I am merely saying that there are cases where parents say they are homeschooling and do not. There are also cases where parents cannot do it. I have come to realize though, that any statement that isn't a 100% endorsement of homeschooling, and that doesn't hold the view that every parent who does it will succeed, is a statement that will not be accepted by homeschooling proponents. There is a word for people who will not accept that their method isn't 100% perfect. It's called fanaticism. Before you say it, I have already stated that not all public schools are perfect. There are many excellent ones, and many that are in vast need of improvement. I do not see how the concept of homeschooling can be assessed more fairly.
Dear SALChamps,
"I am merely saying that there are cases where parents say they are homeschooling and do not."
I think that few homeschoolers would disagree. However, you believe a minority of parents can homeschool, and most homeschoolers realize that they are far from being extraordinary, and realize from FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE that most parents (not all) can successfully homeschool, if that is their desire.
Any homeschooler here who believes that ALL parents will make great homeschoolers, please feel to differ with me.
"Before you say it, I have already stated that not all public schools are perfect."
That's nice. But our perspective is that many public schools are downright poor. I don't think that any homeschooler believes all public schools are bad (except in terms of disagreeing with the premise that the government should run schools - but that's a political issue, not a pedagogical issue).
Any homeschoolers here who differ with me, please speak up.
You also have a tendency to denigrate homeschooling, whether you realize it or not.
"Just because someone was able to procreate doesn't mean they will be a good teacher either."
What a snide, demeaning remark. Although taken to the extreme, there is some truth to it, in the main, it is false. Human beings are made to have children, rear them up, and successfully teach them to adulthood. That some humans may not meet that norm, that usual standard, is a truism. But to say more than that is a falsehood. To suggest that most parents are incapable of teaching their children is just not true. That's what humans are built for. It's in the design.
However, what really annoys me is your insistence that the public school establishment should have oversight over homeschoolers. That's a non-sequitur, logically idiotic, and just plain dumb.
The fact is that homeschoolers succeed at a higher rate than public schools. Homeschooled children routinely score higher on any measure of academic success than public schooled, or even private schooled children.
Homeschoolers use far fewer resources than public schools. At nearly a thousand bucks a kid for our curricula, we're positively spendthrifts among homeschoolers. Many homeschoolers do superb jobs of teaching their children for a few hundred dollars per year.
Conversely, the public school systems in my part of the country spend between $7,000 per child (my own county of Anne Arundel) to over $10,000 per child (Washington, DC). But frankly, the public schools in my county range from poor to mediocre, and the public schools in Washington, DC mostly range from poor to execrable. (I know that part of that is teachers' salaries. Would that it were actually a greater portion. In Prince George's County, Maryland, more than 50% of the school budget is NOT spent in the classroom for salaries, benefits, and actual materials and physical resources used by teachers and students. Prince George's County is not a particularly bad example of school system waste.)
So, it is your position that the people who accomplish less at far higher, far less efficient, far more wasteful costs should regulate the people who accomplish more for almost nothing. Sorry, SALChamps03, you seem like a nice person, but that viewpoint verges on mental delusion.
Then, you overlook the fact that public school systems are invariably controlled by a certain special interest group: public school teachers and administrators. I have personally felt the hostility ooze out of public school teachers for those of us who homeschool. Heck, I can feel it off you through the digital ink. In that we do far more for far less, it's true, we make you guys look bad. Well, public schools look bad enough without our assistance, so I guess, we make you guys look worse. And most public schoolteachers hate us for it.
And if you want to deny that, why don't you go look up the policy positions of the NEA regarding homeschooling? They are uniformly hostile in tone, demeaning in content, and propose severe and harsh regulations for homeschoolers that in many cases would crush us. Some of the proposed rules, if they were actually applied to all public school teachers, would force many public school teachers to find real jobs.
The teachers' union's official positions are all uniformly hostile and negative toward homeschoolers. But invariably, it's these folks who run the public school systems.
So, why do we want to be regulated by folks who hate us? Who would like to crush us?
In closing, your remarks are exaggerated, over the top, and represent a caricature of homeschoolers in general, and specifically, the homeschoolers here at FR and on this thread.
sitetest
Let's look beyond the statistics,though, to the question at the core of the debate. To quote Lenin, WHO, WHOM? Where is the appropriate locus of control? Socialism delivers "the bads" every place it's tried. Liberty and responsibility promote health and prosperity. Since you are posting and discussing the issues on this forum, demonstrating commendable good faith, I think we can agree to err on the side of liberty.
I understand your point .. but I think those people are very VERY few and far between. In fact I've never met a homeschooling family like that at all.
Just the very nature of the desire to homeschool (whatever that desire is..) would eliminate most people like that. If they TRULY do not care how their kids turn out - they probably wouldn't pull their kids out of school in the first place - because it would mean being home with them all day... (which believe me can get very trying.. ;) )
Now - it may be that they are not "educating" in a "traditional" manner - so you percieve that their children are not being educated... well what it really boils down to is a difference in "educational styles" .. not eliminating education at all.
We pulled our son out of our local Christian school not because we were unhappy with the education he was getting - in fact we LOVED the education he was getting. Our son has a medical condition that made it difficult for him to keep up during the hours that class was held. We found the poor kid was going to school all day.. then if he had a seizure during the school day we were repeating everything that night .. AND keeping up with homework. His stress level came down dramatically when we started homeschooling... and his seizure have become almost non-existant.. The allowing for better sleep, being able to adjust his schedule around his health needs, as well as by my being with him 24/7 I could better assess how his meds affected him.
Now I realize I'm just one case - but you probably would wonder about our "education" as we do not neccesarily just sit in a classroom setting all day on a set schedule. He and I work on language arts, literature and science during the day. Husband does math and history in the evening.. it works for us - I know another family that their girls are very involved in the day to day working of their farm, as well as doing their schoolwork in the evening... it works for them. Once again it is not a traditional setting.
if a homeschool parent is not what you call a "good teacher," does that mean he ought to hang it up, lock the doors on his homeschooling endeavors and send his children to government or private school? perhaps everyone should just be patient to see if he can work it out, try something new... we ought to give it time... aren't these the very things we hear from government educators? if you do think the homeschooler ought to hang it up, then to be fair, you must be willing to shut down every government school and fire every government educator who misses whatever standard it is you are using for homeschoolers...
"Ay, there's the rub..." many government educators are so overly concerned about what "might" be going on or what "might not" be going on in the homes of homeschoolers, and want so badly to get their hands in there, even though they have so many known failures in the schools they do have charge over...
personally, i would rather keep my children home doing what may be considered "nada" in the eyes of government educators than send them to even a top-notch government school... i do take issue when someone, yet again, brings up the, "some people say they are homeschooling, but they're really not," argument... i suppose this has taken over the "what about socialization?" argrument.
"by whose standards?" is my question...
i believe that government educators really ought to make sure their own house is in order... work to make all the schools they do have charge over, "top-notch" schools, before they point fingers at homeschoolers who are not their charge...