving the child essential life skills.

quote:
3) Vouchers--so that our tax money paid to teach children in public schools can be used to pay for the teaching of children in private schools, or even children in Home Schooling.

...
However, if vouchers were to go into effect, then such private schools and home schooling parents that take them would be using public funds to teach their children. As such the public would have the right to know that their funds were being used to actually teach--and tests would be mandated

If only a fraction of the cost of educating a pupil went to vouchers and the rest stayed in public education (say 1/3 to 2/3 split with public education getting more money), then the public would have a right to know that the 1/3 spent was teaching life skills (basic reading, writing, and arithmetic).

Private school and/or home schools could then focus on arts, vocations, or college. Yes, some would only know the basics of the basics, but the public schools probably have around a third who graduate only knowing the basics.

If the child can not keep within 2 grades of tested reading comprehension, writing, and arithmetic, then the state should have a right to force compulsory certified education.

EDIT: This is a rough draft idea of how I think it should be handled. I am sure smarter conservative thinkers could vastly improve it.

Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :

"A lot more parents would have a big problem with this one. Because another major reason parents homeschool is that they do not agree with some of the things taught in the public schools (usually for religious reasons.)"

I do remember using the word "maybe". Also, it wouldn't be too difficult to design distance-learning curriculum that would be religion-neutral. There are plenty of very capable educators in all the major religions in the US.

Designing a geology curriculum for the YEC crowd might be a little difficult. However, you can't please everyone, and those are some folks I wouldn't mind displeasing. Seriously. Science learns, and all, but it damn well isn't going to learn that the Earth is only 6 thousand years old anytime soon.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

But, see, one problem is that CA just decided that public schols can't, for instance, teach that "parents" always mean "mom and dad." I'm okay with that, personally, but I know people who are NOT. And I respect their religious right to object to their kids being taught otherwise or being told that if they teach their kids at home they can't teach otherwise.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
Belle, in CA, no private school is required to have credentialed teachers. I believe *all* public school teachers must be credentialed or actively working towards that credential.

Yup. Some private schools won't hire teachers who are not credentialed, and many have payscales which reward having a credential, but both are purely voluntary.

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
Subjects are supposed to be "comparable to public schools" or something like that, I can't remember the exact language, but there is a lot of leeway, specifically because of private schools that include religious education in their curriculum.

IIRC, there are specific subjects which must be included, but the guidelines are fairly broad. Most schools -- including religious -- basically follow the state's guidelines, and then add or tweak.

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
Some private schools are "accredited" but the accrediting bodies are also a private organization, not necessarily recognized directly by the state.

The vast majority of acreddited CA schools are accredited by WASC. Having dealt with them at both the high school and college level, I think their HS standards should be tightened up. (The college requirements are much more detailed and checked more often and are currently making me nuts. [Wink]

)

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
There is no requirement that a private school must be accredited or working towards any sort of accrediation.

No legal requirement. However, there are some pretty severe problems that the school and its graduates get stuck with if it is not.

Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :

"And I respect their religious right to object to their kids being taught otherwise or being told that if they teach their kids at home they can't teach otherwise.

Where, exactly, would this come up in a class on ecology or geometry? You know, science and math stuff, the things that homeschooling usually doesn't do too great at. I think you haven't thought it clearly through yet. It's quite possible to design a science/math curriculum that basically never touches on religious hot-button issues. As far as other subjects go, I think even social studies can be taught more or less unbiased. Maybe.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

It's not science or math-- it's social studies, in the elementary grades. And that's a subject taught in public schools, that would have to come up if distance learning through public schools was the only homeschool option available.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rivka:

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
There is no requirement that a private school must be accredited or working towards any sort of accrediation.
No legal requirement. However, there are some pretty severe problems that the school and its graduates get stuck with if it is not.

Rivka would you care to elucidate those problems? I believe the problems you describe are real, but since graduating from a non-accredited school didn't hurt me in the slightest, I have no idea what they are.

Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :

I think rivka was referring to parents who believe that religion should be an intimate part of their children's education. It's been well established that specific religious indoctrination should not be permitted in the public school system so the only methods parents have for providing their children with a religious education is to send them to a private school or to homeschool them. I'm perfectly fine with either method but agree with others in this thread that homeschooled children should have to take tests to ensure that they meet certain standards. We should try to avoid [admittedly rare] situations such as those visible in the documentary Jesus Camp where the homeschooled indoctrination is so extreme that I doubt the kids could name a single strong argument in favor of evolution or man-made global warming. While I respect the right of homeschooling parents to teach alternative beliefs to their children, I strongly believe that their children be knowledgeable about mainstream beliefs .

EDIT: Not addressing anybody in particular (was motivated by steven's post)

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

I doubt that's what rivka was referring to. Not 'cause I think she thinks kids shouldn't be taught science-- just 'cause she works in a field where I'd imagine she has some expertise in non-accredation of schools causing problems. [Smile]

Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :

"It's not science or math-- it's social studies, in the elementary grades. And that's a subject taught in public schools, that would have to come up if distance learning through public schools was the only homeschool option available."

You really aren't bothering to read my posts word for word, are you? I actually specifically mentioned science and math as the subjects that needed dealing with.

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

quote:
However, if vouchers were to go into effect, then such private schools and home schooling parents that take them would be using public funds to teach their children. As such the public would have the right to know that their funds were being used to actually teach--and tests would be mandated, as well as a bunch of other provisions that would lead to them being just another cog in the Educational Industrial Complex.

The problem is in the terminology, I think. If my taxes go to pay for my share of my child's public education, and I choose not to take advantage of that particular option, then I should pay less taxes. Calling it a voucher and having the money pass through the government before it comes back to me doesn't make the money public, IMO, but I can see why people might demand accountability of those funds.

I don't believe, however, that the government has any right to check in on the progress of homeschooled children, just as it has no right to check in periodically to make sure I don't beat them. If my children were tested at some point during elementary school (they are 6 and 5) I can almost guarantee that they would do abysmally in math, because I have not chosen to teach math in a spiral method. By the end of their schooling career, they will be at least as equipped as their public-schooled peers in math, but right now, while my 6-year-old can add four digit numbers, he can't subtract anything from a number larger than ten. I'm okay with that. Actually, I'm thrilled with that! Why? Because my son did very poorly with the spiral method. Changing from bar graphs to clocks to addition to whatever else on a day to day basis was extremely frustrating for him. Now that we are using a new method, he is doing extremely well and loves math. That's what matters, in the long run. Who has the right to come in to my home, in essence, and tell me that he needs to go back to spiral math, and that some people who don't understand his educational history should teach it to him?

Ah, obviously this is a hot button for me. This was actually way too long for an edit.

[ March 08, 2008, 01:02 PM: Message edited by: PSI Teleport ]

Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :

". If my taxes go to pay for my share of my child's public education, and I choose not to take advantage of that particular option, then I should pay less taxes. "

They don't go to your share of your child's education. Your taxes go to public education. period.

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

That's your opinion, I think. Unless there is something in the Constitution to that effect.

There are a lot of things for the common welfare that I think my taxes should go to. I would pay for roads, even if I never drove on them. (I may have to call an ambulance someday. [Smile]

) But I don't believe that the education of America is my responsibility. If there IS something in the Constitution that says it's my responsibility, then I would have to think long and hard about my next step.

The origins of public education in America were of people who came together with their time and money to be able to bring an educated person to their town to give their kids an education better than the parents themselves could give them. That's no longer true. Now, almost any parent can educate their children as well as or better than the state. Especially with the many curriculum options available. Why do we keep paying for the teacher? Every parent should be responsible for their own children's education. Let the parents who choose to have someone else educate their kids pay for it.

Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :

"That's your opinion, I think. "

It seems to be how taxes in general work.

"But I don't believe that the education of America is my responsibility."

Yes, but as long as you are being taxed for education, and there's certainly nothing in the constitution that says you can't be, then the taxes you are paying aren't to support your children, they are to support the institution.

"Now, almost any parent can educate their children as well as or better than the state."

Replace "almost any parent" with "fewer then 1%" and I'd agree with you.

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

"Yes, but as long as you are being taxed for education, and there's certainly nothing in the constitution that says you can't be, then the taxes you are paying aren't to support your children, they are to support the institution."

This is what I disagree with. Not your interpretation of it, but that the situation exists in the first place. Public education is an institution I have no interest in supporting, and I am very interested in how to go about changing it.

"Replace "almost any parent" with "fewer then 1%" and I'd agree with you."

Do you think so? Are there some statistics that show that the children of less than 1% of homeschooling parents perform as well in college and in life as the average public schooled student?

Do you have any experience with homeschooling methods or curricula, Paul?

Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PSI Teleport:

"Replace "almost any parent" with "fewer then 1%" and I'd agree with you."

Do you think so? Are there some statistics that show that the children of less than 1% of homeschooling parents perform as well in college and in life as the average public schooled student?
?

That is only relevant if you can show that the parents who choose to homeschool their children constitute a representative sample of the population as a whole. It takes a lot of time and effort to properly homeschool children, and I suspect that the parents who choose to do so would tend to skewed towards parents who are more capable because of that. Even then, though, there are still plenty of cases where parents simply turn out to be poor teachers due to lack of dedication or lack of teaching skill.

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

"It takes a lot of time and effort to properly homeschool children, and I suspect that the parents who choose to do so would tend to skewed towards parents who are more capable because of that."

Groovy. You're right. 1% of homeschooling parents probably do not equal 1% of all parents. Luckily, I don't propose to tell other people how to raise their children, and if someone feels that the public education system is what's best for their child, then it probably is. The people I'm concerned with are the ones who HAVE chosen to homeschool, since the way that people who don't homeschool would homeschool is probably not relevant to, really, anything. Except perhaps a vague sort of reference to their dedication in parenting or something.

But there is probably no way to prove that less than one percent of ALL parents could do as well for their children as public school, as Paul suggested, which was all I was trying to say.

Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jhai:
For instance, I'm currently in a Ph.D program for economics. In a few years I'll be qualified to teach the subject at the college level. I've studied a lot of mathematics, sciences, and social sciences, and have plenty of experience tutoring and teaching. While I doubt I could walk into a high school classroom tomorrow and teach any of the subjects (except math & econ), I don't doubt that I could very adequately homeschool a handful of children. (Abhi could take care of English and some of the sciences. Our knowledge bases are very complementary. )

Without any comment on your personal qualifications, because I don't know you, in general experience tutoring and teaching at the college level does NOT qualify a person to teach young children. Many people who are excellent college or even high school teachers would fail miserably in an elementary or preschool classroom. The skillset (and personality type) to be able to present things at a level understandable to munchkins is a lot more important than knowledge of advanced subject matter.

I am an excellent teacher of adults. I am an adequate teacher of children. If I had to try to teach even "a handful" of lower elementary kids more often than one or two afternoons a week I would go stir-crazy.

Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :

Just because you don't drive doesn't mean you don't benefit from the roads. That's how emergency vehicles can get to your house and how the food you eat gets to you.

It's the same with public education. Even if you don't have children, or you home school your children, they have to live in a world where all the other publicly educated people are.

You might want to consider getting a civics tutor [Wink]

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dkw:

quote:
Originally posted by Jhai:
For instance, I'm currently in a Ph.D program for economics. In a few years I'll be qualified to teach the subject at the college level. I've studied a lot of mathematics, sciences, and social sciences, and have plenty of experience tutoring and teaching. While I doubt I could walk into a high school classroom tomorrow and teach any of the subjects (except math & econ), I don't doubt that I could very adequately homeschool a handful of children. (Abhi could take care of English and some of the sciences. Our knowledge bases are very complementary. )
Without any comment on your personal qualifications, because I don't know you, in general experience tutoring and teaching at the college level does NOT qualify a person to teach young children. Many people who are excellent college or even high school teachers would fail miserably in an elementary or preschool classroom. The skillset (and personality type) to be able to present things at a level understandable to munchkins is a lot more important than knowledge of advanced subject matter.

I am an excellent teacher of adults. I am an adequate teacher of children. If I had to try to teach even "a handful" of lower elementary kids more often than one or two afternoons a week I would go stir-crazy.

You'll note that I never said I could be a good elementary teacher - that takes more patience, and ability at crowd control than I have the interest in developing. However, it's a completely difference experience teaching when you have, say, five children at various ages that you know well than when you have a 30 six year-olds running around a classroom.

I've tutored children in a small group setting from the 1st grade on, so I think I could handle that aspect. I'll agree that there are plenty of college professors who should never be let near a classroom of kids. [Smile]

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

"Just because you don't drive doesn't mean you don't benefit from the roads. That's how emergency vehicles can get to your house and how the food you eat gets to you."

I know that. Did you read my whole post? I specifically mentioned emergency vehicles. That's why I consider roads important to pay for even if I don't personally use them. There are a lot of ways I benefit from having roads.

"Even if you don't have children, or you home school your children, they have to live in a world where all the other publicly educated people are."

Yeah, I get it. I LIVE in a world where publicly educated people are. I GET it. Do you? Do you see how well public education has served us these last few decades? Look around!

However, as far as having to live in a world where the people are uneducated, I have this to say: I can't do one darn thing about the people I have to live with in this world. People choose every day to do completely idiotic things regardless of the fact that they were "educated". People choose all by their very own selves how hard they are going to try and how much they are going to care. People who were "educated" vote for morons EVERY DAY and put them in charge of our government. (Well, really just on election days. [Smile]

) And I think that the very best thing that I can do to help those people (and thereby help myself and my family) is to teach them personal responsibility. I understand that it's important to help people in need. But how can we reasonably expect this from people who don't even take care of themselves? Whatever happened to people who want to excel? People who really want to get themselves into better situations? People who want it badly enough to actually try to fix it themselves, rather than waiting for someone else to fix it?

"You might want to consider getting a civics tutor [Wink]"

Ha. Ha. That's a joke. Funny. But to clarify, just because I said I am personally responsible for my children's education doesn't mean I plan on pulling only from myself as a resource. That really would be idiotic.

And if you think there's something lacking in my education, just keep in mind that I went to a public school. The magnet program and everything! So I guess I got the very best our government has to offer.

Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PSI Teleport:

Yeah, I get it. I LIVE in a world where publicly educated people are. I GET it. Do you? Do you see how well public education has served us these last few decades? Look around!

However, as far as having to live in a world where the people are uneducated, I have this to say: I can't do one darn thing about the people I have to live with in this world. People choose every day to do completely idiotic things regardless of the fact that they were "educated". People choose all by their very own selves how hard they are going to try and how much they are going to care. People who were "educated" vote for morons EVERY DAY and put them in charge of our government. (Well, really just on election days. ) And I think that the very best thing that I can do to help those people (and thereby help myself and my family) is to teach them personal responsibility. I understand that it's important to help people in need. But how can we reasonably expect this from people who don't even take care of themselves? Whatever happened to people who want to excel? People who really want to get themselves into better situations? People who want it badly enough to actually try to fix it themselves, rather than waiting for someone else to fix it?

What is your basis for comparison? Yes, people still do stupid things, and yes, the education system is far from perfect. No one is saying that it is anything else. However, you need to have some baseline here in order to make a comparison. Is there any reason whatsoever to believe that things would be better off without the public education system?

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

I don't think that there should be no public education system. I think that people should be able to decide what system to go with and pay for that system. I understand that, all things being equal, that would result in a public education system that is more poorly funded than the one we have now. I am not sure how the people who would choose the public system would have to deal with that. They may have to pay a little more to make up the difference. It may take community effort (as in the parents themselves helping out in whatever ways that they can) or something else. I think it would be very interesting to see stats on exactly how much each person pays into the schools (on average), since I have no idea how much it is. But I believe that giving parents specific responsibility of their children's education is extremely important. I'm not saying it wouldn't be difficult. But I can't imagine that any parent of a public schooled parent puts in as much time, effort, and money into their kids' basic education than I do, and I have no problem expecting only a quarter as much from other people.

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

quote:

Private school and/or home schools could then focus on arts, vocations, or college. Yes, some would only know the basics of the basics, but the public schools probably have around a third who graduate only knowing the basics.
If the child can not keep within 2 grades of tested reading comprehension, writing, and arithmetic, then the state should have a right to force compulsory certified education.

EDIT: This is a rough draft idea of how I think it should be handled. I am sure smarter conservative thinkers could vastly improve it. [/QB]

This is where I go nuts when we talk of hs kids being sent to school when they don't meet standards. I'm not opposed to meeting standards; my own kids exceed them. But when we expect and want to require all hs parents to do better rhan the public schools-make me crazy.

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dkw:

quote:
Originally posted by Jhai:
For instance, I'm currently in a Ph.D program for economics. In a few years I'll be qualified to teach the subject at the college level. I've studied a lot of mathematics, sciences, and social sciences, and have plenty of experience tutoring and teaching. While I doubt I could walk into a high school classroom tomorrow and teach any of the subjects (except math & econ), I don't doubt that I could very adequately homeschool a handful of children. (Abhi could take care of English and some of the sciences. Our knowledge bases are very complementary. )
Without any comment on your personal qualifications, because I don't know you, in general experience tutoring and teaching at the college level does NOT qualify a person to teach young children. Many people who are excellent college or even high school teachers would fail miserably in an elementary or preschool classroom. The skillset (and personality type) to be able to present things at a level understandable to munchkins is a lot more important than knowledge of advanced subject matter.

I am an excellent teacher of adults. I am an adequate teacher of children. If I had to try to teach even "a handful" of lower elementary kids more often than one or two afternoons a week I would go stir-crazy.

It's often different when it's your own kids.

Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :

quote:
Do you see how well public education has served us these last few decades? Look around!

Time for the obligitory Sandia Report link. For those not familiar with the Sandia Report, George Bush Sr. (the education president) commissioned Sandia national labs to determine the state of education in the U.S. The study is the ONLY comprehensive study of its kind. When the results came back, Bush suppressed the results, because it didn't suit his political goals to admit that public education is doing just fine thank you.

Public education in the U.S. is only failing in the public's perception. Actual data, as opposed to media rhetoric, shows that public education is succeeding exceptionally well. In addition to showing that the U.S. gets an "A" in educating our children, it also showed why we are continually told that we are failing our children:

1. The U.S. is the only country in the world that attempts to educate every child regardless of their ability to be educated. Prior to 1973, we didn't attempt to educate children if they were mentally retarded below a certain I.Q. level. Today we expect every child to be educated "at grade level" regardless of I.Q. level. The fact that we fail at this should be no surprise. (This also accounts for just about the entire increase in the cost of education that people like to complain about so much)

2. The U.S. goal is for every child to remain in school through the end of high school. In previous decades, it was expected that certain children would drop out and get a job. That's no longer acceptable, so we keep kids in school long past the point when they can tolerate continued failure. Then we, and they, and their parents, blame the school system for failing to educate them.

3. Politicians, including school administrators, do not benefit by admitting that the school system is ok. Politicians can't get elected by saying they don't have a problem to solve, and school administrators are always looking for more money, which they can't get if the school is doing ok with the money they already have. That's why Bush suppressed the release of his own report.

4. Likewise, the media can't make a story out of a successful school program, but a failing one "sells papers."

Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :

"Do you think so? Are there some statistics that show that the children of less than 1% of homeschooling parents perform as well in college and in life as the average public schooled student?

Do you have any experience with homeschooling methods or curricula, Paul?"

I have experience with homeschooling methods, and curricula, professionally and personally. And the big thing that the vast vast vast majority of american parents don't have is enough TIME (or understanding of economics to create the time) to implement a good homeschooling program.

I stand by my statement that fewer then 1% of american parents could do better then the state at educating their children.

"Yeah, I get it. I LIVE in a world where publicly educated people are. I GET it. Do you? Do you see how well public education has served us these last few decades? Look around!"

Public education has, basically everywhere its been implemented, so dramatically increased standard of living across the board, that I suspect the damage of undoing a public approach to education would be tremendous.

As Glenn has pointed out, public education has served us very well indeed. In fact, its tremendosly outperformed every other approach to education in history.

Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :

quote:
I have experience with homeschooling methods, and curricula, professionally and personally. And the big thing that the vast vast vast majority of american parents don't have is enough TIME (or understanding of economics to create the time) to implement a good homeschooling program.

I stand by my statement that fewer then 1% of american parents could do better then the state at educating their children.

I think it might be more than 1% but between everything I've personally seen and everything non-anecdotal I've studied? I'd be real, real surprised if it was over one in fifty.

More importantly, I think that a majority of the parents who are inclined to homeschool are going to do so for the wrong reasons and they won't be doing their kids any favors by doing so.

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

Thanks for the report, Glenn.

"Nearly 80% of white students complete high school on time, and roughly 88% do so by age 25."

So does this mean we are including GED's in this? I'm not complaining, just curious. How old can you be and still attend high school?

I wish I could read the full report.

I hope public education really is doing so well. I'll admit that most of my opinions on the matter have been based on reports claiming very low literacy rates from graduates and things of the sort. I also know from personal experience how easy it is to graduate with little to no actual effort.

But, once again, I don't think that undoing public education is a good idea. I think that a more direct and hands-on approach from the parents involved would benefit everyone. I think if the parents actually "felt" the support they give the schools they would become a lot more involved and have more ownership and responsibility. So in other words, give us all "vouchers" and let us choose where to put our kids. (By "give us vouchers" I mean lower our taxes.) Since education is locally funded then everyone will be affected. Even those who don't pay income tax pay taxes everywhere else.

"More importantly, I think that a majority of the parents who are inclined to homeschool are going to do so for the wrong reasons and they won't be doing their kids any favors by doing so."

What DO you think their reasons are?

Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :

quote:
So does this mean we are including GED's in this? I'm not complaining, just curious. How old can you be and still attend high school?

I think it's typically up to 21.

quote:
I don't think that undoing public education is a good idea.

I think it's about the worst idea I regularly hear thrown out by fringe political types. If we ever wanted to assure that we lose out in the postindustrial economy and drift into the has-beens of history, we should get rid of public schools.

Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :

This is an old argument, where people aren't talking to each other.

One side says, "I pay My taxes to educate My children. Why can't I use that money to educate My children Myself."

There seems to be a lot of self interest in that argument.

But public education is not about educating your own children. Its about educating others. If you have the skills and the time to educate your children better than Public Education, great. I am impressed and fully support your decision to do so. However there are parents who can not, do not, or will not have those skills, that time, or the desire.

You say that $X you pay in taxes that goes to education should be given back to you to spend on your child's education as you see fit.

Do you have one child? The school tax system does not tax per child, but on things like Property Values. So if you have one child, sure you can spend that $X to send your kid to a great school, or home school with the best equipment, trips, and books imaginable. Of course if you have two children, that would be 1/2$X available per child. And that poor woman who, for religious reasons or for others, has 5 or 7 or more children, well she doesn't get to spend that awful much per child.

As for those who have no children, I guess we don't have to pay that tax?

No, what you are really asking for is that we as a community pool our resources into taxes paid at the local, state, and federal level. These taxes are combined into a great big pool and paid to schools to educate the communities children in a responsible manner. You want to take a portion of that money and spend it on your child in such a way as to be totally unaccountable for the results.

You are saying that you have the right to spend my money on your child the way you want to. I am saying that you do not have that right. I am not paying my taxes to educate your child or my child, but the communities children.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

I am all for paying for the public school system. I am also all for allowing parents to choose to opt out of that system and pay additional fees or expenses to educate their children otherwise, whether that be through a private school, an ISP, or freestyle homeschooling. I don't mind paying for other people's kids to go to school, as long as you allow me to keep mine out of the school they go to if I so choose.

Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :

See, I don't think that goes far enough. If public school doesn't suit your child's learning style and you have the money to try something else, of course you should. But what about the parents that can't afford it? Their children should just have to suffer through?

At some point, we need to accept that not everyone was created equal like we love to claim. Some people are different, and that's ok. I think we should be doing more to find ways to get that different style of education to the kids whose parents can't get it for them on their own. Or won't.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

I think there should also be provisions-- scholarships, if you will-- for parents whose kids aren't functioning in the public school system but who lack funding options to change that. But it should be need-based, for sure, if I can afford to pay for it myself and not take more tax dollars from another kid's provisions I will. (No school in our area would serve my kid's needs as well as I can, anyway, so homeschooling would still be my choice, even if I could afford private school.)

I do also think we need to fix the public school system. But in the end, the public schools are not there to give THE BEST education possible for every single individual kid-- they're there to serve the majority of kids and give them a decent, functional education.

Where I think things have gone wrong, besides the exceptions (disabilities of all sorts, gifted learners, visual-spatial and other types of "different" learners, etc.) is that not all public schools can do an adequate job of giving a functional education to the majority of their students. There are schools in the district I live in where some kids graduate who cannot functionally read. That is wrong.

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

I am convinced that the ONLY thing, at this point, that will force changes in the public education system is for parents to pull their kids out in droves, and take the money with them. Maybe then someome will sit up and take notice, and force positive change.

Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :

quote:
I think there should also be provisions-- scholarships, if you will-- for parents whose kids aren't functioning in the public school system but who lack funding options to change that.

There are. Schools are required to provide services to meet the needs of all students. If they can't meed the needs of a particular student within the system, then they can and do send students to private schools that have the facilities to meet those needs. Generally speaking, however, private schools have LESS capacity to provide specialized instruction than public schools do, so more often than not, students that can't have their needs met in a particular public school are sent to another public school, or publicly run specialized school. In New York we have BOCES, which is a cooperative educational system that allows multiple school districts to utilize state-wide resources to be applied to programs that would be too small to implement at the district level simply because students with aparticular disability simply don't exist in large enough numbers to justify the expense otherwise.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Schools don't meet the needs of all students. Some groups of students I mentioned above-- gifted students, especially gifted students who ALSO have learning disabilities or other problems, and different learning types, such as visual-spatial, are almost NEVER properly accomodated, by public schools, and there are very few private schools that meet their needs either. I think it's great taht that program exists in New York; nothing like it exists here. It's like pulling teeth to get special ed services of any kind in the district I grew up in, especially for a kid who is also a gifted learner, and the GATE program, while it existed in name, provided so little that many of us hated it as much as we did the regular classroom, because neither one met our needs.

They may be required to meet all needs, but they don't. They don't have the money, time, or specialists to do so. And they quite honestly focus on the needs of the majority, then the lower end of the spectrum (not that I blame them) before they focus on the high end of the spectrum, who are also usually not getting their needs met.

The school system failed me and my siblings, big time. It failed many of my friends as well. As you can see, I'm a bit bitter about it. And there's no way that I trust them to do better with my kids, considering gifted services in the area have gone DOWNHILL in recent years, and no progress has been made in accomodating special senory needs or different learning styles.

Posted by Luv2ReadProductions (Member # 11502) on :

quote:
Originally posted by AvidReader:

At some point, we need to accept that not everyone was created equal like we love to claim. Some people are different, and that's ok. I think we should be doing more to find ways to get that different style of education to the kids whose parents can't get it for them on their own. Or won't.

AvidReader, I won't make any claims about you personally.

But this is an argument I see a lot coming from people who wouldn't be willing to support (with either their time or money) a private fund or foundation to improve the education of the children in their community. However, they're often perfectly content telling me what I should do with my money.

As someone who has invested time and money in such things, it dismays me to see how many are willing to talk the talk about helping underprivelaged children with other people's money, but whose wallets snap shut when they're asked to put their money where their mouth is.

Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :

My public school education wasn't fantastic by any means, but when I think of all the things I would have missed out on by not attending a public school, like marching band and orchestra, yearbook, running for school office, sports teams, homecoming, dances, class projects, science fair, math olympics, the list goes on.

To me, school is more than just what you learn out of the books. I'm sure most people would agree with that, but I don't see how home schooling can possibly provide any of those things in the same way.

It's also one of the reasons I think everyone should continue to pay taxes for schools, because even if you don't think your child would benefit from a music program, or a math olympics, or Odyssey of the Mind or any other number of school run programs, there are lots of kids who do benefit from them, and it would be a shame to see them go.

I don't even have any kids, and I'm happy to pay my share of taxes to make sure the public schools are as good as they can be. Heck, raise my taxes if it's all going to schools - there's a lot worse it can be spent on.

Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :

Luv, I personally don't have the money to send poor or neglected kids to private school. I don't have the people skills to convince a disinterested parent to look into a charter school. I still think these are things that society should be interested in. If my taxes go up a little or we shift some funds around to make it happen, so be it.

quote:
But in the end, the public schools are not there to give THE BEST education possible for every single individual kid-- they're there to serve the majority of kids and give them a decent, functional education.

While I think you're exactly right that this is how it is, I'm incredibly sad that we're willing to settle for that. I wouldn't want "good enough" for my kids if I had any. I'd want the absolute best I could give them.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

quote:
I think of all the things I would have missed out on by no
t attending a public school, like marching band and orchestra, yearbook, running for school office, sports teams, homecoming, dances, class projects, science fair, math olympics, the list goes on.

Almost all of these are available to homeschooled children in many communities if they and their parents want them. My husband's former employer has 10 kids, all homeschooled, and three of his boys were on a homeschool baseball team that went to the national championship a few years back. I know of homeschool association and group dances, conferences for varying interests, yearbooks, science fairs, groups that get together to do chemistry and other subjects often more conduicive to group teaching (especially if you want to hire a lab) and work on group projects, study groups, social groups, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, choirs and bands, etc., etc. Many school districts/states also permit homeschooled students to participate in public school extracurricular and other activities, such as, marching bands, academic decathalon, and sports, if they and their parents so desire.

quote:
I'm happy to pay my share of taxes to make sure the public schools are as good as they can be. Heck, raise my taxes if it's all going to schools - there's a lot worse it can be spent on.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ketchupqueen:

quote:
I think of all the things I would have missed out on by not attending a public school, like marching band and orchestra, yearbook, running for school office, sports teams, homecoming, dances, class projects, science fair, math olympics, the list goes on.
Almost all of these are available to homeschooled children in many communities if they and their parents want them. My husband's former employer has 10 kids, all homeschooled, and three of his boys were on a homeschool baseball team that went to the national championship a few years back. I know of homeschool association and group dances, conferences for varying interests, yearbooks, science fairs, groups that get together to do chemistry and other subjects often more conduicive to group teaching (especially if you want to hire a lab) and work on group projects, study groups, social groups, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, choirs and bands, etc., etc. Many school districts/states also permit homeschooled students to participate in public school extracurricular and other activities, such as, marching bands, academic decathalon, and sports, if they and their parents so desire.

But it would be a very different experience as a home schooled child than at a high school. I'm not saying that kids wouldn't get value out of these activities, I'm just not sure you can compare (for example) participating in a marching band as a home schooled child without a school affiliation and participating within a school community.

(Or even more so, perhaps, participating in a yearbook - these are things that, I think, only are important and special because of the forced socialisation of a year group.)

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Well, the yearbooks I've seen looked like they were pretty important to the kids who participated in them; they were usually for the homeschool groups that got together twice a week or so to study science, languages, and play sports and such together.

Posted by Liz B (Member # 8238) on :

OK, here's one of the biggest problems with the public school system. As a public school teacher, I'm sitting here getting annoyed at what KQ and romanylass are saying. And yet what they're saying is an absolutely accurate representation of their experiences.

I teach in an excellent system at a superb school with a faculty who works very hard to meet the needs of all students. One of my particular areas of interest is in serving the gifted and highly able student within the regular classroom. We do a good job. My experience in the public school is an absolutely accurate representation of my experience, but doesn't imply diddly squat about public schools anywhere else.

It's a huge, unwieldy operation run by a zillion different local governments. How can we possibly say something like this:

quote:

quote:
quote:
But in the end, the public schools are not there to give THE BEST education possible for every single individual kid-- they're there to serve the majority of kids and give them a decent, functional education.
While I think you're exactly right that this is how it is, I'm incredibly sad that we're willing to settle for that. I wouldn't want "good enough" for my kids if I had any. I'd want the absolute best I could give them.

My school *is* there to give the best education possible to every single kid. But in this behemoth we call the public school system, things can be run very differently just across the county line, let alone across the country.

While I am generally in favor of local control over schools, I think the place to start is in equal per-pupil funding across the nation--with some adjustments for cost of living/ construction.

edit for spelling

[ March 10, 2008, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: Liz B ]

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:

quote:
Originally posted by rivka:

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
There is no requirement that a private school must be accredited or working towards any sort of accrediation.
No legal requirement. However, there are some pretty severe problems that the school and its graduates get stuck with if it is not.
Rivka would you care to elucidate those problems? I believe the problems you describe are real, but since graduating from a non-accredited school didn't hurt me in the slightest, I have no idea what they are.

1) It's been a couple years since you graduated HS, and my impression is that there has been some cracking down in recent years.
2) You were homeschooled, and there are some exceptions for that.

Problems for students due to non-accreditation:

School cannot certify GPA for purposes of CalGrants. That means students either lose eligibility altogether, or must take SATs, GEDs, or other tests accepted by CSAC. (How big a deal that is would vary greatly from school to school, and would also depend a lot on how well-informed the students were on this issue.)
Other scholarships vary, but there are quite a few that require a GPA from an accredited school.
Less true for homeschooled students, but some colleges will not accept HS transcripts, HS graduation, or GPAs from non-accredited schools. Available options vary greatly.
Students who transfer to an accredited school from a non-accredited may find themselves required to re-take classes -- or entire school years -- over.

On a school level:

Certain types of funding (Title I, among others) are only available to accredited schools. These funds can be federal, state, county, city, or private -- or some combination thereof.
Certain teacher benefits (loan forgiveness programs, the new TEACH "grants," and an assortment of local programs) are either exclusively or preferentially for teachers in accredited schools. That means non-accredited schools will have that much harder a time hiring qualified teachers.

There are other issues, but many are specific to individual cases. Generally, other than the financial issues, many can be dealt with and/or planned around. But things that a student at an accredited school could just take for granted often cannot be if at a private unaccredited school.

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

My experience as a University Professor with home schooled students has been deplorable. I've been involved with home schoolers on several levels ranging from classroom education to scholarship interviews. My experiences have be so uniformly bad that I'd encourage parents to seek any other alternative.

I have seen comments by other University Profs whose anecdotes don't agree with mine. Their opinions are frequently quoted by Homeschool proponents. Those comments come largely from writing teachers and virtually never from math, science and engineering educators. Opinions of professors whose experience is closer to mine (and i do know many of them) rarely if every get read.

One of my biggest complaints about home schooling is that its proponents rely too heavily on anecdotes to demonstrate the superiority of home schooling but they specifically exclude any anecdotes that don't fit their conclusions. I'm very concerned that home schooling is becoming such a widespread "fad" and that its become increasingly common for parents to see home schooling as the best kind of parenting. There are parents who can homeschool well but they are in my experience the exception and not the rule. There are children whose unique qualities may make them ill suited to a regular classroom and better suited to homeschooling -- they are also the exceptions and not the rule.

What is really needed is a good study comparing home schooled children with children whose parents volunteer in the public schools. Its well known that students performance in all schools is highly dependent on parent involvement. The public schools in areas with well educated parents and strong PTAs commonly rank well above the average (75-80%). With that given, home schools should look much much better than the average public school. The few studies I've seen show them at only very slightly above the average for public schools (51%) which when you consider the individual attention and strong parental involvement in home schools is really shockingly bad.

A study comparing homeschooling to volunteering in the public school would not only be the proper control group but would give parents some good hard data about the best way to invest their time in their children's education.

P.S. If you want to prepare your children to learn in a college environment, non-schooling is probably the worst thing you can do.

Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :

While there are certainly home-schooling engineering success stories (BannaOJ, for instance) I do worry about kids taught by parents who don't have a background in the subjects. I believe they might have the best of motives, but how is someone who never even took calculus supposed to teach calculus?

Barring a few exceptions, I think homeschooling could work in elementary school, but once the kids hit junior high, with the wider variety of subjects they should be taking, I'll bet a good home education is the exception rather than the rule.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
how is someone who never even took calculus supposed to teach calculus?

Most people who go to public school are never taught calculus in high school.

quote:
I'll bet a good home education is the exception rather than the rule.

It seems to me that a good public school education is the exception rather than the rule.

Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :

But isn't home schooling supposed to be better? It is very possible to take calculus in high school, and a student with individualized attention all through their teaching career should be well-prepared to take it before they are 18.

If they aren't prepared, then that's an issue. I don't think calculus is something only genius kids take - why isn't the home-schooled kid prepared for it? What happens when they need more instruction than the parent can give?

If we put teachers in the schools who had only a basic education and gave them the responsibility of teaching subjects they had no training in, there would be an outcry about cheating the students. Why isn't that the case in home schooling?

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
What happens when they need more instruction than the parent can give?

A lot of home-schooled kids start taking classes at the local community college.

Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
It seems to me that a good public school education is the exception rather than the rule.

The study that Glenn posted would seem to contradict that.

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Liz B:
OK, here's one of the biggest problems with the public school system. As a public school teacher, I'm sitting here getting annoyed at what KQ and romanylass are saying. And yet what they're saying is an absolutely accurate representation of their experiences.

I understand that. North of me ( as in, places I couldn't afford to live in) there are a few amazing school districts. Ours is horrendous. I have several tacher friends who are all amazing people, and the only one really happy is the one in a multi age gifted class. Why? In our poorly funded district, the ONLY thing that matters is passing the WASL. Her kids all have the gifts to pass it naturally; she doesn't have to teach to it. She is free to actually meet their educational needs. One of the moms in my co-op never planned to HS- she has a teacher's degree. Her first year, she was pulled aside at the beginning of the year and told by the principal; "Here's a list of six kids I think can't pass the WASL. The only thing you need to do this year is get them passing". She quit the next year, pulled her kids out of school and enrolled in k12.

An important factor is that some parents in even the best districts will choose homeschooling. They don't want BETTER, they want fundamentally different.

(FWIW, at the end of 2nd and 4th, respectively, Matthew and Livvie were at or above grade level for everything. Livvie was at grade level for math-which for her I considered an accomplishment for both her and I. Matthew was at 7thgrade 8th month for math and 12th grade 3rd month for science. Post high school for a slew of things- all language arts, study skills and critical thinking skills)

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

quote:
Originally posted by katharina:
but how is someone who never even took calculus supposed to teach calculus?

.

Like mph said, community college, or one of the many distance programs like k12 or Calvert. If the parents are on top of things there no reason they can't easily find the resources for their kids to excell in the things they don't know. I'll never excell at math, so my son, who does, uses a self teaching program and hubby works with Olivia. Other things we learn togther- I had no background in Greek or Latin, and barely knew my history; I'm learning it with them. That's one fo the things I would never trade in for a school based education.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

FYI, It is entirely possible to teach yourself algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus, using existing textbooks.

As far as testing goes, while some homeschooled students may not want to, SATs are necessary for most college programs. I don't have a problem requiring a homeschooled student to take an SAT or GED test. I think it is a reasonable requirement.

At a conceptual level, I think one of the goals of homeschooling, if one is going to, is to foster independence and independent thinking.

Unfortunately many homeschooling parents do it today for the opposite reason, they want to shelter their kids, rather than expose them to opportunities.

I attended a community college while in junior high and high school. I was pretty much the first person to do so. I still keep in touch with the counsellor there. She says the homeschooled children she sees today are vastly different than us "first generation" types. They are often accompanied by hovering parents, that talk the entire time without actually asking the child's opinion on anything. When the child takes a class without the parent present, unfortunately they tend to sink and rather than swim.

For a child to succeed in life after an alternative education, they *must* become independently motivated. Sadly this is seen less and less.

While thankfully contrary to LDS teaching, (I'm not LDS but I love the quote one of the Presidents said about how he'd rather have educated Mothers than anyone else) there are a significant number of homeschooling fundamentalists who don't see why "wives and daughters" should get higher educations.

One of my friends (in my generation), pretty much married the guy the church she attended chose for her, because that was what she was supposed to do. He turned out to be a loser, cheating creep. And guess what, now she's living back with her parents, with a kid and *now* going to the community college? She's got a lot more backbone than she did before, but it isn't a fun way to find one. And there was some judgement of her for divorcing the guy even after he was proven to be such a loser.

There are also a significant portion of "homeschooling" parents that decide to "homeschool" because their child is a discipline problem in public school. This is the biggest recipe for disaster. These parents don't actually tend to run in the normal homeschooling crowds that romany or kq would participate in. Often the kids just run totally delinquent, after being removed as well. The parent is happy that they aren't getting calls from the school... until the start getting calls from the cops, and DCFS... The root cause discipline issue 99% of the time is *not* addressed by removing the kid from the school, and normally only makes the child more resentful, and the parent loses even more control than before.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

A negative side to homeschooling that parent with young children don't think about, is exactly the letting go process.

IMO, If you do a good job with homeschooling your children and fostering independent learning, your kids are going to be more independent sooner, than kids their grade level in public school.

This may mean that you need to let go of them sooner than you would otherwise.

I personally should have gone to a University at age 16. I think my life would have been different and probably better as a result. My parents couldn't deal with letting me go that much. So I stayed at a community college for two more years. Those years weren't entirely wasted by any means, but in hindsight I had to change one thing that is what I'd change. I believe my life would have ended up on a much more academic track if I had done that, one that might have suited my overall personality better than where I ended up today. (I don't have major regrets about where I am today, that is just the point at where I see a major fork in the road of my life)

My mother and I ended up in frequent conflict with each other from junior high on. She couldn't let go, and in holding on to me, she lost me more thoroughly than she would have otherwise. Now this isn't something exclusive to homeschooling mothers, but I think it is a difficulty that *none* of them think about at the outset, because that seems so distantly in the future.

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

quote:
quote:
how is someone who never even took calculus supposed to teach calculus?
Most people who go to public school are never taught calculus in high school.

Pre-calculus which general includes and introduction to the basic theorems and problems in calculus is standard high school math in most areas.

quote:

quote:
I'll bet a good home education is the exception rather than the rule.
It seems to me that a good public school education is the exception rather than the rule.

Well there are studies for performance of the public schools and they don't support that contention. In fact one recent study found that when you control for socio/economic factors public schools do as well at educating students as private schools, in many cases better. In fact if you control for socio/economic factors the worst performing schools are conservative christian schools. Home schools weren't included in the study but based on what I've seen I'd be willing to bet that home schooled children on the average perform significantly worse than their public school counterparts with comparably educated parents.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
I don't have a problem requiring a homeschooled student to take an SAT or GED test. I think it is a reasonable requirement.

Agreed. However, timing becomes an issue -- you need to take the test(s) with enough time to get results in time for deadlines (like the recent March 2 deadline for CalGrants).

As it happens, most colleges do not require homeschooled students to take any tests they do not also require of their other applicants. That may change soon.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:

One of my biggest complaints about home schooling is that its proponents rely too heavily on anecdotes to demonstrate the superiority of home schooling but they specifically exclude any anecdotes that don't fit their conclusions.

Rabbit on this point I agree with you completely. HSLDA is the biggest and most powerful legal advocate group out there, but some of their data drives me batty. They stand for views that are so cognitively dissonant that they tick me off to no end.

Some alternate information where slightly more unbiased data can be found.

http://www.homeedmag.com/

http://www.nhen.org/ (this site looks more obsolete than I last remember it)

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
Well, the yearbooks I've seen looked like they were pretty important to the kids who participated in them; they were usually for the homeschool groups that got together twice a week or so to study science, languages, and play sports and such together.

Yeah, important was probably the wrong word choice.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

rivka, I realize I applied to colleges ten years ago, however all of the testing deadlines for applying to colleges were pretty clearly published then, you just had to go look them up.

If they are incapable of finding out those deadlines and any other requirements then yes, they are in the unofficial "loser" homeschooling category [Wink]

AJ

This site appears to have up to date CA-centered info on homeschooling teenagers.

http://www.hsc.org/teens.html

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:

There are also a significant portion of "homeschooling" parents that decide to "homeschool" because their child is a discipline problem in public school. This is the biggest recipe for disaster. These parents don't actually tend to run in the normal homeschooling crowds that romany or kq would participate in. Often the kids just run totally delinquent, after being removed as well. The parent is happy that they aren't getting calls from the school... until the start getting calls from the cops, and DCFS... The root cause discipline issue 99% of the time is *not* addressed by removing the kid from the school, and normally only makes the child more resentful, and the parent loses even more control than before.

That's not what I'd call homeschooling. I'd call it abdicating parental responsibility. It's things like that that make me so strongly support testing.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

quote:
School cannot certify GPA for purposes of CalGrants. That means students either lose eligibility altogether, or must take SATs, GEDs, or other tests accepted by CSAC

IME, most college-bound students take the SAT or ACT anyway, no?

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

I'd agree with you [romany], but unfortunately it still comes under "homeschooling" most of the time in the legal (and statistical) sense.

Also on bias. There is a wierd dual bias that even with Rabbit's proposed study is very hard to get around.

You see a "sucessful" homeschooler is highly unlikely to put their children back into a public school.

Therefore, all the public school folks are seeing are the "unsucessful" homeschooled children.

Conversely, an "unsucessful" homeschooler isn't necessarily even going to be a data collection point for "homeschoolers" because they put their children back in school.

The collegiate level may even things out, as far as data collection goes, although then the bias is going to be towards those academically inclined to pursue a higher education.

There is a spectrum of hippie-libertarian to fundamentalistChristian-conservative in homeschooling that does not facilitate easy collection of data. That's also why you will find so many different kinds of homeschooling groups out there.

Some hippie-liberatian types that are off the grid may not even want their children to have birth certificates, at the extreme end.

The not-so-fundamentalist- more liberal types (or as my mother affectionately called them the "bean sprout crew") tend to even if Christian themselves actively resent the way the "Christian fundamentalists" have taken over the vanguard of the homeschooling movement in recent years. That is why there are a wider variety of organizations to choose from at this time. But the hippie-libertarian types aren't generally folks that are into large-scale structured organizations to begin with, so to become that organized tends to run against their grain.

As far as higher education goes, to me, adaptability is key. Even if the individual may not be as prepared as others, are they able to adapt and learn in the new environment.

I don't view "adapatability" to be the same thing as "socialization" but I do think the two may have some corellation.

[ March 10, 2008, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ketchupqueen:

quote:
School cannot certify GPA for purposes of CalGrants. That means students either lose eligibility altogether, or must take SATs, GEDs, or other tests accepted by CSAC
IME, most college-bound students take the SAT or ACT anyway, no?

In time to get the results before March 2 of their senior year? And more and more colleges have changed their requirements -- quite a few no longer require either test any longer. Again, it's not that many or even most of these extra steps can't be dealt with; it's that attending a non-accredited school adds extra steps that students may not be aware of until it becomes a problem. You can call them a loser if it helps; I have to help them figure out what the heck to do now that they've missed the deadline.

And I already mentioned that some of the issues I'm talking about mostly apply to non-accredited school which are not also homeschools, where exceptions are often made.

AJ, I'm not romany. [Wink]

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

quote:
Also on bias. There is a wierd dual bias that even with Rabbit's proposed study is very hard to get around.

You see a "sucessful" homeschooler is highly unlikely to put their children back into a public school.

Therefore, all the public school folks are seeing are the "unsucessful" homeschooled children.

I think this is very true.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

corrected [Smile]

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Also as far as getting the results by March 2nd I think that was pretty standard even when I was applying for schools. You should tell the testing service what schools you want the information sent to at the time you take the test, so that they get them in time.

Maybe a high school guidance counsellor would be on top of this, without a parent or student having to look it up, but looking it up isn't that great of a hardship.

AJ

Yep... they still have a similar calendar.
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/scores.html

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

While anecdote, is not data, I'd love to hear about some of Rabbit's negative interactions with homeschoolers.

I think it *is* important for other homeschoolers to accept that there are *some* parents who are doing their children a disservice by homeschooling.

Due to the fragmented nature of homeschooling, these folks are not necessarily known to the others. Because of my mother's unique position, as well as my own, I believe I have been able to observe a broader cross-section of both kinds of homeschoolers. I still have no idea where the hard data would fall.

AJ

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Again anecdote is not data, but of three families that homeschooled their children together (each in their own homes but we did a lot of group activities together), my brothers and I, are the only ones that would consider doing it for our own children... and that's only 33%. All of the mothers were college graduates, 2 of the three had teaching degrees.

100% of those children are college graduates though, and at least half of them have graduate degrees, so from the strictly academic persepctive you'd have to say it was a sucess. But 66% of the children are truly ADAMANT that they would NEVER homeschool their own children.

AJ

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

There was one girl per family, and all three of the girls have struggled with serious depression at one point or another, as they attempted to reconcile the fundamentalist component of their upbringing with being an independent female.

I am actually the only one of the three that divorces the fundamentalism and subsequent depression from being homeschooled in the first place. The others view it bag and baggage as part of their homeschooling.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
Also as far as getting the results by March 2nd I think that was pretty standard even when I was applying for schools. You should tell the testing service what schools you want the information sent to at the time you take the test, so that they get them in time.

I was referring to the CalGrant application deadline, not the deadline for any particular school.

Of course it's possible to look all these things up. Not really my point.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Actually I suspect it is probably worse for an unacredited private school where the parents assume the school will be looking those sorts of things up for them, than it is for a private home school where you know you are on your own.

[Smile]

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

Or than a private school that is accredited, even if no one there actually is taking care of these things for you. And that was my point. [Wink]

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

quote:
Also on bias. There is a wierd dual bias that even with Rabbit's proposed study is very hard to get around.

You see a "sucessful" homeschooler is highly unlikely to put their children back into a public school.

Therefore, all the public school folks are seeing are the "unsucessful" homeschooled children.

Conversely, an "unsucessful" homeschooler isn't necessarily even going to be a data collection point for "homeschoolers" because they put their children back in school.

I'm not sure this is as big a problem as you implied.

First, I had no intention of looking at home schoolers who go on to public school. My idea would be to start with states that require competency testing of home schoolers. We would take a cohort of parents with college degrees who homeschool and a second cohort of parents with college degrees who volunteer weekly in their children's schools. We would then compare both groups of students based on their test scores to see which group performs the highest and which progresses the most rapidly.

Within such a study it would be interesting to look at children who started in a homeschool but later moved to a regular classroom. If we had test scores for these students compared to those who stayed in homeschool we could test your hypothesis that unsuccessful home schoolers are more likely to move into public schools.

The only bias I would anticipate would be that some parents choose to home school because their child has learning disabilities that aren't being adequately dealt with in a regular classroom. But the parents I've known who've done this don't typically home school for long periods of time. They pull their kids out of the classroom for a year or two to give them individual help to deal with their problems and then put them back in regular schools. I think we could adequately control for this bias by specifically accounting for students with known learning disabilities and excluding families from the study who switch back and forth between home schools and traditional schools.

I also disagree with your assessment that unsuccessful home schoolers are more likely to put their children back in to regular schools. Some of the most successful home schoolers I've known home schooled for K-6 but then sent their children to a regular high school or a community college in their teenage years. (Attending a community college isn't a traditional high school experience but it isn't exactly home schooling either).

On the other hand, some of the worst home school situations I've dealt with were from extreme non-conformist parents (either the hippie-libertarians or the fundamentalist Christian type). The more fanatically parents are devoted to home schooling the less likely they are to critically consider whether its working or not. Perhaps this is because their educational goals are way outside the mainstream and sheltering their children from mainstream society may in fact be their most important educational goal. I've even known of families who home schooled to avoid scrutiny from child protective services for their highly questionable disciplinary practices (I'm not talking about simple spankings here).

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
FYI, It is entirely possible to teach yourself algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus, using existing textbooks.

While I can't honestly disagree with this statement, as a professional educator I do have to disagree with the implication that good teachers are superfluous.

The best most independent self motivated students can often teach themselves any subject from a book. That doesn't mean that every study can or will do it. Or that even the best students will arrive at the same depth of understanding or appreciation for the subject without the aid of a good teacher.

In my experience the top 5% of the students will succeed no matter what the teacher does, the bottom 5% will fail no matter what the teacher does. It is the 90% in the middle where the teacher makes the most impact. Heck even for the top 5%, a good teacher can make the process more fun and more intellectually stimulating.

Posted by Elmer's Glue (Member # 9313) on :

You're superfluous! [Cry]

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
If they are incapable of finding out those deadlines and any other requirements then yes, they are in the unofficial "loser" homeschooling category

Right, because anyone who relies on the help of a teacher or councillor to point out something they could have looked up if they had known what to look up is a "loser".

I have a BIL who is from an immigrant family. His parents were well educated but knew nothing about the US system. They had little money so they lived in a poor neighborhood with weak schools. He was lucky enough to have a dedicated teacher who encouraged him to apply to some of the top schools, helped him identify what tests he should be taking, what scholarships were available and when the deadlines were. Because of help from that teacher, he was able to attend MIT and YALE.

Sure, that information was all publicly available and if he had known what to look for he could have found it all in a public library. But he didn't and by his assessment he wouldn't have if not for the guidance of a dedicated teacher. I guess that makes him a "loser".

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

That's not what BannaOj said at all. She was specifically referring to the homeschooling population in that post. I agree that if you're incapable of finding out deadlines - as a parent/child team that has been responsible for the child's education for years, then you're probably a "loser" type of homeschooling family. Initiative and the ability to find the information you need are pretty important skills if you're going to be homeschooling.

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
While anecdote, is not data, I'd love to hear about some of Rabbit's negative interactions with homeschoolers.

I don't think its appropriate to share specific details about students I've worked with but I will give some generalities. My experiences are with home schoolers once they enter the University, not those who move into primary and secondary schools. Most of my experience was at Montana State University, for some reason I saw far fewer home schoolers in Utah. The home schoolers who came to MSU were largely from remote areas of the west and so they didn't generally have the option of taking community college classes or participating in other organized classes. My general observations based on a variety of different types of interactions are as follows.

1. Homeschool students lacked important learning skills necessary in a college environment like taking notes in a large lecture, adhering to a schedule, taking exams in crowded room, and so forth. They either lacked the confidence to ask questions in a large class or asked so many questions that they interfered with other students.

2. Home school students nearly always had some big gaps in their preparation. This might have been less of a problem for someone interested in the liberal arts but it was a big problem in math and science. Some of what they didn't know was just shocking.

3. Home school students were generally less independent learners than their public school peers. I know that this is directly contrary to AJs personal experience. They were perhaps like the next generation AJ referred to. Some were accustomed to having a personal tutor for every problem. Others expected University profs to taylor assignments and exams to their whims.

4. Home school students had a hard time adapting to a ridged class schedule. They were so accustomed to moving at their own pace that they found it impossible to keep pace with the rest of the class.

5. Home school students had a harder than usual time adapting to meeting new people, making friends and building a social network at college. They often had a very hard time on group projects since they had never worked on a team.

6. Home school students typically had less mature critical thinking skills. They were less comfortable dealing with complexity, diversity and controversy than students who had been to traditional schools. This was most evident in scholarship interviews.

This is just a short list, I'll add more as it comes to me.

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jhai:
That's not what BannaOj said at all. She was specifically referring to the homeschooling population in that post. I agree that if you're incapable of finding out deadlines - as a parent/child team that has been responsible for the child's education for years, then you're probably a "loser" type of homeschooling family. Initiative and the ability to find the information you need are pretty important skills if you're going to be homeschooling.

You miss my point. There are advantages to having mentors who know the system. One disadvantage of home schooling is that you forego access to these people. That is a real disadvantage and one parents should be aware of when they choose to homeschool.

Yes its possible to make up for some of that by doing your own research and yes not every child in public or private school gets that kind of mentor. But not knowing a particular piece of information or where to find it doesn't make a person a looser. Good mentoring is a thing of worth.

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

You're clearly missing mine. It is the responsibility of the homeschooling family to know this stuff far more than it is the responsibility of the average family that sends their kid to public schools. At a public school there are people, like guidance counselors and teachers, who can serve as mentors to those who don't know their way around the system, as you pointed out. Homeschooling parents know they're losing those resources by not sending their children to public schools, and thus have an added responsibility to take care of these matters.

By choosing to homeschool, the parents (and older child/teenager, to some extent), take on responsibility for knowing a lot more about education than non-homeschooling parents. Just like they're suppose to know how to find the resources for the child to learn, and to be on top of curriculum requirements to make sure that the child is learning everything that he ought to.

For example, you wouldn't require a parent with a child in a public school to know how to do or teach any high school level math in order to be a good parent. They can be a good parent without knowing that stuff (although, IMHO, they ought to know that stuff anyways). A parent who has chosen to homeschool his child, however, must be able to either teach that material to his child, or be able to find other ways to make sure his child learns that sort of material. Failing to do so it simply bad parenting.

Likewise, if the parent/teenager homeschooling team wants the kid to attend college, they have a responsibility to find the information they need to do so. And if they are incapable of finding out such easily available information (which was the hypothetical BannaOj was posing), then I shudder to think of what else they're incapable of doing in the education of the kid. A lack of the ability to find this information strongly suggest that they are doing a lackluster job of educating the kid, and are thus "loser" homeschoolers.

Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :

quote:
Pre-calculus which general includes and introduction to the basic theorems and problems in calculus is standard high school math in most areas.

It's a standard offering, but it's not really normal for most kids to get to the pre-calculus stage.

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:

quote:
Pre-calculus which general includes and introduction to the basic theorems and problems in calculus is standard high school math in most areas.
It's a standard offering, but it's not really normal for most kids to get to the pre-calculus stage.

Curious: don't most high schools require four years of math? Mine did, which meant that, unless you were in the super-slow moving track, you'd at least cover Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2/Trig, and Pre-Calc. Although my high school was in an extremely good & competitive district (in California), so maybe it was just the area...

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

Its normal for college bound students.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jhai:
Curious: don't most high schools require four years of math?

Nope. 3.

You don't even need 4 to qualify for Academic Competitiveness Grants.

Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:

quote:
Pre-calculus which general includes and introduction to the basic theorems and problems in calculus is standard high school math in most areas.
It's a standard offering, but it's not really normal for most kids to get to the pre-calculus stage.

It is difficult to get out of taking pre-calc at my high school. You can do it by coming in at pre-algebra and only taking three years of math or doing extremely poorly in other math classes so as to not advance. I would say that pre-calc is not only the norm at my school but also at all of the high schools in the area as well.

Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :

It was the norm at my high school, although my school was definitely better than average.

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jhai:
You're clearly missing mine. It is the responsibility of the homeschooling family to know this stuff far more than it is the responsibility of the average family that sends their kid to public schools.

I never missed your point for a second but you are clearly still missing mine.

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

Look, Rabbit, you wrote:

quote:
Right, because anyone who relies on the help of a teacher or councillor to point out something they could have looked up if they had known what to look up is a "loser".

No one has said that, or said anything similar on this entire thread. BannaOj didn't say that, and neither did I. Nothing anyone has said would suggest that they think your BIL was a loser because he or his immigrant parents didn't know the system. I responded to your post to point this out, and then responded again when your next post again suggested that you did not understand how your original post was wrongly accusing BannaOj of making a claim that would mean your BIL was a "loser".

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

Look Jhai, I'm not an idiot and I understood your point the first 2 times you made it.

Perhaps my examples and my sarcasm weren't clear. Let me try one more time to express my point. No homeschool parent can know everything known by a good team of educational professionals. What those professionals have to offer is of value that can not be replaced by a parent whose done some research.

Those gaps aren't just reflective of "loser" home schools -- they are reflective of a movement that as a whole discounts the value of trained educational professionals.

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

You have far more trust in educational professionals than I do. And I've attended some of the best schools in this country - and teach at the college level in an R1 university. Good educational teams are awfully rare, and often times a very motivated parent or teenage can have better information - at least for their particular situation - than even an excellent team of educational professionals.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
[Homeschooling is] a movement that as a whole discounts the value of trained educational professionals.

I would say that it's a movement that judges the value that the child gets from the trained professionals in the current system to be less than the value of the one-on-one help from a parent.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

quote:
No homeschool parent can know everything known by a good team of educational professionals. What those professionals have to offer is of value that can not be replaced by a parent whose done some research.

And as others have said before, not everyone in public schools in every area has access to a good team of professionals.

Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :

I've stayed out of this thread because it's a very personal subject for me and my family...but I had to respond to this:

quote:
No homeschool parent can know everything known by a good team of educational professionals. What those professionals have to offer is of value that can not be replaced by a parent whose done some research.

I don't claim to know everything known by a good team of educational professionals. No single teacher can. What I do know is how to seek out great teachers for my children in the areas they need help that I can't provide. THAT is the beauty of homeschooling, to me. The freedom to put my children in optimum learning situations...and remove them from detrimental ones, at my discretion.

Posted by Luv2ReadProductions (Member # 11502) on :

quote:
Originally posted by AvidReader:
Luv, I personally don't have the money to send poor or neglected kids to private school. I don't have the people skills to convince a disinterested parent to look into a charter school.

Yes, that sounds very familiar.

You said yourself you're willing to spend extra in tax dollars, so you must have some money.

You seem to read and write just fine in these forums, so your communication skills (I'm guessing) are in no way impaired.

Forgive what may seem like personal attacks. I don't personally dislike you.

It's just that if people were as charitable with their own resources as they like to be with mine (or anyone else's), we wouldn't even be having this debate.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

That seems a little unfair. I'm betting AvidReader can't afford a whole year of private school tuition. But if there was a charity set up that he was aware of that served kids in his area and had a proven track record, I bet he'd be willing to give what he could toward it.

Posted by Luv2ReadProductions (Member # 11502) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
That seems a little unfair. I'm betting AvidReader can't afford a whole year of private school tuition. But if there was a charity set up that he was aware of that served kids in his area and had a proven track record, I bet he'd be willing to give what he could toward it.

Agreed. I kind of figured my post would come across a little combative, so thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

Please note that I never asked him to pay a whole year of private school tuition for any particular child.

Here's my beef, and I'll leave it at this:
Many like to talk about what others should be willing to do with their tax dollars ("if the child is in your community, you should pay for their education, whether it's your child or not").

I lean away from forced wealth-redistribution programs (for the most part). I prefer viable alternatives that don't force people's hands in order to avoid the debate altogether.

I find it quite unfair when people lump me in with the you-don't-care-about-other-people's-kids crowd because I prefer to avoid a heavier tax burden when thinking of educational solutions.

There seemed to be an implication of that in several posts on this thread (not to me personally of course), and I wanted to offer a voice for the other side.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Well, how about you set up a non-profit that funds low-income kids for home- or private-schooling, then? I'd donate. [Smile]

Posted by Luv2ReadProductions (Member # 11502) on :

If you read my earlier post, you'd see that's what we're attempting to accomplish. [Smile]

My question is, are there any among the Dan Raven crowd doing the same?

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Which post? The thread is 3 pages long. [Wink]

Posted by Luv2ReadProductions (Member # 11502) on :

Once again, an unintentially combative sentence. I apologize. With sleep-deprivation and forum-addiction comes a loss of diplomacy and... well, manners.

I simply meant, if you had seen it (a page ago). Not "if you had been paying attention!"

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

I read the whole thread. But I don't remember a specific post about forming a non-profit.

Posted by Luv2ReadProductions (Member # 11502) on :

Funny, I read the whole thread too, and even with all the generous people on here who care about underprivelaged children, you're right. Nobody said anything specifically about setting up a non-profit.

Amazing, isn't it? [Smile]

Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :

Can homeschooling be effective?
Yes.

Is it usually?
I don't know.

Is public education as bad as homeschoolering proponents would like us to believe?
No.

Public schools aren't set up to give the best education possible to each student... the best possible education for any student is a series of one on one courses taught by people trained both in the field, and education, with frequent travel, and socialization.

Providing the best possible education to everyone would require a total restructing of the economy.

Homeschooling seeks to provide the "one on one" aspect while public schooling aims at the "trained in the field and education." Homeschooling aims at hitting travel, and public schooling aims at hitting socialization.

Both systems of education leave a lot to be desired.

For a select few parents, with the available resources and dedication, homeschooling is a great option. But for the vast majority of parents, sending your child to public school will provide a better overall education.

How to fix?

There's a lot of things that need fixing. My current beef is funding for schools.

My district serves a population of about 13,000, and about 2000 school age children. Our total budget is about 8000 dollars per child. 20% of our students are on special needs plans, and those students on average cost the district 17,000. Around 1% of our students need to be placed out of district because of serious health or learning problems. These students cost us, on average, 70,000 per year.

Our operating budget is 16,000,000 plus or minus a little bit. 20 students, at 70k per, is 1.4 million. About 10% of our budget goes to 1% of our students, and another 40% of our budget goes to 20% of our students. This leaves about 4000 dollars per child for almost 80% of the district.

Over the last 8 years, increasing cost of special education has cost us 15% of the high school faculty, increasing average class size by about 20%, and meaning we don't offer nearly as many electives as we used to, while the building and facilities erode, and we have been unable to upgrade our technology to provide the best education possible.

We're in danger of not being certified by the state, because our school is becoming dangerous due to erosion of the facilities, and our inability to replace or repair what needs fixing, as well as an inability to provide everything our students need in order to learn.

Our school consistently has among the best test scores in the state, and sends kids to a great range of colleges. But our ability to keep providing that education is undermined more and more every year, as we are required to spend more and more money on a minority of students, at the expense of the education of the majority.

This is not an uncommon problem. More and more students around the state and country are enrolled in special ed programs that cost the school districts a tremendous amount of money.

All our district needs is about 4 years at 6000 dollars per student for the majority of our students. This will NOT happen without a serious overhaul in how special ed funding is handled.

My numbers might be off, i don't have the budget in front of me right now. I can tell you that over the last 8 years, our special ed budget has risen at an average of 17% per year, while funding has increased at abotu 3% per year.

[ March 11, 2008, 06:35 AM: Message edited by: Paul Goldner ]

Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :

I give my money to World Vision Internation who uses it to improve a community in Mozambique. The village gets to be more self-sufficient, learn agricultural techniques, everyone gets immunized against disease, and the kids all go to school. I'm pretty happy with that.

Part of my answer to use public dollars to fix the problem is because I'm in Florida. We're, what, 49th in school spending? I'd be ok with Leon County raising the special 1/2 cent sales tax to a 1 cent sales tax to expand the options we offer to kids. (They've already got one called SAIL that's supposed to be an alternative learning center. I didn't go to school here so I don't know much about it, but I'd like to see charter school options like we had back home.)

[Edit to add] One of the things Citrus County did right was to embrace the charter school idea early. Besides the marine sciences school, each high school had a county-wide magnet program. Citrus had a business school, Lecanto an art academy, and Crystal River a nursing school. I'd like to see them expand on that.

As for the math, Citrus County where I went required three years, and they were sneaky about how they offered it. You could take algebra in middle school and have it count for high school credit. So when my sister barely passed trig, my parents said not to worry about it, she'd gotten her three credits, she was done. Then the school revealed that the middle school algebra only counted for high school credit once you'd taken three credits of math in high school. With a lot of fighting they kept her out of College Algebra (pre-cal) and got her in Liberal Arts math instead, but a kid with less persistent parents would've been up a creek.

[ March 11, 2008, 08:09 AM: Message edited by: AvidReader ]

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Rabbit, your points exactly match up with concerns I have about many "2nd generation" homeschoolers (not the best term but the best one I can come up with at the moment).

I'm also curious as to how many years ago you first started interacting with homeschoolers, and if you think anything has changed over that time.

In general, (although homeschooling is still so diverse it is hard to generalize) the "first generation" homeschoolers were much more actively aware of all of the drawbacks you listed, and taking steps to directly counteract all of the negatives you mentioned.

I think the "2nd gen" homeschoolers relied on a lot of data from the "1st gen" homeschoolers, not realizing how hard that group worked to expose their kids to a variety of situations and overcome the exact drawbacks you mentioned.

I think the values of self reliance and independent learning, and/or "learning by doing" have been diluted in much of the "2nd gen" group of homeschoolers.

A very interesting, "Homeschooler's History of Homeschooling" can be found in the links below. I encourage anyone who is truly interested in the modern history of homeschooling in the U.S.to read this.

You might not agree with all of it, but she divides up homeschooling trends into smaller "mini-movements" and has much more specific definitions and reasons for those definitions than my broad "1st gen" and "2nd gen" generalizations. There is some bias in the writer, due to her own experiences, but I think the fact that she had been on both the positive and negative end of specific groups, ends up making the overall peice pretty accurate. She doesn't paint as rosy a picture as others may, but I think it is fair.
Part I Early American Background. Major events 1960-1988.
http://www.gentlespirit.com/gs6n09/HSH1.pdf

Part II Influences. Particularly the 1980s.
http://www.gentlespirit.com/gs6n10/HSH2.pdf

Part III. 1990-1992. She views this as one of the pivotal transition times.
http://www.gentlespirit.com/gs6n11/hsh3b.pdf

Part IV. HR6. 1993-1994ish
http://www.gentlespirit.com/gs7n01/hsh4.pdf

Part V. The Gentle Spirit Controversy. If you are going to skil a section this is the one to skip. It deals with the author's embroilment with being blacklisted by some in the homeschooling community due to a divorce with complicating factors. She she won a lawsuit against influential people in the homeschooling community including some who are now prominent in HSLDA.

http://www.gentlespirit.com/gs7n02/hsh5.pdf

Part VI. 1995-1997
http://www.gentlespirit.com/gs7n04/hsh6.pdf

Epilogue: Who Stole Homeschooling? Written in 2003. An exploration of the heirarchial nature of many current homeschooling groups.
http://www.gentlespirit.com/gs6n03/v6n03b.htm

I wish she'd written more. We have another decade under the bridge since 1997. I think most of her children are fully grown. If the 1990s were the transition between 1st gen and 2nd gen, the 2000s are nearly completely what I would define as "2nd generation" homeschoolers.

I am not saying that 2nd generation homeschoolers are inferior to 1st generation types, but the perspective many of the 2nd generation folks bring to the table is much different than those in the first generation.

AJ

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
You miss my point. There are advantages to having mentors who know the system. One disadvantage of home schooling is that you forego access to these people. That is a real disadvantage and one parents should be aware of when they choose to homeschool.

Yes its possible to make up for some of that by doing your own research and yes not every child in public or private school gets that kind of mentor. But not knowing a particular piece of information or where to find it doesn't make a person a looser. Good mentoring is a thing of worth.

If a homeschooling parent does *not* consider the fact that they are going to need to do their own research on this topic, if they choose to homeschool in some form during high school, then yes, I do consider them "homeschooling losers". If a homeschooling parent can't figure out *how* to find out the hoops that need to be jumped through to get the kid into college, then they are "homeschooling losers".

When so much of this information is readily available from homeschooling websites, if they can't find that information, they shouldn't be homeschooling. Heck, I'd probably call them homeschooling losers if the *teen* can't figure these things out on their own by this point.

[Grumble]

*curmudgeonly*
In my day, we didn't have the internet to look these things up easily. We had to actually use books and pamphlets!

[ March 11, 2008, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:

Part V. The Gentle Spirit Controversy. If you are going to skil a section this is the one to skip. It deals with the author's embroilment with being blacklisted by some in the homeschooling community due to a divorce with complicating factors. She she won a lawsuit against influential people in the homeschooling community including some who are now prominent in HSLDA.

That's an amazing read. I jumped to this part because I was interested in her personal experience first, but I'm motivated now to read the rest.

Thanks, AJ.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

The author now considers herself a radical feminist. I've read some of the stuff at her other website, and while I can't entirely buy into the philosophy or rhetoric I think they have valuable points.

AJ

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

quote:
Rabbit, your points exactly match up with concerns I have about many "2nd generation" homeschoolers (not the best term but the best one I can come up with at the moment).

I'm also curious as to how many years ago you first started interacting with homeschoolers, and if you think anything has changed over that time.

In general, (although homeschooling is still so diverse it is hard to generalize) the "first generation" homeschoolers were much more actively aware of all of the drawbacks you listed, and taking steps to directly counteract all of the negatives you mentioned.

I think the "2nd gen" homeschoolers relied on a lot of data from the "1st gen" homeschoolers, not realizing how hard that group worked to expose their kids to a variety of situations and overcome the exact drawbacks you mentioned.

I started teaching at the University level in the early nineties and had quite a bit of interaction with home schooled students for about 10 years. I've had a lot less interaction over the past 5 years so its difficult for me to say much about trends.

While I was in Montana, I spent several years on the Presidential scholarship selection committee so my experiences include not only working with students in a class room environment but also dealing with the top level students who were competitive for these prestigious scholarships. My interviews with home schooled students (and these were students who had excellent test scores and wrote outstanding essays) were uniformly disappointing. These students without exception were very immature in their ability to deal with diversity, complexity and controversy when compared to students from traditional schools. Additionally, although they were very strong in some areas like writing, they had big gaps in some other areas of the education often including history, math and science.

My sense is that this is an inherent draw back of home schooling. You simply can't replicate the learning experience of that comes from being forced on a daily basis to deal with other students and teachers with diverse ideas and values.

This inherent draw back is made even worse by the fact that many parents who homeschool do it specifically to protect their children from controversy and diversity. If the best home schooled students come to the University ill prepared to deal with controversial topics and diverse ideas, what should we expect from those who have been specifically sheltered from any interaction with anyone not of their religion?

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

I started reading the history you linked to AJ, there is a lot of interesting stuff in it and I will continue. Unfortunately, the author starts off by hitting one of my hot buttons when she describes people who home school as bound by "their common love and concern for children and their desire to do what is right by them."

Its hard to explain why I find that phrase offensive. Its not because I doubt that parents who choose to home school are genuinely concerned for their children and trying to give them the best education possible.

Perhaps I object to the implication that this differentiates parents who choose to home school from those who don't, an attitude I have definitely felt from some home school parents. I've known more than a few parents who had the attitude that they had to homeschool to be good parents.

Perhaps it is because I feel most parents who choose to home school, despite their best intentions aren't doing what is in their child's best interests. It bothers me to see parents who care so much and yet are acting on false assumptions about the quality of public schools and the value of home schooling.

Perhaps I'm offended by it because I so much appreciate the unselfishness of parents who are working hard with public schools to insure not only that their children are well educated but that the whole community has access to quality education.

Perhaps it is simply because I personally think a strong public education systems is the most important part of a strong community. If the parents who care most about their children's education pull out of the public institutions, it condemns those institutions to a downward spiral that adversely affects the entire community -- even those who home school.

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :

quote:
Perhaps I object to the implication that this differentiates parents who choose to home school from those who don't, an attitude I have definitely felt from some home school parents. I've known more than a few parents who had the attitude that they had to homeschool to be good parents.

I've not only encountered that attitude, but had almost those exact WORDS said to me. I've also been told I'm not a good Christian because I send my kids to public school and because I intend to be a public school teacher.

My kids have to exist in the world where everyone does NOT have a Christian worldview, and they need to learn how to do that, which is the main reason I'm against the idea of homeschooling my own.

I truly resent having my devotion to my religious beliefs called into question because I believe in working for better educational opportunities for ALL children in the community where I will teach.

quote:
Perhaps it is simply because I personally think a strong public education systems is the most important part of a strong community. If the parents who care most about their children's education pull out of the public institutions, it condemns those institutions to a downward spiral that adversely affects the entire community -- even those who home school.

Agreed. It would be nice if parents put their time and energy into volunteering at the public schools and helping to make education better for all kids.

My daughter learned a valuable lesson this week - about how to deal with an authority figure that is difficult, perhaps even hostile to her. She has an issue with a teacher who doesn't want to let her make up work she missed when she was sick. I told my daughter to go and ask what she had to do, and the teacher refused to allow her to make it up. She also gave her a poor grade on an assignment without letting my daughter know what she did wrong - she took off twenty points but marked nothing wrong, gave her no indication of how to improve for the next assignment.

Now, this teacher is, in my opinion, not very competent. There have been issues other students and parents have had with her, including some people whom I trust that have honor students, like mine, that have run into trouble with this teacher. My husband and I finally stepped in and called the school, wanting to leave a message and talk to the teacher directly, and without directly telling us, the administration let us know by their reaction that there have been multiple problems with this teacher. We were instructed by the administration how to handle our discussions with her and told that the principal would be available to meet with us, that and other things the secretary let slip tell me the stories I've heard from other parents are pretty truthful.

Now, my daughter has had to navigate this precarious situation. She has to go face a teacher every day that may not be supportive and might even not like her at all, especially after my husband and I have gotten involved, and potentially the administration. It's tough, and it makes her uncomfortable.

But guess what - that's valuable experience. It will help her in the future, because she will face difficulty in college, and in the workforce.

Of course, we won't always be there to bail her out, (and I assure you, I waited until my daughter had exhausted every opportunity on her own - I made her confront the teacher herself first) but she's a minor and it's still my job as a parent to help her when she's done all she can do.

She would never learn how to handle this in homeschool. These are the types of things that homeschoolers quote when they give reasons to pull their kids out of school - I happen to think situations like this are reasons to leave my kids IN public schools. Life is not fair, life is not easy, and sometimes people are jerks and sometimes they are even incompetent - but you may have to deal with them all the same.

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

Belle, Parents like you have my deepest admiration. Keep at it!

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Ditto. (What rabbit said about Belle)

Rabbit, I understand your hot button there. The implication that a homeschooling parent loves their children more is absolutely preposterous. Please keep reading, (if you want read the section that I told you to skip first) because I am fairly certain that she would shudder to think she was that judgmental now. Also, the circumstances in which the author was embroiled influence her writing as she goes along.

The judgementalness of homeschoolers against non-homeschoolers in the Christian community especially, has come full circle in the last several decades. She covers quite adequately the current judgementalness of homeschoolers against other homeschoolers also. Her last post, on "who stole homeschooling" is diametrically opposing the judgementalness of many of the current generation of homeschoolers.

This is part of what upsets my own mother. Because homeschooling is now the "thing to do" people don't go into it with the same sort of considered gravity that they used to. If they knew that they were likely to get arrested for homeschooling their children like earlier generations were, they probably wouldn't do it. Yet they have the gall to be judgmental if you aren't homeschooling... totally preposterous!

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Belle, situations like you are describing are absolutely *not* reasons to pull a child out of school. In some ways I see homeschooling becoming an extension of "helicopter parenting" so-called because the hovering parent never lets the child breathe. Again, this was exactly the opposite, of what most of the founders of the movement wanted for their children. They wanted the child to have more freedom to explore and discover things under Less rigidly controlled circumstances, rather than making the environment *more* controlled than it would have been already.

Summerhill by A.S. Neill epitomized much of the philosophy of early homeschoolers. I know it was a major influence on my own mother. The school Neill started still exists in the UK.
http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/pages/history.html

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

AJ, I never sensed exactly that the author intended to imply that parents who home school are more dedicated to their children than those who don't. It was simply an issue of context. I've known enough parents who do believe that home schooling is the only responsible way to parent that it was hard not to see that in her writing.

If parents who home school are truly "bound by their common love and concern for their children and their desire to do what is right by them", they should feel that bond with all good parents no matter how they choose to school their children.

It would be more honest to say that parents who home school are bound by a commitment to personal control of their child's education.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Rabbit, I disagree though. I don't think that the early homeschooling parents were necessarily into "personal control" of their child's education the way many existing homeschoolers do. The idea of letting a child choose their own education and find their own interests was a very real idea, one that has been put into practice reasonably successfully.

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :

I wasn't completely comfortable with the phrase "personal control" when I wrote it but I'm still not sure what a better choice would be.

Not all parents who home school are overly controlling and though that is implied by the term it not what I meant. I mean that home schoolers are united by belief that parent and child should be in control of the educational process rather than a school system.

If by "personal" you understand "parent and child" rather than solely parent, would you agree?

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jhai:
The LA Times is reporting that a California state appellate court ruled that parents without teaching credentials will not be allowed to homeschool their children.

I finally had a chance to read the article more carefully. (As well as some other news sources on the topic.)

First of all, I'm not clear on whether this only affects the be-a-really-small-private-school homeschooling option, or the others as well. Can parents still use the independent-study option? (Which is more popular with the locals I know who homeschool.)

Also, it seems to me that this threatens the ability of private schools to hire teachers without a credential. Does it?

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Let me mull that over Rabbit. Do you believe that a parent has the ultimate responsibility for their child's education or not?

I mean it really comes down to a parent's rights vs state's rights issue. Does the state have a compelling right to tell a parent how to educate their child or not?

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rivka:

quote:
Originally posted by Jhai:
The LA Times is reporting that a California state appellate court ruled that parents without teaching credentials will not be allowed to homeschool their children.
I finally had a chance to read the article more carefully. (As well as some other news sources on the topic.)

First of all, I'm not clear on whether this only affects the be-a-really-small-private-school homeschooling option, or the others as well. Can parents still use the independent-study option? (Which is more popular with the locals I know who homeschool.)

Also, it seems to me that this threatens the ability of private schools to hire teachers without a credential. Does it?

Actually, the most immediate effects are seen as focusing on ind. study HSers. Then going to the reistered-as-private-school HSers. At least from what I've read.

What's funny is that the decision, the way I and others have read it, would even affect IS through the public school district, unless daily or weekly in-home supervision was given by a teacher from the SD (which most SDs I know cannot provide for every single student who does IS through their district.) That would impact hugely, for instance, girls who get pregnant and opt to do a semester/year/two years of IS to finish HS while caring for their babies. (Not as much kids in the hospital or home for medical reasons, since they usually have more access to teachers.)

You can read the whole text of the court decision, if you want it, here: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B192878.PDF

Oh, and here's a quote for you that tells you this isn't going to last long:

quote:
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell comes to the defense of homeschool families. “The California Department of Education policy will not change in any way as a result of this ruling. Parents still have the right to homeschool in this state,” he said.

(From the HSLDA site, in one of their articles on response to the ruling.)

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

rivka, my mother and I were discussing that tonight.

It probably comes down to whether you go with a broad interpretation or a strict one. Strictly interpreted, it bans private school Independent Study Programs, as "at home tutoring" and the CA state law says that "tutors must be credentialed teachers."

The decision is also badly worded because it convolutes private schools and charter public schools in one section.

Broadly interpreted, it would ban even all public independent study programs with very few exceptions, so I don't think that a broad interpretation will go over well.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

Well, then I'm glad this will likely not last long. [Wink]

Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :

quote:
It would be nice if parents put their time and energy into volunteering at the public schools and helping to make education better for all kids.

And yet if their roads were in poor shape, no one would imply that they should go out and help patch it. I find it interesting that schools get a different standard than other public services that way.

Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :

quote:
Do you believe that a parent has the ultimate responsibility for their child's education or not?

Ultimate responsibility should rest with the child.

[Smile]

But yeah-- the parent is inherently more responsible than the state for the education of their child.

Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :

AvidReader: Yo, go patch my road.

But seriously, neighbourhood watch borders on police territory, I've seen volunteer groups that pick up garbage and clean-up parks, volunteer fireman departments, and I think the local level of Elections Canada is dominated by volunteers.

I don't think schools are the only public service that asks for volunteers.

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
If parents who home school are truly "bound by their common love and concern for their children and their desire to do what is right by them", they should feel that bond with all good parents no matter how they choose to school their children.

True. The problem is,extreme parents on all sides on the dbate can't see that there is no one, right educational solution for all. That's why we need ALL available options-public, home, private, magnet, charter, vo-tech, and everything else. Eliminate one, any one, and kids wil suffer.

Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :

Another big difference between education and patching a road is that the kid's ability to succeed (and more importantly desire to succeed) is not based entirely on what happens at the school. If parents say school is a waste of time, or just a good way to get free lunch or a babysitter, the kids are more likely to treat it that way. While I agree that a lot of homework is busywork, some hw and studying (at high school level atleast) is necessary. Dropping a kid off at school does not mean you no longer have to work at raising the child. Because there is so much overlap between home and school, it can not be treated the same as patching a road and expect success (though some parents certainly do behave that way).
Note- a lot of my views on education come from having a husband work at a very bad inner city school that had numerous problems on every level.

Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :

Exactly. Despite the rare inspirational story that would try to convince us otherwise, any educational venture will rely upon the involvemnt and support of the parents.

Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :

You're right, Mucus, those are all excellent points. I guess I'm just disillusioned with volunteering in general. Sure, maintaining the status quo is better then descending into worse conditions than we have now. But we trumpet its virtues like it's something every good citizen should be doing when it continues to show no real progress. It's great for helping individuals but never seems to address the issues themselves.

I feel like the little Dutch boy, except the wall never seems to get patched. We all just take turns covering the holes.

Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :

Parental involvement in education is important, but a parent doesn't have to be at the school selling pencils out of the PTA room to be "involved." Caring about your kids' grades, knowing who their teachers are, being interested in what they're learning, encouraging reading at home, helping them practice for that spelling test even if you don't want to call out that list of words ONE more time at 8:00 at night when you clear the dishes off the table....those are all examples of being "involved."

Sure, if you have the time and the ability, volunteering at the school is wonderful, but what you do at home with your child is IMO more important.

Posted by Mama Squirrel (Member # 4155) on :

Here is the entire news release from Jack O'Connell

Here and here are the two items on the CA State Board of Education agenda for today that deal with our school district.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Hmm, I haven't read through all of the last two links Mama, but it looks more like that's about creating a new school district than it has anything to do with homeschooling.

It's of interest of me because I used to live in Ventura county. What I'm wondering is how that redistributes tax dolars to schools within the district or if it does.

Obviously since Camarillo is viewed as "wealthier" if the Oxnard school district loses some of that money for the poorer schools, they aren't happy.

I'm kind of interested that they are couching it as a "minority" issue, because that it implies whites are in the majority, and as I recall there isn't actually a white majority in CA anymore.

Would my analysis be correct that the divide is more about a wealth issue than it truly is about a race issue?

Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :

Boy, that 1990-1992 chapter was sure hair-raising. And she didn't even mention Heather Has Two Mommies. Or did that fall in the prior chapter? Understanding why the Christian Homeschoolers suddenly exploded may help understand their motives, and the psychological makeup of the people most likely to participate on that basis.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

I think the next section is equally hair raising, and some of the quotes she uses in it, are direct examples of the reverse discrimination Belle was talking about... but you get to see a bigger picture of *why* it got like that.

AJ

Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :

Yeah. It sounds like someone was trying to turn the whole "Home Schooling" movement into the world's largest cult. And I go by the the specific definition of "Cult".

They did not succeed, but those who have been homeschooling are bearing the brunt of that attempt, and living in its shadow.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

There is a lawsuit mentioned in the 1995-1997 section, Rosenberger v. University of Virgnia that I *think* Dagonee may have been involved in. I hope he will let me know if this was the suit, I have a vague recollection we talked about it before, but my memory is very hazy.

AJ

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
I'm kind of interested that they are couching it as a "minority" issue, because that it implies whites are in the majority, and as I recall there isn't actually a white majority in CA anymore.

I thought we still had a few years -- projected, not yet actual.

Posted by Mama Squirrel (Member # 4155) on :

Yeah, it has nothing to do with homeschooling, I just didn't think it deserved a new thread. They are trying to create a "unified" school district K-12. I don't know about the tax dollars.

It's been a huge issue for our school district. Our teachers are some of the lowest paid in the county. Their medical benefits are the lowest of the 15 districts in the county. Last week the teachers were out picketing before school.

We were talking to a friend of ours on Monday. She used to homeschool some of her kids. She is a principal of an on-line charter school. She hadn't heard much about the homeschooling stuff going on, but I guess it doesn't affect her anymore. Our pastor's wife is homeschooling their kids through 5th grade. I don't know how they have it set up though.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

In re-reading the 1995-1997 section, (which I hadn't done in a while) it also tells you why many Christian conservatives at that time became so pro G.W. Bush. They felt the Supreme court was threatening their religion and the only way to change it, was to get more conservative judges nominated.

In a way, they have been sucessful, but not as sucessful as they thought they'd be. I think some of G.W.'s judicial nominations where people were going "what the heck was he thinking" were payoffs to this constituency that helped get him in office.

Posted by Mama Squirrel (Member # 4155) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rivka:

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
I'm kind of interested that they are couching it as a "minority" issue, because that it implies whites are in the majority, and as I recall there isn't actually a white majority in CA anymore.
I thought we still had a few years -- projected, not yet actual.

For the whole state I don't know. I do know that the Oxnard Union HS Dist. very much has a white minority. Especially once you remove the high school in Camarillo from the numbers. Probably 2/5 to 1/2 of the Rio Mesa HS (my alma mater) population comes from Camarillo. This and all of the other schools are located in Oxnard which has a majority hispanic population.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rivka:

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
I'm kind of interested that they are couching it as a "minority" issue, because that it implies whites are in the majority, and as I recall there isn't actually a white majority in CA anymore.
I thought we still had a few years -- projected, not yet actual.

I'm pretty sure it's actual.

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Here's the link to the demographics page for the state of CA:
http://www.dof.ca.gov/Research/Research.php

on that page there is a link that says current population survey.
http://www.dof.ca.gov/html/DEMOGRAP/ReportsPapers/documents/California%20Current%20Population%20Survey%20Extended%20Report,%20March%202006.pdf

It looks like as of 2006, whites were only 44% of the population. They were still the largest group, with (rounding) 35% hispanic, and 13% asian.

It sounds as if the new proposed district would drop to 40% non-white students, which is drastic when you compare to the 93% non-white students everywhere else.

quote:
According to the 2006-07 California Basic Educational Data System (CBEDS), the OUHSD has a minority student population of 81.5 percent. Therefore, in accordance with the SBE’s and CDE’s general approach to this issue as expressed in the Handbook for Conducting Racial and Ethic Studies in School Districts, the OUHSD does not currently have a “proportionate (balanced or slightly imbalanced)” minority student population—rather, OUHSD is disproportionately minority. Removal of the PVUSD and the SUSD from OUHSD to form the new CUSD, and withdrawing a significant portion of the OUHSD non-minority student population, will increase the OUHSD minority population percentage to 91.3 percent according to information provided by the OUHSD. The minority student population of the proposed CUSD would be 44.5 percent.

While the statistics are striking, and while I admit I haven't lived there for quite a while, from what I know of the area, I truly don't think it is a racial issue as much as a socio-economic one.

Although those numbers do back up the fact that I actually had a minority experience growing up... I grew up in Oxnard, which clearly has a radically different demographic than Camarillo. When I went to Oklahoma for college, it was a bit of a culture shock to adjust to all the white people... even if I was white myself!

I had a black girl in a university class get in my face once about how I had no idea what it was like to be a minority. As I recall I'd made some sort of statement about what being in the minority feels like when shopping at the grocery store, and she thought I had no right to make such a statement. Admittedly if I'd grown up in Oklahoma she would have been right. But I didn't. There was one other white family that had kids my brothers age that moved in later, but they were pretty much it!

[ March 13, 2008, 06:35 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

I still miss hearing the sound of mariachi waft down the streets.

The area we live in, in the Chicago suburbs, has had an influx of hispanic folks. I feel remarkably at home, although the local supermarket doesn't put up Cinco de Mayo decorations yet.

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
Although those numbers do back up the fact that I actually had a minority experience growing up... I grew up in Oxnard, which clearly has a radically different demographic than Camarillo. When I went to Oklahoma for college, it was a bit of a culture shock to adjust to all the white people... even if I was white myself!

When I went to college in Indiana, I had the exact same feeling of culture shock. Coming from a high school where 70-80% of the students were Asian (and most of the others Eastern European or Hispanic immigrants), I didn't know what to do with all the white people who didn't even know what a FOB was. (Note: my best friend in high school was so fobby she was a walking stereotype. I'm not hatin' on the 1st gen immigrants here. [Smile]

)

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

FOB = Fresh off the Boat right?

I suspect where I lived it was more like "Fresh Over the Border" But most of the kids I knew had been born in the U.S., I don't think I knew any that had actually come from Mexico with their parents to begin with. in fact, regardless of their exact legal status, many had parents and families that had been in California longer than mine, since my parents moved in from out of state just before I was born.

In fact I think I probably now more first generation Mexican immigrants here, than I did as a kid in CA.

Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :

My husband's mother was told by her sister in law that if she didn't homeschool, her sons would all grow up to be juvenile delinquents. Their zealotry was kind of a turn off that continues to influence our regard for homeschooling.

Though I was considering homeschooling back when I was first on Hatrack, because our district shut down the open enrollment program. Instead, we moved into a better neighborhood which we couldn't afford, and I wound up having to go back to work. [Wall Bash]

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BannaOj:
FOB = Fresh off the Boat right?

Yup. I'd guesstimate that about a third of my school was 1st gen, and another third at least was second. Half my friends were dragged off to Chinese Saturday School every week, and you'd hear a lot of languages around the quad. I moved to Germany for a year after graduating 'cause I was so tired of being the only monolingual person around.

Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :

Where was your high school BTW?

Interestingly, I had the reverse actually, both ways. (i.e. high school was 70-80% white then going to a university that was 70-80% Asian (mostly Mandarin rather than my Cantonese though) ... sort of a reverse culture shock or maybe a double culture shock, I'm confused)

Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :

Silicon Valley. It's like a Mecca for Asian immigrants 'cause they can get anything there that they could in their old countries. I lived a couple blocks from a completely Chinese/Taiwanese shopping center. Live chickens at the grocery store and great cafes where you marked down your order on a pad with only Chinese characters.

Abhi lived in the area for a year (while I was finishing up college), and, boy, was he sad to leave. We still haven't been able to find his favorite Indian soft drink here in DC.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

The Court of Appeals has vacated the ruling and granted a re-hearing.

I can't find any news links on any major outlets about this (of course.) But here are the pages from HSLDA and CHN, two of the larger groups involved in working against this ruling. (I didn't want to link to WND because, yeah... I don't read it. I didn't even click the link that came up when I googled.) Of course I may just suck at finding reputable news stories so feel free to link if you find one. [Smile]

Anyway, apparently the re-hearing is set for the 23d (of June.) (That would be Monday.)

In other news related to this thread, I took my two and four year olds in for a checkup. Their ped asked what the school situation was going to be for Emma next year (she will be 4 1/2 this fall.) I informed her of our intention to homeschool once she finishes preschool. She said, "Oh, are you a licensed teacher?" [Wall Bash]

I informed her that no, I was not, yes, it is still legal to homeschool in CA, and listed all the legal avenues to do so. Then I told her that legally Emma doesn't have to be in school until she is 6, so we won't even be "officially" homeschooling until then (although we will, in fact, be starting a kindergarten cirriculum this fall. Bridey will be allowed to sit in and I will also work with her individually on preschool tasks.) She said, "Oh. I didn't know that."

I sure hope she hasn't been telling parents it's illegal to homeschool...

Posted by mimsies (Member # 7418) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Belle:

[QUOTE]Perhaps it is simply because I personally think a strong public education systems is the most important part of a strong community. If the parents who care most about their children's education pull out of the public institutions, it condemns those institutions to a downward spiral that adversely affects the entire community -- even those who home school.

Agreed. It would be nice if parents put their time and energy into volunteering at the public schools and helping to make education better for all kids.

I home-school my son, AND volunteer in classrooms at a local public school, as does my home-schooled son and my Mom (who also provides instruction for my son sometimes). My son also does educational presentations in the public school and volunteers at the public library.

Most of the home-schooling parents in the home-school book group we frequent also spend time volunteering in public schools. Some of them publicly educate some of their kids, and homeschool others.

I have encountered a large number of people who criticize me and my motivations and parenting skills for home-schooling my son, just as you have been criticized for not. I do not interpret that rudeness to be due to the fact that they are NONhome-schoolers, but to the fact that they are rude people. JUST as I do not attribute the rudeness of those who criticize you to the fact that they are home-schoolers but to the fact that they are rude people.

I think you are a good parent doing your best for your kids. I also think I am a good parent doing the best for my kid. Maybe there really isn't much difference between good parents doing the best for their kids- whether they home-school, send their kids to private school or public school, or hire a tutor. (This isn't a challenge to you Belle, just thoughts inspired by your post. I really do think you're a heck of a terrific parent)

Edit to clarify quotes.
OK I can't fugure out how to make a quote of someone quoting someone else [Confused]

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

code:

   [QUOTE]   [QUOTE] First person's quote [/QUOTE]Second person's comment on first person's quote  [/QUOTE]

Posted by mimsies (Member # 7418) on :

I *THOUGHT* that i had tried that, but it didn't seem to work, course who knows what weird thing I ACTUALLY typed compared to what I thught I typed.

edit for typos: SIGH [Roll Eyes]

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

*bumpity*

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Thanks, AJ. [Smile]