Home Schools Run By Well-Meaning Amateurs

NEA ^ | By Dave Arnold

[Oberon]

A simple retort to this is to ask: "Where has this happened?" Nowhere, it's never happened that voucher systems put a crimp in either private or homeschools.

Well, then ask yourself this: When has a federal subsidy ever come without attached regulatory strings?

To tell me I'm wrong because my objection doesn't match up to your imagined future is rather dubious. It becomes a matter of your imagination versus my own. I'll keep mine, thanks.

[WOSG]

"After three years the teacher is tenured and harder to fire...it takes documented instances of incompetence, abuse, etc."

K-12 Teacher Tenure should be ABOLISHED. Even for College Professors, the excuses for tenure are getting thin (viz. the Ward Churchill affair). Long gone are the days of Guilds and employment for life. But for HS and below there is no 'free speech' issue. The teachers teach the curriculum and either do a good job or not. If they perform poorly, they must be let go.

"A teacher has a three-year probationary period in which he/she can be fired for cause if parents go to the school administration with enough complaints."

All teachers under all conditions should be fire-able 'for cause', and to have any teacher outside that basic level of responsibility is an act of child abuse.

[Texas_shutterbug]

I call locking kids in closets and throwing books "abuse."

She's still there.

So is the teacher who spent an entire school year outside smoking.

[Muzzle_em]

I can assure you that if a homeschool college degree was accepted by most job companies from their applicants, there would be college homeschooling going on.

Online universities are becoming more and more accepted.
EVERY continuing education class I've taken which did not require hands-on lab work, I've taken online.
I would think all history and literature classes could be completed online. Math requires some demonstration.

[Oberon]

See post #257

Duly seen.

[StarCMC]

Certain jobs are best left to the pros, such as, formal education.

ROFL! I guess it doesn't count if you're an expert in your own kid and what his or her learning style is. I can guarantee you, at least one of my children would slip through the cracks in a regular school setting. Either that or this child would be labeled and pigeon-holed. No thanks!

Whether it is window-washing, bricklaying or designing a space station.

Nice sentence structure there, Mr. Expert!

For example, if the child is severely handicapped and cannot be transported safely to a school, or is bedridden with a serious disease, or lives in such a remote area that attending a public school is near impossible.

Again, your prowess with proper sentence structure is, well, amazing!

Several organizations have popped up on the Web to serve these wannabe teachers.

Wannabe? And you're an expert in the usage of the English language, I suppose? The TRUTH is, all parents are homeschoolers. They teach their children more in the first 5 years of their lives than a teacher in a school will EVER be able to teach them. Some of us just choose to continue that education at home into what "experts" call "regular school subjects." But ALL parents continue to homeschool. That's what happens when you help your kids with homework.

Children should have the opportunity to interact with others their own age.

Of course this idiot is overlooking the fact that MOST people who homeschool have more than one child and are very involved with church or other homeschool groups.

But I can’t teach them how to be a teammate when they have never been part of any team.

Yep, you just want all the kids to think inside the box. Independent thinkers sort of screw up your plans for world domination, don't they Mr. Expert?

It’s obvious to me that these organizations are in it for the money.

And just what do you think school teachers are "in it for," Mr. Expert? I'm just curious. If those teachers aren't in it for money or benefits, why do they have a penchant for going on strike at the start of the school year?

I’m certainly not opposed to religious schools, or to anyone standing up for what they believe in.

Another GREAT example of your expertise in education? Ever heard that rule about ending sentences in prepositions? Hmmm....?

Don’t most parents have a tough enough job teaching their children social, disciplinary and behavioral skills?

Especially when they first have to undo the improper items learned at the feet of such "experts" as you!

They would be wise to help their children and themselves by leaving the responsibility of teaching math, science, art, writing, history, geography and other subjects to those who are knowledgeable, trained and motivated to do the best job possible.

Yeah, ok, whatever... better not lose that janitorial day job.

Personally, I believe that this one who sounds off on homeschoolers is projecting his own inadequacies to that group. I would not take it upon myself to tell another person -- even a janitor -- how I felt he should educate his children. Nor do I appreciate someone else telling me how to educate mine.

[pray4liberty]

"your parents should have gone to the school board (few ever do) and demanded that they be reprimanded and, if that didn't work, fired!"

Been there, done that, doesn't work. Show me a homeschooling parent today, and I'll show you yesterday's "troublemaking parent" at the school.

I'm sure you mean well with your suggestions, but it is very difficult going up against a monopoly convinced they are always right no matter what, and who reward administrators who bully teachers and purposefully do evil to children.

[WOSG]

" Seems the NEA got their panties in a wad since homeschoolers are outperforming public education students in all areas for the last twenty+ years. Some community colleges see the handwriting on the wall and admit students as young as 15 on a part-time basis. They simultaneously earn their diplomas and earn enough credits to pipeline to University."

This is great. I'm going to advocate for our kids to get that deal.

"That doesn't sit well with the NEA, they hate the colleges and the state legislators who made these "alternative education" options legal and possible--not only for homeschoolers, but the students that public education failed."

Gives new meaning to the term: "Community College is just like High School!"

[Oberon]

...parents could do so by getting state legislatures to back merit pay systems for teachers...

Do you favor merit pay, md?

[luckystarmom]

The public school that my daughters attended last year did not have the subjects that I listed, or they only offered a limited version of them. They had history for a month in May after the state testing. They had only a few days of science. The art was a volunteer program run by parents and it was about 6 times during the year (but it was a good program (Art Vistas), and I think better than the art they are getting in private school).

Our district closed the school that my kids attended, and moved the kids to another school. The first school was a National Blue Ribbon and it was okay, but not as good as the private. They at least had more history, science, music, and PE than the school they attended last year.

The new school had lots of ESL students, and they were more interested in helping them instead of the special needs kids or the gifted kids. (One of my daughters is special needs, and the other one is gifted.)

Plus, both of my daughters actually do well on the state testing which means that they both got ignored because they tested well. They never got rewarded for doing well. Only kids who improved their test scores or improved their behavior got rewarded. Kids who already tested well, and had good behavior did not do well.

[meandog]

Meandog, this is not about disrespecting teachers - many of whom do wonderful work and are underpaid and overworked - as much as opposing a monopolistic, liberal-biased system that is often toxic to kids. Even our wonderful local public schools are purveyors of politically correct liberal clap-trap and are under-performing given what they have. We pay $7,000 or more per year per head for that. About 50% of the money ends up in the teacher's pocket btw; too much ends up in layers of administration, fantastic and over-engineers campus buildings, and sports stadiums (texas, ya know). The problem isnt the teachers, its everything *else* about the educational system. Meandog, imitation is flattery so consider homeschooling as a reflection of the importance some parents hold to the discpline of teaching

As I've tried to point out for some time now, I support HS freedom of choice but believe firmly that it is a concept best suited only for gifted and talented students (only about 1 in every 12 students are such (IQs above 130), according to theorists). Besides, if homeschooling is so great, then why won't other industrialized countries (such as Japan and Korea) encourage the idea as well? Incidentally, their students way out pace ours and their systems are entirely public ones.

[justiceseeker93]

Home schooling ping! Take on the NEA propaganda!

[meandog]

Do you favor merit pay, md?

absolutely!

[pray4liberty]

Japan and Korea don't have the NEA and Federal and State laws on their back.

[luckystarmom]

For one thing, at 18 kids can choose what they want to do.

At 18, you hope that you have raised your child to make good choices in life. You have basically done your job. If you have done it well, then they should be able to handle the pressures of college life.

Plus, in college kids are there that want to be. Most of them are fairly academic. No one is forced to go to college. No ones is going to be truant. Public elementary and secondary schools are full of kids that do not want to be there or shouldn't be there.

Colleges have a lot to offer that parents cannot afford: good libraries, science labs, computers, etc.

Most importantly colleges offer diplomas that most companies require to get a good job.

[meandog]

Colleges have a lot to offer that parents cannot afford: good libraries, science labs, computers, etc.

And schools don't? Honestly, most of the responses I get from homeschooling parents on FR is that the only public school choice they have is somewhere in the inner city ghetto when the TRUTH is that they are all in the upper-socio-economic strata and live in neighborhoods with good public schools...as well they could well afford private schools if they did not choose the public school option.

[achilles2000]

I was wondering when someone would get around to pointing out that the education establishment is constantly trying to confuse the public about its systematic failures. For example, although it had to do with private schools rather than homeschooling, a study done by NCES purported to find that, notwithstanding the fact that private school students clearly do better on the NAEP, the public schools really do a better job. The NCES models were "inspired" by similar work done by the Lubienski's (an H & W researchers who teach at an Illinois university). Of course, anyone familiar with the methodology used by NCES for adjusting for various factors could see that the studies (NCES and Lubienski) were just politics in scholarly drag. Fortunately, a fairly good analysis for the NCES fraud was done by Peterson and Llaudet at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (one may ponder why the obvious problems with NCES and Lubienski haven't been raised by ed school researchers). While Peterson and Llaudet fail to take into account curriculum alignment and some other considerations that would bias the assessment of government school performance in favor of the government schools, their analysis is quite thorough with respect to the variables they do consider. The deeper point that they make, however, is that the methodology of the NCES (and Lubienski) study is entirely inappropriate for the task at hand. In fact, they express regret that NCES has failed to keep up with contemporary research standards. homeschoolhttp://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG06-02-PetersonLlaudet.pdf

I suspect that Peterson and Llaudet understand that the NCES study problem is not really one of failing to keep abreast of research standards, but rather one of complying with the imperative to provide phony data to help prop up the public relations efforts of the corrupt and failing government school system. Which brings me to homeschooling. There is no body of research that I am aware of that shows that homeschoolers on average don't do better academically than government school students. When the data is disaggregated by parental education level, even mothers without a high school diploma do a far better job with their own children than government schools do on average. By income, studies indicate that most homeschoolers are middle to lower income families because they are mainly single income. Homeschooled children do tend to come from intact families, but more single parents are finding ways to homeschool, and I suspect that the results when studied will prove to be very strong. While teaching in a government school is difficult, to say the least, there is no point in trying to put lipstick on the pig. Homeschoolers tend to smoke government school children, but not because they are brighter or more advantaged as measured by SES factors. They do better because, among other things, their parents can adjust their children's curriculum to their strengths and weaknesses, curricula based on foolish ed school pedagogical theories are not mandated (whole language, fuzzy math, etc.), an extremely low student to teacher ratio, an emphasis on developing self-teaching skills, an abundance of sound, easy to use curricular materials, coop classes and similar arrangements, video lectures, and online courses (here is just one of the many resources HSers are able to draw on that government schools typically can't match http://www.gbt.org/).

The schools today are mainly a mechanism for allocating about $600 billion a year to various special interest groups and for providing privileged ideological access to children for various leftist special interest groups. This is why a failed government school system is so aggressively and dishonestly defended. But, even if homeschooling didn't yield better academic results, most would still homeschool because of the various ways in which government schools are destroying children morally and spiritually. I can fix an algebra deficiency easily - bad character, once it has taken hold, is almost impossible to fix.

[achilles2000]

In some states, yes, in others, no. Studies indicate, however, that the HS students in high regulation states (including testing, for example) don't do any better than HS students in unregulated states.

[JenB]

You'll be amused by this thread Love. Amazing that our 'well-meaning amateur' parents did as good a job as they did.

[luckystarmom]

I live in San Jose, and our public middle school does not even teach a year of science. It does not have a science lab.

I wish I could pull my son out and homeschool him, but that isn't an option.

I think homeschoolers need to have lots of afternoon activities, and I don't have the time to take my son to those because of my special needs daughter.

In our area, the public schools are mixed with 1/2 from the houses in the neighborhood and about 1/2 from the apartments. It's the apartments that have the ESL kids.

At $7500 per kid per year, most people in our area cannot afford private school, especially if they have more than 1 kid. If you can afford to buy a house, then most of your money goes to paying the mortgage.

Also, the public schools in our area are super crowded. The elementary schools range from 800-900 kids, the middle schools are around 1000-1200 kids, and the high schools range around 2000 kids. The classrooms are also crowded with 30 or more kids in a classroom.

The public schools where I live do not communicate well. They don't post homework online and lots of the teachers don't use e-mail.

Some public schools are okay, but a lot of them are not. I will not blame teachers for the mess that has made public schools bad. There's a lot of blame to go around bad parents, bad school officials, federal govt. being involved, etc.

So what options do you have when you live in an area with bad public schools: move to another area with good public schools, send your kid to private school, homeschool your kid, or try to make the most of a bad public school.

We tried for a year to make the most of a bad public school. One of my daughters cried every day after school. My other daughter started having tantrums because she was over-stimulated by the crowds and noise at the public school. We decided that our daughters would not go back to public school, even if I had to homeschool. It was an awful place for our daughters. Thank God, we figured out a way to afford private school, and we found a good school that would take my special needs daughter.