The author - obviously someone that you want to take parenting advice from....
Posted on 08/25/2021 9:39:13 PM PDT by DoodleBob
The pandemic exposed the warts of the public-school system. Students suffered academically, and the recent emergence of critical race theory has concerned many parents. While there have been high-profile cases of parents standing up to school boards against school closings and critical race theory, a record number of parents are turning to homeschooling. While the desire to personally shepherd one’s child should be commended, homeschooling en masse cannot be the answer to our educational crisis.
...
...A new report from the Associated Press found that the number of homeschooled children doubled over just six months. One family described their decision this way: “I didn’t want my kids to become a statistic and not meet their full potential,” said Robert Brown, a former teacher who now does consulting. “And we wanted them to have very solid understanding of their faith.”
...
...However, a mass exodus of conservative children from the public-school system is not a workable solution on a national scale.
For one, there are many people who cannot afford to homeschool their children. Poorer families may be unable to live on just one income. More affluent families may not want to dramatically decrease their standard of living by cutting off an income stream....
Yet, even if a critical mass of conservative parents were willing to leave the public-school system, most of the population would still be educated in a traditional setting. A full 91 percent of students attend some form of public school, be it a charter school or an assigned public school. Furthermore, between 30 and 40 percent of Americans identify as conservatives. Thus, even if every conservative household homeschooled or sent their children to a private school, this would still leave the “woke” curriculum as the dominant educational force.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Except that public education is hardly “free”.
People don’t seem to realize, or want to know, that anything “free” from the government comes with a price tag called “taxes”.
Very true.
We helped a single mom who had an adopted, abused kid who was so uncontrollable that the public school actually kicked him out. His next stop was JD.
He was in his teens, so was able to be left home alone so she got him on some online program for school and the kid blossomed. She continued to work full time he learned at home online.
The highlight of it all for me was when it was reported that he was so excited to spell a big word and said to his mom, “ I can spell _______. I’m not stupid after all!”
It was both exhilarating and heartbreaking at the same time.
Last I heard he was attending a community college he was struggling in because he had a lot of trouble with academics, unsurprisingly, but was a very gifted auto mechanic to the point that his college prof was amazed.
We’ve lost touch with them but somehow I doubt he ever ended up in JD.
I love a story with a happy ending. :-)
Yep. Conservatives have ceded almost every institution to the Left. Instead of fighting for the schools we pay for, the answer for many here is to just remove our kids from those schools that we will still continue to pay for. That's surrender. Get involved! That's the answer. Fight!
This is true if they were actually homeschooled. However, we are finding out that many of them didn't partake of the online classes and/or received no homeschool instruction at all. The ones that suffered the most were minorities and special ed.
They are Neocons. The 9th Circle of Hell is reserved for them.
Neither did public school kids.
That is not an effective argument against homeschooling especially in light of the abysmal literacy rates public school educated kids are displaying.
There are families who shouldn’t homeschool. I’ve seen it. They refused to dedicate the resources, time, and PARENTING required to do it. The kid just wound up playing video games all year. Ya gotta at least try. Although the argument can be made, a child is better off playing video games than being warehoused in a government indoctrination center.
But that’s a minority of folks, and really, with many of these, it’s a choice to do it badly. They could do it well if they really wanted.
One of the flaws in this piece is to think only conservatives homeschool. Homeschooling families welcome all who want to join us. What we have in common is love for our children and a desire to give them a solid foundation in life, and not just educationally.
Another flaw is to think we homeschoolers need to be in the numerical majority to change society for the better. An active minority beats a sleeping majority every time. This is how the communists have prevailed time after time. You just need critical mass.
If homeschoolers become 20% or more of the school-aged population on a stable basis, homeschoolers will be the leaders of their generation.
And, in my experience, when our needs for our children converge, we (conservatives & hippies) can come together in peace, united by our love for our children.
I also agree on the ability bit. But it's a like the second amendment.... some idiot shooting himself because he didn't clear the chamber doesn't mean we should regulate firearms. Society isn't perfect.
Numbers: agreed. A few years ago there was a push to regulate homeschooling in NJ, which is a dramatically free state in this regard. Numerically. Homeschoolers were outgunned. But they raised such a ruckus and got so involved that the legislature backed down.
Technically, there are a LOT of people who cannot homeschool their kids. Single moms who work comes to mind immediately, and there are other family situations where it would be impossible to homeschool. Of course, the teachers unions and many local politicians fight to keep it this way.
The chief problem is that public schools stand in loco parentis and that basically stacks the odds in favor of the house. Parents - wittingly or not - have handed their kids over to the state during school. The state - wittingly - runs with that power.
The state goes with the flow...society was ok with corporal punishment years ago, but not now (frankly I'd have throttled anyone who touched a little DoodleBob). Society is ok with a bunch of stuff now, and that gets approved by the administrators. The teachers have to navigate through sex ed, CRT, and (to be fair) parents more interested in dual incomes vs Johnny's grasp of algebra.
The beneficiaries of this Three-card Monty are the NEA, Zen-fascist teachers, administrators, and the handful of parents and kids who thrive in this property tax-funded environment. The rest of us - including frustrated teachers - are losers.
Every day a parent fights the educational-industrial complex is a day lost on their kids. I can spend a lifetime defending the 2nd Amendment but a parent has only so many years with a child. The parent's best option is to simply abandon ship, and homeschool. Your child is too important to make them a pawn in this rigged game. And, the reality is, homeschooling doesn't need to make up 90% of the nation...at some point the percentage becomes a minority that punches above its weight.
If homeschooling alumni want to fight the good fight, go for it...I've had the debate that all we need to do is reform schools, make teachers accountable, take back the PTA blah blah blah. The reality is, as long as there is demand fueled by the commanding mindset that "we gotta collectively educate the kidz or else, ya know, remember Sputnik and how other nations' kidz are better at geography," the taxes will stay and we are stuck. Finally, as long as people are cool with the state standing in loco parentis then the fight the NR author recommends is a suicide mission.
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RobinsonCurriculum.com -- super cheap yet effective. Art Robinson's sons who were homeschooled with the same curricula went on to get their PhDs like dad.
We managed to become a one income family on mid range blue collar pay. Less running around, no day care/after care, having time to cook a meal, all saved almost as much money as the extra income was bringing in.
The author - obviously someone that you want to take parenting advice from....
The Social Engineers have forced schools to put mentally challenged kids in the same classroom as kids with MENSA I.Q's. 98% of the Teachers time is taken up trying to help the slowest, the kid with the high IQ gets bored and tunes out. One great advantage to home schooling is that kids with high IQ's who love learning can proceed at their own pace not the pace set by the slowest in the class. Take a look at a math paper they set 13 year olds in the 1920's in the UK. Math Paper. Websites like Kahn academy enable brighter kids to enjoy learning rather than view it as a twelve year prison sentence.
By the time my kids were 12, they were doing Saxon Algebra.
They all were able to take calc classes as incoming freshmen at their respective universities, having qualified for their honors programs.
Not their experimental subjects, not your pawns.
Even a year in a bad environment is eternity to a child and will cause deep and lasting damage to their ability to learn especially at elementary level.
And the schools were lost back in the 1940s or before.
Now you want me to fight a battle you conceded 80 years ago?
Two word response.
Can you fill in the blanks?
IF ELON MUSK teamed up with a solid ONLINE EDUCATION system & gave students a discount on Starlink, Home Schooling would work fine.
Then-—Cut the property taxes, close down the teacher’s obscene pay & benefits while they INDOCTRINATE out kids. Kill the teachers unions.
WIN WIN
So the demoncrats don't want conservatives opting out of the public school system because that will only further magnify the intellectual divide between the two philosophies.
Again, the "progressive" solution is not to even out the race of life by better equipping and training the underachievers so they can run faster, it's to force the achievers run in hobnail boots.
"Life is Tough, But It's Tougher If You're Stupid."
--John Wayne
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