Posted on 07/02/2021 8:03:28 PM PDT by DoodleBob
Speculation abounds over whether or not the pandemic-induced growth in homeschooling is temporary. While there are several signs indicating that parents won’t be sending their children back to public schools this fall, and homeschooling continues to be a popular choice, the question remains: for how long and to what extent?
According to remarks by one prominent investor, this is just the beginning of a widespread shift away from conventional schooling models toward disruptive innovation in education–with homeschooling leading the way. “It certainly feels like we’re on the front end of a pretty dramatic homeschooling boom,” said Marc Andreessen, co-creator of the original Mosaic web browser, co-founder of Netscape, and co-founder and general partner of the leading venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz.
Speaking on the “Invest Like the Best” podcast this week, Andreessen said the pandemic has been a catalyst for parent-driven, technology-enabled educational change that will have a large and lasting impact on the education sector. For one thing, the pandemic gave parents a close-up opportunity to view what was happening in their children’s classrooms.
Black homeschoolers led the surge, with a five-fold increase in homeschooling rates from the spring of 2020.
“I think it's the first time parents saw what their kids are getting in the classroom at the K through 12 level, in many, many years,” said Andreessen. “Most parents, if you're in your thirties or forties and your kids are in sixth grade or eighth grade, you were taught in the classroom 30 years ago, it turns out some things have changed. So the current curricula is quite a bit different at a lot of schools. I know a lot of parents were just shocked, absolutely shocked at the stuff that was coming across.” He added that “some set of parents are like, I'm not sending my kids back to that.”
Andreessen explained that his investment firm is eagerly backing online learning startups that can accelerate disruption in the slow-to-change, regulatory-laden education space. An article on the firm’s website provides more details on the forward-looking changes they expect to see in education technology startups as a result of COVID-19’s impact, as well as their investment strategy. In particular, the firm expects to move away from investing in founders who are focused on selling products and services directly to schools in favor of those founders who are selling directly to parents. “Many parents are taking an increasingly pronounced role in the academic experience, and we’ve seen the emergence of new platforms for supplemental education and homeschooling,” the article states.
Abetted by school closures and related pandemic policies, the education sector is ripe for “creative destruction,” the term used by economist Joseph Schumpeter in his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, to describe the dynamic process of new business models and enterprises replacing legacy organizations and industries. He explained that capitalism is “the perennial gale of creative destruction,” fueled by entrepreneurship and innovation. Schumpeter writes: “The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrated the same process of industrial mutation—if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.”
Parents want more choices and entrepreneurs will provide them.
As parents demand more education options beyond an assigned district school, the opportunity for creative destruction grows. New federal data reveal that overall K-12 public school enrollment fell three percent during the 2020/2021 academic year, while preschool and kindergarten enrollment dropped by an astonishing 13 percent. Many parents opted out of district schooling for homeschooling, which tripled from pre-pandemic rates to over 11 percent of the US K-12 school-age population. Black homeschoolers led the surge, with a five-fold increase in homeschooling rates from the spring of 2020. Moreover, voter support for school choice policies that allow education funding to follow students instead of school systems has just reached an all-time high this month.
Parents want more choices and entrepreneurs will provide them. Legacy schooling models are on borrowed time, as new educational prototypes gain popularity and support. But Marc Andreessen warns that the process of disrupting the educational status quo won’t be easy.
He explains that “new education startups should be ready to come under just withering assault from Washington or from Sacramento because all of the teacher unions, and all of the universities, and all of the people who are basically wired into those systems are going to just try to kill it.”
With the enthusiasm of millions of parents and learners, and the support of prominent investors, there’s never been a better time for entrepreneurs to battle the entrenched education bureaucracy–and win.
In the 60s, our lawyer’s parents spent several months in jail due to their refusal to send him and his siblings to public school. His parents won and then they started the movement that has allowed Kentucky to be the most accommodating home-school state in the country. In KY, you can home-school but your children can attend any public school classes. Your children can also participate in sports, school plays, field trips, etc.
Problem we had was getting black parents to participate in anything beyond if star could play football
We’d offer to go get the grandma and bring her to the school
They simply had around 10% the involvement white parents had
I dealt with this for a decade in Nashville in PTO stuff
Bought 1000s of dollars to replace the rags uniforms urban black grade schoolers had
They were happy with that but were disinterested in the humdrum of school plays and programs or tutoring and so forth
My kids were in arguably Nashville’s richest public grade school and we had MECO black kids bused out for demographic parity.....
A few years back someone....brought suit against that and they stopped
Sounds like the HR 6 episode from 1994.
HR-6: A Dead Giant or a Living Lesson (1994)
https://homeschoolpioneers.com/2018/08/30/hr-6/
I am on vacation and do not have access to my homeschool ping lists but will ping it as soon as possible when I get home.
What people don’t seem to realize is that parents do a form of homeschooling simply by helping their kids with homework.
-PJ
I have been hearing this for 30 years. Parents won’t get off their duffs.
Frankly high school extra curricular are over rated. Homeschoolers find other lifelong skills.
We also hit the phone lines of the other state legislators. Those were the days... Back then, HSers on the right and the left agreed on one thing: The state had no business telling us what to do.
Now and then, a GOP legislator would offer HSers benefits - like tax credits - but we didn't want those things, either - we didn't trust any kind of government intrusion.
Always laughed when people in other states claimed this state was a dictatorship. HSing thrived here because we were so free.
However, today's younger HS parents might see things differently now. But, 15-20 years ago, the HSers here were fighters.
For homeschool newcomers, "Home School Legal Defense Fund" is a must - look them up and join.
For those of us who are done with homeschooling, give a gift membership in HSLD to a needy homeshooling family.
Denying accreditation is one thing, denying the reality of the achievements of those home educated is another thing all together.
Defund the Government Indoctrination Centers
Families who go to church and have a strong Christian faith do very well with homeschooling. Through the years, we met families of all backgrounds. The vast majority of the black homeschool families were very involved in their churches, and those parents held their children to high standards. The way they raised their kids was impressive. All those kids (that I met) turned out well, too.
Those are the families that homeschooling really appeals to.
Homeschooling tends not to appeal to parents who want their kids to be athletes. Usually, you have to be a student at the school to play on the team.
Homeschooling doesn’t appeal to most parents because they think of school as an “experience” that they don’t want their kids to miss out on.
And most parents figure, put the kids in public school, that’s what it’s there for.
Both of my homeschooled boys are athletes and and played on travel teams as well as with a local homeschool sports program. We know at least a dozen teammates of theirs who received baseball scholarships through the years (5 of them Div 1) and we also know several others who received scholarships in soccer, swimming, bass fishing, tennis and football.
If you are good, scouts will see you. My younger son started having college scouts invite him to showcases starting in 10th grade but he had no desire to play college ball.
Anyway, a lot of people think that homeschooling deprives kids of experiences such as sports, homecoming, dances, prom, etc., my boys did all of that. They were accepted into every college for which they applied as well - there were no issues there, especially with my younger son. By the time he started college shopping, colleges were very accepting of homeschoolers - I think they realized they were a good fit because they already are independent learners.
They don’t feel like they missed anything.
I looked at ABEKA and it seemed like it’s whole purpose was to create Christian robots. The young readers content was very simplistic. I ended up going with Robinson Curriculum which can be used as Christian based or not. The creator of it has a PhD and his two sons went on to get their PhDs but it’s not a high level curriculum by any means. It is very geared towards becoming a self learner which sets kids up perfectly for college. His wife had died suddenly and he had to take over homeschooling while still working. Luckily he was able to work from home but did still need to work so he set up a room for his desk and desks for the kids.
I partly chose it for the low cost. Most of the book list if out of copyright. Lots of stuff from the late 1800s when the writing was of a higher quality and all the kids books taught a moral lesson.
In FL, it seemed like they kids were doing nothing in school and would then get sent home with several hours worth of homework to do everyday. The kids had no idea what the homework was, like there was no related lesson earlier in the day.
The same for my boys. Homeschool groups are very well-organized. I agree with you 100%.
In my post, I was commenting on how school parents see homeschooling. I don't want anyone to think I share their opinion...
Many school parents send their children to school because they think their kids will miss out on something if they homeschool. But, as you pointed out, opportunities abound outside the school system. I know that my own kids had more opportunities through homeschooling than they ever would have had in school.
But, school parents who want their kids to play in school sports might not be so open to homeschooling. Around here, the homeschool groups had sports teams until about 10 years ago. So, about five years ago, some parents started saying their kids wanted to go to school, just to play football. If only the teams were not connected to schools, but in leagues that any kid could play in.
Most FReepers consider NJ to be on par with NY, CA etc in terms of statist, freakish govt-love. And, to be sure, there are lots of people like that...I had Republicans in NJ argue strongly for gun control.
But the liberty-loving inhabitants in Blue Territories are, IMHO, more rabid about their life, liberty, and property than many of their brethren in Red States. Maybe it's because we know about liberty denied, and liberty taken, so we fight like dogs when some putz comes along to take the little bit of liberty we retain. The Deplorables in NJ are some of the finest Americans you'll ever find.
Reading those quotes from Sen Weinberg give me a big smile. I cannot speak for this generation of HSers, but if they are the children of the group that fought the NJ legislature, they should be just fine.
We homescooled for 12 years in NYS and the regs were not particularly onerous.
Yes, it technically is among the highest regulated states but it’s mostly quarterly reports and year end testing. You do have to submit a notice of intent and education plan, but mine was just a list of textbooks we were using.
The schools could not tell you what to use or what to do, only if what you submitted followed the state regs.
You told them how it was going to be, not them telling you or you asking permission.
However, joining HSLDA is the very first thing I would suggest to someone who plans to homeschool.
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