Posted on 01/23/2017 8:32:01 AM PST by blam
Chris Weller
January 23,2017
Jessica Epting, a homeschool mother of four, with her kids in their home in the Bronx, New York
During Betsy DeVos' recent three-hour confirmation hearing to become President Donald Trump's education secretary, charter schools came up no fewer than 60 times. Homeschooling was mentioned once.
Charter schools have become a significant part of the US public-education system and now educate 2.5 million kids. But homeschooling has quietly experienced a surge in recent years too. Brian Ray, a homeschooling researcher at the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates the number of kids taught at home is growing by as much as 8% a year since the total hovered around 2 million in 2010, according to US Census figures.
That puts the upper estimate at approximately 3.5 million children, far surpassing charter schools.
Betsy DeVos Betsy DeVos testifies before the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions during her confirmation hearing to be the next secretary of education, on January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
The homeschool myth
(IMO, teachers unions must go)
Teaching kids at home has long been controversial, with critics saying the instruction is uneven in subject and quality and makes kids asocial.
But in recent years, technology and changing attitudes have made homeschooling easier and more effective, helping boost its popularity. And research suggests homeschooled kids do better on tests and in college than their peers in public schools.
"Homeschooling really cultivates a trait of open-mindedness and [being] open to new experiences," says Claire Dickson, a Harvard sophomore who was homeschooled from kindergarten through her senior year of high school. Her mother, Milva McDonald, pulled her out of her Boston-area public school when she realized, for example,
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
We homeschool. One of my husbands oldest daughters (by another marriage) was homeschooled and has now graduated from Hillsdale College and is working in the wine industry in California.
I redid high school on a home school curriculum which vastly improved my reading, writing, mathematics, and history knowledge. I’ve even picked up some Spanish which is handy every now and then.
I cringe thinking of what I was subjected to in the public schools and would NEVER do that to my own children!
>and makes kids asocial.<
Outside group think brainwashing .... Oh no!
Good education comes from good teachers not the institution
I teach college government.
The BEST students are homeschooled and Asian.
I was a skeptic, but after having kids in public schools, I see the logic of home-schooling.
My initial misconception was time - what parent has time for home-schooling?
In fact, my kids are in public JR. high school nearly 7 hours a day. I think at least half the time is wasted (probably more) - useless courses entirely, like “reproductive health,” and then time wasted in every class maintaining discipline, and countless explanations to the slowest kids in class.
I see homeschool kids who have so much time to be kids AND also who are at advanced learning levels.
We were able to better control who our daughter spends time with and help her make good life-decisions all through school.
Public schools are filled with kids you'd never let in your door - why would you want your kids spending 8 hours a day with them and being negatively influenced?
I wish I could homeschool.
Have a friend that home schooled their children. Oldest one received a full scholarship to Texas A&M and got a degree in Mechanical engineering. Now works for Chevron. That says a lot about home schooling in my mind.
Needless to say, the Teacher's Unions hate this option. I see it as an important safety valve to protect parents and students schools that can't or won't maintain discipline and maintain academic standards.
I have a bit of a unique perspective in that my 2 sons, now 21 and 19, were homeschooled until 4th and 2nd grade until my late wife was too sick (cancer)to continue. After she passed away I didn’t have a whole lot of choice but to send them to public schools, which in my area weren’t all that bad.
If I had a choice, though, I would choose homeschool without hesitation.
Over the years, the main argument I have heard against homeschooling has been “socialization.” Anti-homeschoolers can’t argue results because homeschoolers perform as well or better than their public school peers, so they attach that stigma of homeschoolers being sheltered and anti-social. Then I remember what socialization meant when I went to school (cliques, bullying, fights in the halls, disruptive students, etc.), and I just laugh at their argument.
Homeschool ping!
Yep. You can have smart kids in a good school and if you at all care about their education you may find yourself...ahem....”supplementing” what they learn during the day. At that point, you are almost homeschooling.
My wife taught in the public schools so she know exactly what goes on. She now homeschools our kids.
My daughter has worked at charter schools.
There are good ones and bad ones.
Some operators need to be purged and barred from
operating them.
We will all have to stand before God one day and give an account of the things we did, and how we discharged the stewardship of those things he entrusted to us.
.
When people ask why we home-schooled our 3 children I am telling them the truth: We love them and could not in good conscience send them to the cess-pool of the public schools.
My wife is a great kindergarten teacher in a public school. She has taught hundreds of kids to read over to years.
My sister in law “homeschooled” her boys for three years basically sleeping late and spending the day doing anything but teaching. They are now back in public school far behind their classmates.
I’m torn on homeschooling because of her
I’m a fan of public school teachers and believe they work their butts off and do the best they can with the poor student material they have to work with.
But geezy peezy, the average per student spending per year in U.S. public schools is somewhere near $11k.
Just how much does it cost to buy a grammar book, an algebra text, a few examples of literature, and a pair of sneakers? And how difficult is it to use a white board, a computer screen, a stack of paper, and a text book to teach a kid math?
How many buildings in Washington or your state capital does it take for mom and a few friends to teach algebra and Shakespaere to little Johnny and Sally?
Mothers are inherently teachers. There is no subject from K thru 12 that cannot be taught for a cost of $20 to $100.
The state and society have told women that mothers can abandon their children to the state from 7:00am to 4:00pm so that they can empower themselves by going to work everyday for a boss.
What a big lie. What a national folly.
My son is homeschooled and there is a vast homeschool network where I am. Best decision ever. The homeschool kids get together every week and they are so well-behaved, smart and grounded. The difference is astonishing.
I went to a spelling bee for homeschoolers. I cannot express in words how smart the kids that participated were. It left me speechless.
I raised my kids in the Mira Mesa area of San Diego. The Asian community is a significant percentage. There is a culture of sitting at the kitchen table and finishing homework each day after school. The net result is very high academic achievement. I'm not Asian, but my sons benefited from those same cultural practices. My middle son finished with a 4.33 GPA and scores of 5 on his AP exams. A good example was set and followed. There is no free lunch just by virtue of breathing the same air in the classroom. The benefit was sharing the common value that regular effort to excel academically pays off.
I must admit there was some homeschooling. I corrected all the math, English and science papers because the public school teachers failed horribly in that regard. I spent time teaching math and physics skills to my sons that weren't happening in the public school classroom. My middle son embarked upon fluency in Spanish. His fluency is good enough to represent real estate clients in legal proceedings to help them understand and communicate their needs and responsibilities.
Every single homeschooled kid I know is way ahead of their public school counterparts.
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