The problem with your posts is that you often speak with what seems to be a forked tongue.
You first say:
“I am in favor of ‘all of the above.’”
But then you post all sorts of stories about failed homeschooling efforts which are out of all proportion with the actual experiences of actual homeschooling families.
That is dissembling.
For years, we worked with the fellow in our county who was in charge of supervision of homeschoolers. He’d been a public school teacher for about 20 or so years, and was kind of burned out (don’t blame him). So, because he was well short of retirement, they gave him the job of supervising the homeschoolers, and he brought a rather confrontational attitude to the job. He was notorious throughout the state! In the first years that he held the job, he was stern, nasty and tough. Dot every i, cross every t.
But after about three years, he mellowed out. He figured out two things:
1. The vast majority of homeschoolers weren’t trying to scam the system, weren’t too lazy to take their kids to the local public school (LOL! What a laugh! As if teaching your kids at home takes LESS time and energy than dropping off at the local public school!! LOL!!), and were generally good and decent people trying to do the best for their kids, and;
2. Most homeschooled kids did better, covered a broader curriculum, scored better on standardized tests, were more polite and civil, better behaved, and related better to folks not their own age, especially adults, than most public school kids.
By the time he retired, nearly 20 years later, he'd declared that working with homeschoolers had been the best part of his job, the easiest position he'd had in the public school system, and the most pleasant. It was a delight to see parents so involved with their kids' education, and a delight to see such an overwhelming population of happy, academically successful children.
So, your counterexamples, to the degree that any of them are true, are the exceptions, not the rule. Don’t believe me? Look at the research that’s been done. Here’s just one data point: The median standardized test percentile rank for public school kids is, almost tautologically, 50%. For homeschoolers, it’s 86%.
You’re pointing out the anomalies and posting as if they were usual homeschooling experiences.
Like I said, that’s dissembling.
With that promotion of falsehood, I disagree.
Although homeschooling may not work for everyone, and although there are some public schools that provide a decent education, and a few that are pretty darned good, homeschooling generally beats public schooling. By a significant, and measurable amount.
sitetest
There is not doubt that every single child would benefit from more individual attention, but I am sure that you are aware of the concept of norming. For the most part home school children (according to your statistic) are performing at above average levels.
Well what is going to happen to that number when you add more and more of the population to it. Initially it will stay at or near that 86% but gradually over time it will move closer to the 50% of the rest of the population. It may never reach 50% but I can bet that it will be a lot closer to 50% than to 86%.
As far as looking at research when I have asked a certain person on this thread for on-line links I have been directed to only homeschool links. While I am not saying they are wrong I would rather see an unbiased view from a group like Rand or Heritage foundation. So if you have an unbiased link let me see it.
I completed my 20-year homeschooling career last May. I have friends and acquaintances in the public school system - teachers, principals, aides, etc. A friend who is a principal at a local elementary school once told me that I was the only home schooler she had ever met who was not crazy. Now, I have met some crazy home schoolers, but most of them that I know are not, or at least I don’t see that side of them. LOL!
I have come to believe that folks who work in the public school system for the most part just don’t get to know the vast majority of normal homes schoolers who are out there. They really do see the crazies, the people who pull their kids out of school because the school made them angry or because they really are too lazy to get up and get their kids to school.... then they realize that they really do have to work at teaching and have to put up with their kids all day long. They give up and put their kids back in school, with no progress having been made and their kids are just that much farther behind.
And my sister-in-law is a retired public school teacher and she is sure that for every nightmare public school situation I can point out, she can counter it with a nightmare home schooling situation. I don’t think so. She looks at those situations and generalizes them to all home schoolers and doesn’t see what is right in front of her: My successful home schoolers and all their friends who have done well and done so without the dehumanizing experience of public schooling.
I know that home schooling is not for everyone, but I am so thankful for the opportunity to home school my own, and I am thankful that my oldest is now home schooling her step-son and plans to home school any more children that she has.
I apologize for the arrogance that we home schoolers often display. It is just hard to be humble when something you do succeeds beyond your wildest dreams. That’s the way it was for us - we really had no idea what to expect and we could not be happier with the results!
I was thinking about this. As I said I know about 40 or so families that homeschool. That translates to about 60-63 kids. As I said 12 of them are exceptional and 3 are complete buttheads. Right off the bat that means that just under 30% are well above the norm.
I would have to say that another 5-7 are above average and another 5 are below the average. These 5 are homeschooled for special educational reasons. The families have pooled resources and received assistance from the county to meet their needs. The only "institution" that could take them is the Children's psych center and non of those children are in need of that. The rest of the children I would rate as average.
Now as to the ones I referred to in New York that 90% failed the basic Earth Science test. This was in a very isolated rural community and those families were part of the kook fringe. But this was my main exposure to homeschoolers except for one family that lived in the city of Buffalo. That family the son had great difficulty and went through a rebellious stage but the younger daughter did very well with the program.