As both a public and private school teacher spanning 1968 - 2000 most of the home school students I knew were at or above grade level academically and socially. The one student who was ill-prepared was the child of moonbeam liberal parents. Many parent who choose public schooling for their children, over-estimate the quality of their children's educational experiences. Parents tend to reassure themselves with the belief that almost all their children's teacher are extraordinary. It reminds of the opening to the corny radio series, 'Lake Woebegone', where all the children are above average.
In the best of circumstances, perhaps one quarter of students have excellent (effective)teachers, and only one quarter are poor (ineffective) teachers. This 25% / 50% / 25% model refers only to the ability for a teacher to teach. It does not refer to the kinds of information taught.
One reason home schoolers tend to be more advanced than their brick and mortar brethren is that they do not waste their valuable time on such things as lining up (5 minutes), attendance (5 minutes), the calendar ritual (20 minutes), waiting for slower students (10 minutes), lining up after recess (5 minutes), class meeting about the use of red rubber balls (20 minutes), distribution of math materials (5 minutes), waiting for slower students (5 minutes), putting away materials and preparing for lunch (10 minutes).
Yes, a first grade child needs to learn the days of the week, and the seasons of the year. Concerning the calendar ritual: it does not take the home schooler one hour and forty minutes each week for thirty-nine weeks to master the subject. The calendar ritual is a part of the school day in classrooms all the way through 4th grade. For a number of teachers calendar time give them more time to do other things, while the student of the day directs the the counting of the days in English and then in Spanish, the months of the year, and the whole class reciting of such exciting facts as, "Yesterday was Monday. Today is Tuesday. Tomorrow is Wednesday." Excuse me for rambling on. My point is that out of five precious hours of class time per day about two hours is wasted on non-educational or minimally educational activities.
The other thing to consider is that the schools you attended as a child and teenager no longer exist. Schools now days are much more agenda driven. No longer is teaching the basic skills of reading, writing and math the first priority. I suggest to all parents to come and spend whole day in your children's classrooms. What you find out might surprise you. Read your children's text books, even their math and spelling books. What agenda is tucked within the pages of those books? What 'untruths' or 'adjusted truths' have been presented as the 'gospel truth'?
My objection is to the self-congratulatory posts of homeschool parents.
Broken down, they amount to "my kids are SO much better than yours".
This has soured me on the whole concept.
I'm certainly not prepared to agree with them that their kids are superior to mine.
I firmly believe I could have skipped all 4 years of high school and have done just as well in college. Every **** year they start out teaching you what a noun is. Then they start you on what a verb is. I got the concept in the 5th grade and wasted 7 years after that acting like I’d never heard of any such thing.
The government is the biggest obstacle to education of your children.
You’re exactly right. I’m teaching fractions to three of my children. We’re on day four, and they already know how to reduce, multiply, find common factors / multiples, and we’re starting conversion into percentages. This would take an entire YEAR in public school, because of having 30 students you have to wait for, and all the other ridiculous programming that teachers are required to cover.
My children are individually tutored by ME — and trust me, even with a college degree — teaching four elementary children — I spend many hours every week reviewing the material for each subject before I place it in front of them. We’re not in a race to “get through” the material — but once a skill is learned, we can keep going. I find this is mostly why homeschooled children often graduate high school early, and take college courses at the local JC when they’re 13 or 14. It’s just because we have ALL DAY long to work and learn and progress — and yes, it’s true — we don’t waste time lining up, having recess, and answering questions from 30 other children.
Great points you made about the allocation of time allotted in public schools, versus those of us who homeschool.