A child who is home schooled, on average, is a different kind of child than one who goes to government schools.
Most important, the child who is home schooled has highly motivated parents. The child shares the genetics and the values of the dedicated, hard-working parents. Many kids in the government schools, on the other hand, have absent and/or unmotivated parents.
It’s not necessarily the teachers who are bad, it’s the self-selection into homeschooling or into government schools that makes the difference.
There is obviously something wrong with the “professional” (ie, government) system if the parents who are dedicated and involved and care about their children’s education will not choose that system, often at great personal expense and sacrifice.
Excellent point. The overwhelming majority of home schooled kids have parents that really care and are willing to make that sacrifice. Those kids have a big advantage to start with over the kid whose parents use schools as day care.
What you say is true, but does nothing to refute Sowell’s point: that is, that “professionals” and “experts” does not invariably, or even more frequently, lead to better results than those achievable by “amateurs.”
For example, most of the children who are homeschooled would also achieve well in government schools-—for the reasons you stated (highly motivated parents, genetics (IQ), values and so on). Yes, they probably end up with an excellent, tailored education through homeschooling, but they also would have done well in public school.
IOW, the “expertise” of a “professional” teacher was not determinative of whether the child became educated.
All that said, however, I did not take Sowell as saying government teachers are necessarily bad. The larger idea was that when a huge task, such as educating all society’s children, is addressed, there’s no way it can be done as well by a central planning committee as opposed to having the local market (supply and demand) manage it.
And those kids spread their malaise and suck up resources better used for more deserving students.
I kinda agree, but political correctness has really wrecked public education.
In addition, social changes have dramatically changed the teacher pool. Once teaching was a popular career for intelligent woman who wanted a job with mommy hours. Now, the put the kids into daycare. Bad for the kids, the family and society.