posted
"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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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"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.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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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.
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". 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.
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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. ) 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.
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"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.
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"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?
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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.
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"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.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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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.
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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 Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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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. Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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"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. ) 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.
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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?
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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"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.
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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.
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"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?
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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.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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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.
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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.
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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.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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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.
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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.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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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.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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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.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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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.
Posts: 23 | Registered: Mar 2008
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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.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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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.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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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.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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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.)
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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.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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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 ]
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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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.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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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.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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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.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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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?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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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)
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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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.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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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.
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