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To: oldenuff2no; wintertime
Dear oldenuff2no,

“There are responsibilities for homeschoolers as well but that part of it is not popular for you to talk about.”

There ARE such responsibilities, but homeschoolers are not accountable to government for them. Only a secular liberal would think otherwise. Real conservatives understand that there are limits to state power and authority (or, at least, there are in non-totalitarian societies). And when one considers how incompetent government is generally at providing K-12 education, the point that government has no business evaluating homeschoolers is underlined.

“When the failures happen and the children are not taught to grade level they are forced back into the public schools and instantaneously become the schools failure.”

Having been involved with homeschooling for well over a decade, I can tell you that homeschooling failures are few and far between, unless one counts the cases of manipulation by public school authorities.

However, I’ve seen large numbers of folks leave their failed public schools after watching their children educationally abused by public school teachers, and then enable their children to thrive as homeschoolers. The ratio of public school failures ==> homeschool successes vs. homeschool failures ==> public school successes is probably about 40:1.

“In fact In cali so is the state.”

Really? How many public school teachers in California were fired for their incompetence at teaching their students last year? What percentage of teachers in California is that? What is the high school drop-out rate in California? Why aren’t the two percentages roughly the same?

“Since the vast majority of the winners of national science, math, and spelling awards are products of the public school system it becomes impossible to honestly and truthfully support your attitude towards public schools.”

Since public school students comprise approximately 85% of K-12 students in the United States, I would be interested to see your documentation that at least more than 85% of such award winners are public school students. Anything less than 85% is evidence of the failure and underperformance of public schools.

Of course, such an assertion begs the question of whether that metric is the most meaningful to evaluate public school success. I'd view graduation rates as demonstrably more important, as awards go to a very tiny percentage of the population, but obtaining a meaningful high school education is vital to every student. I'd look at median test scores over large numbers of homeschoolers in comparison to national averages. The last study I saw showed that homeschoolers average about the 86th percentile on several standardized tests of academic achievement. Obviously, public school children didn't do as well.

But go ahead and document that over 85% of the aforementioned award winners are public schooled. It'd be a start.

I'll note that admits to Ivy League schools are 55% public schooled. Thus by one measure of excellence, public schools fail rather miserably.

As well, you confuse success while attending public school with success caused by a given public school. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Public schooling no more causes good educational outcomes generally than the rooster’s crowing causes the sun to rise in the morning. You will find that the same thing that causes success in spite of public schools is the same thing that causes success in homeschooling and many traditional private schools: parents. Decent parents generally provide nearly universal excellent homeschooling educations to their children, often provide good traditional private school educations to their children, and many even overcome the impediments inherent to public schools to provide good educations to their children.

I'm sure that wintertime has introduced you to the concept of "afterschooling."

“I always wonder if home school parents take their sick children to doctors...”

This is the root of the blindness of public schoolers, thinking that education of children requires specialized knowledge that is unavailable except to the priests and priestesses of education schools. Actually, folks graduating with degrees in education are, on average, among the least intelligent folks who graduate from college. Education majors regularly underperform students in nearly every other field on measures such as the GRE.

In fact, especially for elementary education, pretty much anyone of normal intelligence and knowledge can homeschool his or her children successfully, given appropriate conditions.


sitetest

86 posted on 08/30/2013 1:27:19 PM PDT by sitetest (If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 85 | View Replies ]


To: sitetest
There ARE such responsibilities, but homeschoolers are not accountable to government for them.

WRONG!!!!!

At least in this state home schoolers are supervised by a government certified and credentialed teacher and if they are not at grade level they are forced to go to the public schools.

91 posted on 08/30/2013 10:41:47 PM PDT by oldenuff2no
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies ]

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