Sadly, the article seems to be a cheap ideological button-pusher, and never even attempts to answer the "Why Is the Press..." question. Sure, the Teaching-Educational Complex doesn't like home schooling. But the WSJ could easily learn if (say) teachers' pension funds were buying controlling interests in news organizations - and publish a real news story about that.
My theory: With the huge number of home-schooled kids, there's a never-ending supply of outrageous & clicky "Home Schooler Does X!" long-tail stories for the Press to cash in on. Vs. grim stories about bottom-of-the-curve public school districts would both require the journalists to do more work, and attract accusations of racism & such.
It could be better researched. But you don’t need coordinated efforts when the issue speaks to a particular worldview. There’s a cohort within the country that has a particular notion of public education as a way to socialize children into a particular brand of American values, and that cohort dominates both the education profession and journalism. Folks who share this ideology may, for example, have the same visceral reaction to the prospect of home schooling being a way to socialize children in religious values: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/44461/data-contradic.... These folks dominate the professions, especially education and journalism.
In a way, it’s a continuation of the mid-20th century conflict between mainstream Protestants (now their secular children), and Catholics/Evangelicals over public education.
That public school should have a goal of instilling American values is one of the oldest ideas in American society, and the "cohort" in which it dominates might best be described as "Americans".
Your issue is that you disagree with a plurality of educators on what American values should be. That's fine, but it's much more boring than the false controversy you present instead, where a shadowy cartel of educators is twisting what would otherwise be a values-neutral school system. That system never existed, and was never intended to exist. Conservatives just 20 years ago would have recoiled from that sentiment.
> That public school should have a goal of instilling American values is one of the oldest ideas in American society
This is wildly untrue. In fact there was a huge battle to introduce a more "American" civics vs British/Eurocentric history in the early 20th century that wasn't really resolved until World War II when (for better or worse) American patriotism completely invaded public school curriculum.
Most people until ... let's say 1950 ... learned virtually nothing about the Revolution, "manifest destiny", the Bill of Rights (largely untested in court), or any other number of US cultural "values" unless they went to college.
I don't think you're right about this, and I'll present two pieces of countervailing evidence:
(1) Horace Mann's own words, in which he defines "education" as meaning "much more than an ability to read, write, and keep common accounts" --- and goes on to list, at great length, civic and moral virtues.
(2) The deliberate effort at the turn of the century to use public education to inculcate American values & civic culture into immigrants.
At any rate, Rayiner and I agree about this premise. Further, if I'm wrong, I'm clearly not "wildly" wrong.
I agree. Public schools were invented to socialize children into mainstream Protestant values, and by and large that’s still their purpose today. Insofar as what I wrote is ambiguous, my point is that education and journalism are dominated (at the national level), by a cohort that is defined by a particular set of values they share, not by the fact that they want to use schools to teach their values. Certainly, I’m no supporter of educational neutrality myself.
When the consensus was that schools should teach mainstream Protestant values, you were sanguine about it. But it wasn't principle that located public school values there; it was consensus-seeking. The consensus has shifted. It'll shift again. There's nothing improper about any of that. You'll have to argue against the values schools are teaching on the merits, not based on some claim of impropriety.
Schools are still teaching mainstream Protestant values. The theology has just evolved.
I didn’t claim there was anything improper about it, I’m just describing the dynamic that exists. I will disagree with you about “consensus.” I think people who hold this particular ideology are in the minority. But they are dramatically overrepresented in the education and journalism fields.
Not sure where you get “superficial” but all the home schooling parents I know care deeply about their kids’ education and future — that’s why they invest the tremendous time homeschooling takes and deal with the pushback from friends and family - rather than just making the easy default choice that comes with many hours of free child care.
The idea that parents would go out of their way to give a “superficial” education doesn’t make sense if you’ve ever been a parent. People care deeply about their children and their future.
I’d argue what is superficial is just going along with the easy default rather than examining what is best for your specific child.
Note the difference between being superficial in fact and being superficial in the opinion of the parent. Certainly, (barring some egregious exceptions) all parents want to do what's best for their children and think they're doing so with every decision they make. The real question is - are they, in fact? They might earnestly feel that giving their wunderkind a STEM-only drill-style education is what's best for them - little budding engineers that they surely are. Conversely, having had a dislike for mathematics from an early age, they might unconsciously feel that their future Picasso doesn't need that boring stuff at all, or in very limited quantities. An important upside of attending school is that it exposes a child to a lot of different educators with different perspectives, and different biases. Their chances of discovering what they're good at and what they truly enjoy, as opposed to what mommy sincerely thinks they enjoy, is thus higher.
(Also I hate that this article has just been censored on HN and most likely no one will read this reply).
Your comment boils down to “Dave’s a great guy so I’m sure he does right by his children”.
But thanks to extreme lobbying by the HSLDA, we have no way of actually knowing that. We don’t know their test scores or even if they’re reading at their grade level.
And although Dave appears outwardly great, we don’t know if he neglects or beats his kids. Just no way to know that. Abusers don’t look or act outwardly like abusers, that’s how they get away with it.
Cmon man, think a little before sharing a personal anecdote that is just “my friend good guy”.
Excuse me, are you suggesting that teachers are some kind of saints, who never, ever abuse children?
> We don’t know their test scores or even if they’re reading at their grade level.
We do know that only one in three students in (e.g.) Chicago Public Schools can read at grade level. Obviously reading at grade level isn't a very high priority.
The problem starts with children not learning "enough." The first question is, "Why?"
Fortunately, Smart people have studied these issues and found that the usual culprits are poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, and family stress (divorce, parents unhappy, etc.). Kids do better when they get breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack/meal in school and have a safe place after school for studying and socializing. Teachers do better with enough money to eliminate their financial stresses and total funding for classroom basics such as properly maintained buildings, heating and cooling, and classroom supplies.
But instead of addressing these issues, some people shake their fingers at the teachers, proclaiming the teachers union is the problem.
Besides, you are simply attempting to change the subject. The OP was (allegedly) concerned that home-schooled children wouldn't be "reading at grade level". In many areas, public school children aren't "reading at grade level" either.
If "reading at grade level" is the metric, then why would public school be preferred over the home school? No one has cited any evidence to the effect that 66% of home-schooled children fail to learn how to read.
Why they're not "reading at grade level" is irrelevant. Whether it's because of the reasons you claim, or other reasons, it is clear that the public schools a) cost billions of dollars and b) are ineffective at fixing the problem.
I googled homeschooling and reading level; I found no discussion or documentation of the reading capabilities of homeschooled children. I don't believe it's possible to get an accurate indication of the reading level of homeschoolers. The dominant thought seems to be that "grade level doesn't matter" and that parents refuse to evaluate their children using the same tests as public and private school children. This refusal to participate in society and work by the same rules is part of why I think homeschooling is a considerable disadvantage for most kids.
If a process or organization is ineffective at solving a problem, it's usually because it solves the wrong problem. Understanding why the problem occurs is part of finding the right solution.
> I googled homeschooling and reading level; I found no discussion or documentation of the reading capabilities of homeschooled children.
Some research done in Australia found that homeschooled children performed above-average on standardised tests, including reading: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/homeschooled-kids-perfor... ("NAPLAN" is Australia's nationwide standardised testing program for years 3 and 5; the "HSC" is the state of New South Wales' statewide year 12 exams, used for university entry)
Look: if you took your car to a mechanic, and the mechanic's only response, ever, was "It's not my fault. I can't fix it. Oh, by the way, here's a gigantic bill."
You'd soon stop taking your car to that mechanic.
Blaming societal problems for failing to teach children to read is exactly analogous to the mechanic above.
Even if true, that just means they're taking money under false pretenses. Taking money from people when you know you won't/can't provide the services you are offering is generally known as "fraud".
There are parents who don't care about their children at all or whose love is so warped as to be unrecognizable. Thousands of children die from neglect every year. Over ten percent of children reported being abused or neglected in the last year. Millions of people in this country have been raped by their parents.
If you assume all families are gentle and kind, you are condemning children to misery and death.
> Some teachers genuinely love and care for their students
I agree. And they are among the best of teachers. But the ability of such a person to meet the love needs of a wanting child in the setting of schooling is near zero.
This. Public school has to be catered to the bell curve. How much of that bell curve is covered depends on the budget of the school and how flat the bell curve is based on other factors. Because of this, much of school is repetitious, boring and unnecessary. Classroom management amounts to "babysitting" according to my teacher friend.
Homeschool kids can learn in 30/min per day what public school kids take all day to learn. Then they have more time to play or develop healthy interests.
Yes, the lack "kid-tracking" creates more room for abuse and brainwashing. That problem can be answered in ways that don't require kids to sit in a windowless room for 6 hours a day.
Or you could just devote your parental time and effort to supporting your children in the educational environment that 95% of the rest of the world participates in and ios available to them in society, so they learn the value of succeeding in a challenging environment vs sheltering them from the real world. Challenging environment might be public school, private school, whatever.
My parents were public school teachers for decades. When our oldest son was getting to be school aged they recommended that we homeschool because as they said "It is nothing like when you went to school".
When I met an old high school classmate who is a public school teacher in the district we both live in (300 miles away from where we grew up), she also said something similar.
Yes, there have been substantial changes in the classroom in the past 30 years, and none of them have been helpful.
This is especially true in large public schools that have to be "stack ranked" using NCLB-mandated test scores. This zapped any residual ability for them to do anything beyond the bare minimum because that would eat into time that could be used to review the tested material. Your 12th grader in "honors" classes will be given remedial lessons on how to use a Dictionary instead of reading Chaucer.
I agree, most parents are only 15 years out from their own schooling. Some of the teachers may even be the same. (I know a lot changes in 15 years, but I’m not aware of any major shifts in education).
I think the point is what students are being taught, not how. Covid may have radically disrupted the classroom dynamics and strained the hell out of daily lesson planning but I’m pretty sure it didn’t rewrite the history textbooks.
The blatant egotism/authoritarianism in this thread of believing that the government somehow has a right or duty to raise one's children is stunning.
I have a relative (11 yo) is was an absolute gem of a human. I had noticed over the last 4-5 years she was becoming more reclusive, quiet, and sad in demeanor. She left public school and began homeschooling last year, and it has absolutely turned her life completely around. She is once again becoming more vibrant, enthused for life, and is thriving with new friends from her various weekly activities. I asked her if she liked her new coop school she attends (once per week) and of it she says 'there is way less drama'.
Why does anyone think the potential for abuse by the education system itself and peers therein is less likely than abuse by the family? In fact, my children are now legally allowed to become sterilized in the state of California during school time and that's allowed to be kept secret for me. That is legalized abuse.
For all the problems homeschooling might have, I believe the risks of 'unchecked child welfare' via family/community education FAR outweight the risks of the government run daycare centers on any day. Look at the outcomes: homeschoolers consistently score higher on standardized tests.
>In fact, my children are now legally allowed to become sterilized in the state of California during school time and that's allowed to be kept secret for me. That is legalized abuse.
Citation needed. I can find no evidence that this claim is true. In all likelihood, I'm assuming you're talking about SB 107[0] (if not, please link to what you are referencing). This bill is is meant to protect transgender youth and their families who seek refuge in California from other states that discriminate against them for seeking gender affirming care. Which is not sterilization.
[1]: Not the forced sterilization program that ran until 1979, which has since ended and there are reparations available for. Sad, tragic, ultimately not what I think this is about though.
First lets address the Newsweek Op Ed, is written by Emilie Kao[0] and Jay Richards[1], both members of the conservative (commonly considered "far right" politically) organization The Heritage Foundation, which has a history of open hostility toward LGBTQ+ and womens rights[2][3].
This is not what I would call "an unbiased source", by any means, and critically the article itself lacks actual citations of the bill that support their position, instead citing a blog written by another conservative (also commonly considered far right) political organization named Alliance Defending Freedom (or ADF), which itself does not directly cite SB 107 either. Rather, it is pure conjecture on their part as to how SB 107 "violates parental rights".
SB 107, from its own text[4], seeks to protect the rights of those who seek gender affirming care will block the release of information, even under subpoena, if under the guise of civil or criminal action against a person or entity that allowed a child to receive gender affirming care or gender affirming mental health care. Meaning, for example, if parents are divorced and one of the parents decides to seek gender affirming care for their child in California, the other parent, if under the guise of such discriminatory law, were to subpoena that information, the state of California will block the subpoena and strictly prohibits law enforcement entities from knowingly making or participating in the arrest or extradition of an individual pursuant to an out-of-state arrest warrant based on another state’s law against providing, receiving, or allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care in this state [California].
This is no different than seeking other valid medical treatment in the eyes of California (and for FWIW, the majority of Americans) and is protected from criminality due to another states laws.
As for World News Group (or WNG as they are known) that is another conservative (in this case news media) organization that prominently advocates anti-LGBTQ+ politics, is not either an unbiased source.
Now as for the sources cited in the WNG, they either no longer exist (the supposed doctor's Tweets have since been deleted it appears and their own article link is no longer valid) or those studies do not say what they purport to say what they claim
For instance, the Endocrine paper[5] states the following
>Medical intervention for transgender youth and adults (including puberty suppression, hormone therapy and medically indicated surgery) is effective, relatively safe (when appropriately monitored), and has been established as the standard of care.
All the sources that supposedly back up the WNG position their links to the Twitter account for user "mlaidlawmd" are broken, missing or otherwise were taken down by the author, though I suspect this wouldn't be considered an unbiased source either.
As for the last piece, I couldn't find anything in SB 107 with regards to removing anyones genitalia, is not what Gender Affirming care provides in the first place with regards to LGBTQ+ youth specifically.
At the end of the day, the opposition to SB 107 is an opposition to LGTQ+ rights and sees gender affirming care and trans people as a problem (or worse yet, things that shouldn't exit). I do not see a way of interpreting SB 107 as a violation of parental rights without this underlying supposition. Replacing "Gender Affirming Care" with "Life Saving Intervention" or "Routine Medical Procedure", does anyone have the same reaction? Should for example, one parent be able to block access and receiving of generally accepted as safe medical care for their child if the other parent seeks it on their behalf, simply based on their beliefs?
I have no qualms about actual homeschooling, but in the past few years partisanship has seen a lot of people in my area pulling students from public schools over mask mandates, science education, and "wokeism". As recently as Tuesday, some parents are suing my school district and homeschooling because a 14yo asked to be called by he/him pronouns [1]. And here in Michigan, there are no regulations on what a homeschooled student needs to learn - no testing, no curriculum, no justification required, you can just say "we're homeschooling" and until that child turns 18 they can be completely isolated from any perceived threats to your ideology.
Homeschooling can be awesome when done for the right reasons! Student-teacher ratios are awesome, the curriculum and schedule can be perfectly tailored to your child's needs, interests, and abilities, and as you mention it works far better for families that need to travel a lot and technology is making the downsides less significant all the time.
But it can be terrible when done for the wrong reasons. Increasingly, those wrong reasons are being used [2]:
> In the vast majority of states, there are currently no protections in place for children who are homeschooled. This is the case despite a 2014 study finding that 47% of children who experience child torture were removed from school to be homeschooled (and another 29% were never enrolled in school), and a 2018 Connecticut study found that 36% of children removed from school to be homeschooled were subject to past child welfare reports.
And those studies are even before the surge of people pulling students due to pandemic politics. These issues are the reason that the press is "attacking homeschoolers", not some conspiracy to get additional funding. The fact that the author does not mention this trend at all is concerning.
There is a pretty big difference between "abuse happens" and "this environment is fundamentally worse". Schools have pretty abysmal records as far as preventing abuse to children. Bullying is massive, be it student-student or teacher-student. Shunning, insults, whispered stories, hate filled slurs, popular groups vs outsider dynamics, to physical attacks. All of these are pretty common at pretty much any school you care to name. I don't think I've met a student who hasn't experienced varying levels of this. To many, it dominates their experience.
The pandemic and subsequent politics of education has put a magnifying glass on the problems there and many parents are choosing to hit the eject button. There is a concerted effort to remove that button as it's starting to seriously pinch budgets anywhere a student can leave and take their funding money with them.
Currently my state board of education is looking at a rule change to do just that. This battle is just warming up. If you get involved, don't be on the wrong side.
Very well could be, my honest guess is nesting circles of bizarro world. The "we don't like social studies and history" and "we don't like sex ed" crowds leading into the "we don't believe in evolution," "we don't believe in dinosaurs," and then the "slaves were happy" and "actual nazi" sets.
That's hard to eyeball though. By weight of catalogue entries 1/3 nuts.
The indoctrination pipeline they depend on starts at school or day care. Thus it is always in their interest to ensure that as large part of population as possible is indoctrinated in their belief system. So as adults they keeping following media they produce and will also pay for it.
In Québec, recently there was a story of Hasidik jews homeschooling their children.
They used home schooling because they didn't want their kids to mingle with us heathens...
By law they are supposed to teach the kids a certain curriculum. But it turns out that they didn't teach the kids the material but thought them religious teachings instead.
Now they are adults and came out against their treatment and find themselves to be lacking in a lot of basic tools needed to live in modern civilized society.
As others mentionned. Homeschooling can isolate kids and exposé them to abuse and or neglect with no one to see it and denounce it like a teacher or another figure of autority.
Without strict guidelines and external supervision. Homeschooling can be a dangerous thing with the wrong people.
Because homeschooling reinforces the societal stereotype that men work outside and that women work in the home. But there's nothing wrong with this social structure and it is still the way a majority of families operate across the world. But there's hostility toward women who do not have careers in western culture. Women who run families and teach at home play an important role that does not get recognized in economic output.
> Because homeschooling reinforces the societal stereotype that men work outside and that women work in the home.
My brother-in-law is the stay-at-home homeschool dad for his two kids, while his wife works. Homeschooling is completely orthogonal to traditional gender roles, it's just historically been highly correlated with very conservative families.
This arrangement is possible, but I wouldn't call it completely orthogonal. It requires one of the parents to stay at home, or both parents working part-time, but the two most frequent arrangements are working father+stay at home mother (conservative family) or two working parents (modern family), and most of the time when a family has to be homeschooling - like we've seen on scale during the pandemic - it's the mother who sacrifices her career.
I and my sibling were homeschooled, decades ago, and it was stellar. They have a child now and are planning to homeschool. It is with this success story background and in a personally rose-colored context that I would like to say: This piece's framing introduces conspiratorial thinking (teachers' unions' machinations!) and ideological precommitments into a topic that deserves to be taken seriously and evaluated empirically. There is a lot wrong with a lot of homeschooling as it exists today, and the gaps in our understanding should trouble anyone looking at this issue with the next generation's interest in mind. If you're curious about this topic, I'd recommend https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/ for the resources it collects and its general stance – informed by a lot of experiences of homeschooled alumni.
Around here, every homeschooler we meet is extremely religiously conservative, and is unabashed in talking about not wanting their kids to learn certain aspects of science like evolution or parts of history because it conflicts with their faith.
Obviously as an anecdote, I can’t say how prevalent these types of issues are among homeschooling in general, but I do believe it’s enough of an issue to be concerned.
We already have enough people raised who have trouble understanding issues that are of vital importance to our society, and it’s only becoming more of an issue. In a democracy we need an educated electorate who can make some basic educated decisions when voting.
Public schools are not perfect by any means, but at least we have some say as a public about those curriculum, and have successfully fought things like intelligent design being taught in schools. A growing homeschooling trend takes those issues further out of the public’s control, and it’s in the public’s interest that kids all get at least some basic level of education.
We need to take steps to strengthen our public education system, and the trend of homeschooling is at the very least an extremely concerning indication that our public school system is failing. It’s a national crisis, and most certainly will affect the US ability to compete against countries like China with strong public schooling. (Studies consistently show that Chinese students beat American children in all academic categories.)
If this was my exposure to homeschooling I’d be alarmed too. I’ll just say there are also a lot of homeschoolers in NYC who do it for very different reasons - to give their kids individualized instruction, more freedom to learn in idiosyncratic ways, and even for some a chance to go deep on STEM stuff before it’s in the official curriculum yet (this obviously varies based on the kid and parent).
There are also people who do it for a 2-5 years and end up then putting their kid in public schools. I’m not sure 5, 6 and 7 year olds were meant to sit still indoors for 6-7 hours a day and there is a good argument for giving them more time for free play. Also the gap between specialized teacher knowledge vs motivated parent knowledge widens as the material gets more advanced. (Though with homework, you still end up needing to do remedial education on yourself in either context).
I definitely believe that’s the case, and it’s a similar case for private schools.
To be clear, I’m in Texas; and there’s been a push here for vouchers for example, and it’s all politically/religiously motivated.
So I’d just say we need to be aware of the bigger picture. The “need” for homeschooling is a red flag, and although for some students it’s a positive choice; for others it has massively negative consequences.
So awareness of those issues, and a powerful right wing religious lobby pushing an agenda shouldn’t be ignored because homeschooling works for some kids.
When these groups lost the battle for teaching creationism in schools, they literally took their textbook and did a “search and replace” with intelligent design.
Luckily that attempt got shot down in court. So they have moved on to vouchers and homeschooling in many states.
Please describe to me how believing in evolution is going to help Bill put my plumbing or electrical system in correctly or be able to have a good crop this year.
Bill is a voter, voting on matters of extreme importance to us all.
Also, evolution is not a belief, it’s a fact. Raising a population that can’t tell fact from fiction has profound consequences to us all. Those plumbers and electricians interact with us all in complicated ways, not just their jobs.
The PISA assessment by the OECD demonstrates that only 13.5% of American students age 15 were able to distinguish fact from opinion in reading tests.
In a democracy, that matters more than plumbing and electrical job ability.
>The PISA assessment by the OECD demonstrates that only 13.5% of American students age 15 were able to distinguish fact from opinion in reading tests.
This is so important. Raising a generation of children who are so easily misled because they never learned to think rationally or to do research at any level is already biting this country.
Currently (2023), homeschoolers make up less than 7% of the population. That is likely an all time high. So what you're telling me is that government schools are catastrophically bad at enabling American students to distinguish fact from opinion?
Also, homeschoolers do better on standardized tests than their government schooled counterparts. So it seems like we should be advocating for and advancing homeschool interests if we actually care about education, since it is the homeschoolers who are 'doing it right', according to outcomes.
Yes our public schools are doing a poor job. And given the majority of kids go to public school; that is where the attention needs to be directed.
The problem is also that homeschooling has massively different outcomes for different kids. For some it’s a positive, for others it deepens divides.
Homeschooling is worse than a bandaid solution, and a regression for many kids. We can’t ignore those who are hurt by an ongoing deregulation of our educational system just because it works for some.
And worse, we need to look closely at how that system is being abused by those with specific agendas.
> The PISA assessment by the OECD demonstrates that only 13.5% of American students age 15 were able to distinguish fact from opinion in reading tests.
What's the distribution among public and home schooling?
This is a flawed idea that there is a one to one relation that everything you learn is something that will be directly used in the future.
I mean how often do we hear something along the lines of "I never used the algebra I learned in highschool" or calculus or whatever.
The reality is that while a lot of school is teaching you the basics, a lot of it is also just teaching you how to learn and how to think critically.
Or just giving you an appreciation for basic things (like science) so when you come across a new concept in your adult life you can better appreciate it and not dismiss it.
This thread is all over the place, I can't read the article since I don't pay for wsj and the archive link isn't working for me.
There shouldn't be a problem with home schooling in a perfect world, but the current situation is horrible.
At the very least we should expect that a student that is home schooled is taught the same basics as someone who is in the school system and we need to make sure that the student is physically ok. Properly fed and not in my physical harm. Something that going to a school provides if a kid has a very bad home situation.
The lobbying for home schooling is downright frightening just how much power they have and how much they fight against what should be basic protections in the name of "parental freedom" since apparently "parental freedom" for them includes abusing children.
It also doesn't help that much of the push for Home Schooling is also based an an asinine idea of "indoctrination" in the school system when many just want to indoctrinate their kids into their religion but stopping them from having a broader view of the world.
Well, if you're going to require that bar for homeschooling, require it for public and private schools as well. (And then think very carefully about what steps you expect to happen if they fail...)
The media publishes whatever will get views and clicks and engagement. Sometimes a topic gets started and it gets people going and they'll go with it. Press isn't fair or super accurate. There's wars where we learn about every daily happening and minutiae and there's wars where we barely know are happening.
There's laws that actively kill people all the time in the millions and yet we discuss whatever current minor change to some inconsequential law triggers sensitivities and drives clicks. The press is all a business like any other business, they haven't gotten any more morals than Facebook or Monsanto, but we learn about journalistic integrity and codes from journalists and eat it up.
The lack of regulation is concerning. What's truly disturbing is how easily it is for children to fall through the cracks when there are no teachers to report possible abuse. Frightening.
You should go talk to some teachers at large school districts. "Regulation" can be both a blessing and a curse. There is plenty of bullying, drug use, etc. at large schools where nobody wants to deal with it.
Those kids can snitch to much more competent people who are well trained and respond more quickly than schools which are notorious for suspending children who stand up to their bullies or call the police on kids just because they got into a little fight.
It’s called calling 911 and calling CPS, or going to your nearest healthcare place.
There are tons of ways, to checkup on kids, even just a annual mandatory children checkup is enough, or neighbours keeping an eye out and reporting issues.
School neglect is often the very thing that lead children to failures, abuse from their peers, suicidal thoughts, gun violence, you name it.
Not sure if modern schools are the messiah.
I’m anti homeschool tho, i think parents are mostly incompetent at raising kids well, and if their children do not pass certain academic exams at grade 2,5 and 7 then they should be banned from homeschooling, an entire nation’s future depends on it.
Schools should also be less politicised, all this lgbtq , critical race theory, math is racist, etc should be removed from schools, I understand it’s meaningful in some ways and well intentioned, that children learn their history, that kids learn to be more tolerant of others, but these are all values that their parents should teach them, not schools.
Gutting out of advanced classes from school because too many white and asian kids got into it, instead of trying to improve outcomes for black and hispanic children, they just destroyed the advanced classes in major schools, and worsened the outcomes for EVERYBODY (I meant kids of masses, rich folks and politicians kids will still get top tier education at private school)
Schools != Parents
Too many schools tried to become the parent
Now parents are starting to remove schools altogether. This will be bad for everyone in this country, but it was schools and government who started this mess in the first place.
Whole heartedly disagree. It will be very good for some people and for others it will not be good.
We have been homeschooling for the last 8 years. Our kids are more mature and far exceed anything public school would have done for them. However, we see home schooling as a vocation and something we have to put effort into—not just something we sign up for on a website and then let our kid do all the work online.
Given the right reasons, homeschool will always be superior because the student/teacher ratio is so low. Plus you know your kids better and can adapt to their needs.
Given the wrong reasons, sure, it will fail people. But arguably those folks are already failing—and being propped up by a system which tries to support them but ultimately cannot.
>It’s called calling 911 and calling CPS, or going to your nearest healthcare place.
Who is suppose to do this exactly? If you're raised in an abusive household, it is not entirely likely you are aware you can do these things, or even if you are there is alot of fear and psychological manipulation to overcome in situations of abuse. With no outside party to intervene, it is extremely difficult for abuse to be overcome.
This is why, for example in California (and other states that have this law), if a there is a domestic dispute call, it is mandatory by law that the police separate the people involved for at least 24, even if the victim does not press charges at that time. This gives room for a victim to stand up for themselves once the threat has been removed. Not perfect by any means, but this has saved countless lives and improved countless others.
With children, an even more vulnerable population, removing them out of public school with no recourse for checking in with that child in a safe setting, you will exacerbate child abuse further than it already exists. I think the trade off of home school being that there is child safety checks routinely built in over the school age of the child, would be something parents could weigh as a trade off.
Yea, If you were abusing your kids, It would be easy as hell to do it if you home schooled. That's the secret, don't take them to a place where there are mandated reporters.
Maybe you should talk to an old social worker or few, about the huge number of kids who are both abused, and attending public schools. "Teachers are mandated reporters" is nothing resembling a magical fix, even in school districts where the teachers are not already stretched to burn-out by all the other demands placed upon them.
> Maybe you should talk to an old social worker or few, about the huge number of kids who are both abused, and attending public schools.
Social workers being aware of abused kids at schools seems exactly the thing we want. Most abusers are parents or relatives. Hiding the problem in home schooling and then saying it doesn't exist because social workers never hear about it seems the utterly wrong viewpoint.
The question is are they doing anything about it?
If the abuse doesn't stop, it doesn't matter if you are attending public school private school or home school
On the other side of the ledger, schools are a place for kids with troubled home lives to abuse all the other kids who have loving, supportive parents.
I'm watching kids fall through the cracks of the public school system here in Canada. There's quite a violence problem with even teachers and staff being seriously injured and powerless to deal with it. But there is also functional literacy issues since 1/3 in my province are not meeting basic competency requirements. In this environment, i can see why home schooling is a thing if you can't afford to send your kids to private school.
John Oliver is entertaining but he's also very strongly biased and misrepresents the situation. He talks fast and yells and mocks people to give the illusion of confidence and authority.
Does he address how many schools have run from March of 2020 to today despite the regulations?
Reading Math and other test scores have plummeted across multiple states at their public schools.
"lack of regulation" means freedom. That's what people find concerning? Looking at the current situation, I would prefer more freedom to less. To me lack of regulation is typically a good thing.
Your "freedom" is allowing kids to be abused since they don't have the checks of other adults being able to see them.
A bare minimum "are the kids physically ok" doesn't remove any of your freedom unless you consider starving and beating your kids a "Freedom" you care about.
For any type of education, you can point to instances of abuse. For home schooling, for public schools, for private schools, for religious schools, for universities. Kids are regularly shot to death in numbers in public schools, for example. People have been beaten and abused in private schools.
What they are trying to do is to use scare stories about home schooling to scare people into giving up their freedom. It's the same tactic that's used all the time to get people to give up their rights, to get us into wars, and so on.
I want more freedom, not less. I won't let authoritarian fear tactics change that.
No I it is a reasonable assumption based on how the OP responded to my comment.
I said:
> A bare minimum "are the kids physically ok" doesn't remove any of your freedom unless you consider starving and beating your kids a "Freedom" you care about.
Which they responded:
> I want more freedom, not less. I won't let authoritarian fear tactics change that.
They are trying to justify "more freedom" at the cost of children being abused. The only reasonable reason you would do this, when all I am asking for is basic checks to make sure a child is ok, is that you yourself which to starve and abuse children.
There is NO other valid reason to fight against what should be a basic protection for children. That reason doesn't exist. Especially when your only defense is "fear tactics".
> No I it is a reasonable assumption based on how the OP responded to my comment.
No, it is not any kind of "reasonable assumption".
You are, quite simply, lying. You do understand that lying doesn't really work very well when the person's original words are still there for all to see, right?
> The only reasonable reason you would do this, when all I am asking for is basic checks to make sure a child is ok, is that you yourself which to starve and abuse children.
I was debating on wether or not I was even going to bother responding to this because I feel like the votes are clear...
This is wild. You're comparing killing someone without evidence to protecting children.
Here is the thing, you seem to be assuming I am saying go check in with this officer or something and have my child checked on.
No, that is ridiculous.
I am talking simple things so other adults know your child is even alive. Requiring that they go somewhere for their tests. Maybe physical activity, other completely normal things. Requiring socialization. Idk, something.
> By the way, no one put you in charge of deciding what "basic protections for children" should be. In fact, no one put you in charge of anything.
Last I checked this is a forum and we were having a discussion. I never claimed to have an authority I just question how someone keeps arguing against protecting children without giving a single reasonable reason against it.
Also I would consider basic protections making sure the kid was alive and the kid was fed and not physically hurt. That is such an incredibly low bar that I do not understand how we are having this discussion at all. Maybe instead of attacking me you offer an alternative to this real problem? I would love to hear a solution that we can actually talk about.
I have been accused of fear mongering in this thread and yet it seems that while we have evidence that some parents are using the loopholes in the home schooling system to be able to do this, you don't want to do anything about it.
I have been accused of fear mongering, and yet the people like you responding are using a "slippery slop" argument of surveillance or "Freedom" that is not a valid argument.
> Your "freedom" is allowing kids to be abused since they don't have the checks of other adults being able to see them.
At what cost? Innocent until proven guilty means that we don't treat people like criminals until you have a reasonable suspicion at a minimum.
You don't get to load spyware on everyone's computer because someone, somewhere, committed a crime on a computer. You don't get to remove all end to end cryptography so you can snoop. No, just no. Our society is flirting with these ideas, and they are BAD ideas.
On balance, the abuse happening in homeschooling household is microscopic compared to the abuse happening in current public schools. Both the every day kind and the dramatic makes the news murders and suicides. Put them on even scales rather than putting the specs of dust on the other side under a microscope.
There is a major difference between "make the investigation of crimes easy" and being able to even know they happened in the first place.
Children are incredibly vulnerable and we should be able to put basic protections in place.
It is not surveillance to require in some form that an adult in the system sees your child on some regular basis. This is something that your child simply being in school provides.
Either a way for an adult to notice that something is very wrong or a safe place for a child to report something.
> It is not surveillance to require in some form that an adult in the system sees your child on some regular basis. This is something that your child simply being in school provides.
That is surveillance in the same what that checking in with a probation officer is a form of surveillance. Just like encryption I'm not obligated to live my life in a way that makes detecting crimes easy or possible.
That's not really a related topic. In this case the parameter you demand to be prevented is "parental abuse" and the tool for preventing is "regulation". With the application of such regulation being applied via forcing the children into certain government run facilities.
The logical end of that is not "public school". It's an elimination of the concept of parents raising their own kids, in favor of removing children at birth and placing them in government run facilities.
That thing was incredibly frightening to see and just how much power the home school lobbying group has.
I am sure that what is shown here is in the severe minority, but I don't understand how we don't have some basic requirements in place. (well I understand how, but I can't think of a better phrasing)
Do you consider the power of the teacher's unions to shut down in person education for years in response to covid "incredibly frightening to see and just how much power the teachers Union lobbying group has"?
John Oliver's ostentatious display of concern and commentary frequently veers into the realm of exaggerated and borderline hysteria-inducing theatrics. Consequently, I approach his statements with a considerable dose of skepticism.
I love the “free thinking, libertarians” who always show up for homeschooling. A growing trend thanks to propaganda and a legal defense fund out of Moscow. Just love it when free thinkers eat up the fud to help weaken the US.
There was nothing to suggest that it is not listed in the video... You may not comment without watching things, but it is clear you comment without reading things.
Actually, I went back to read it again just to make sure I didn't say that there was no listing of the data in the video. When I first read your comment you had me thinking I had said that, but nope, it wasn't there.
Maybe someone else said it? Did you accidentally hit the wrong reply button?
I've never seen his show cover any single topic where I have a lot of knowledge where I thought they did even a passable job at conveying facts. It is after all a "comedy" show.
Most criticism of homeschooling boils down to soft bigotry against religious minorities, and hippies.
John Oliver is a comedian, clearly someone with an agenda, that sends his children to very expensive schools where the issues that many children face while at school don't exist, and that doesn't mention any data other than anecdotal evidence to support his particular views.
Are you sure? I assume younger teachers are the ones with younger kids starting school. I don't think paychecks for new starters and teacher assistants are that high. Unions usually care about employees with more years of service to the detriment of new employees.
Starting CPS salary is exactly where the average for the area is, but CPS also gets a huge amount of PTO, a good benefits package, and a defined benefit pension plan, and comp improves reasonably rapidly and (importantly) predictably. Rural teachers have it rough, but most of what you hear about teachers being underpaid doesn't apply so much to major blue city school systems.
> "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
> In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."
Problems with both education systems can exist at the same time. As a society, we can try to address the issues with both home schooling and the public education system, not just one or the other.
Of course we do. But I don't think pulling kids out of public schools and then demanding that your tax money be diverted away from public schools because you aren't using them is going to fix them.
It does sound like a good plan to promote if your goal is to dismantle the public education system though.
That’s great. But there are a lot of political pushes for things like voucher programs trying to pull money away from public education in favor of private options.
If people want to homeschool or private school while still supporting the public school system I take no issue with that.
It seems to make sense to pay for the school you are using. Be it public, private or homeschooling
If schools have been failing to prepare students for reality like some Baltimore schools, those schools losing students until they eventually shut down due to a lack of enrollment is the best fate for those bottom 20% of schools. It's bad to support and continue the existence of a school who cannot teach students to meet reading writing math or science expectations/Test scores
We all benefit from the existence of good public education, even if our own children do not use it. Cutting funding to government programs that are important to society because those programs clearly need help and reform also isn't the way to fix them.
> But we can address public schooling issues with policy.
Available evidence indicates that hasn't been working very well lately.
Or, to put it another way, if we can address it with policy, we can make it worse with policy. Do you trust the competence of the policy makers? Do you trust the competence of those who vote for the policy makers? If you're going to trust them, then you probably might as well trust the homeschoolers too.
Policy can and has done both positive and negative things to public schools. I wouldn't bet the farm on the next increment of policy going one way or the other
These are possible concerns, but not unilaterally true. This is precisely the narrative that I bet is being addressed in TFA.
I was homeschooled for a bit. It was fine. I went through a few grades at my own pace in one year, skipping assignments I didn't want to do and testing out whenever possible. When I went back to "real" school I was way ahead and got real bored. If I had had the opportunity to continue at my own pace, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. At that time I was a very fast reader and eager learner.
I was never very socially adept, but homeschooling didnt help, and that caused more issues than anything addressed in these silly doom-and-gloom comments.
It's not for everyone, sure, but as an option, it should probably not be completely outlawed. I'd be fine with similar testing requirements for both groups of students, for example. Or a tiny bit of regulation around "keeping a homeschool permit" or something that's based on test scores or something.
>For every parent who has the right personality, time AND education to teach their child at home, there are 5,000 who should NOT be teaching their kids - or anyone's kids.
Could say the same about teachers in schools really.
I have a vague sense from talking with teachers that the school systems are soul crushing, for both teachers and students. The consensus seems to be that there are very little resources for anyone not in +/- a half std dev of the mean, academically speaking, so both those outlier groups suffer.
> They can beat their kids or feed them candy all day, and nobody will know for a decade.
If they disappear into the forest, never to be seen by society again, sure. But for the families that have some community engagement, you soon find out. People notice, people talk.
Of course, knowing and doing something about it are very different things.
As someone who has been around the education systems my whole life, this is an unhelpful perspective to have. At least teachers generally have been educated in how to teach, specialize in a couple of fields(and age groups), and have a support structure for special needs students. The same is not expected from a homeschooling parent.
Ya no the schools routinely fail special needs students and even actively encourage homeschooling those kids sometimes because they see it as a big disruptive headache. I’ve seen this specifically with fellow parents who have kids on the spectrum (even though legally speaking the schools have an obligation to help these kids and meet their needs, there is a lot of dysfunction in how they try to do this and in some situations it seems intentionally harmful to deter the parents from keeping the kids there).
While I admire teachers (the many good ones) and their training, the fact is you don’t have to be smarter than them when you are teaching one or two kids full time and they are teaching ~25 for 6 hours a day.
There were almost 500 sexual misconduct complaints again public school teachers in just Chicago in 2022 when not all kids were back in school. There's something fundamentally broken there.
If you read section 4 of the CPS report they reference, you’ll find some interesting stats that Illinois Policy neglected to highlight:
- The investigative unit in question does not have discretion over what it must open a case for; they must open a case and investigate every claim even when said claims are submitted anonymously, or without evidence, even without names attached.
- That same investigative unit recently had its role expanded to include broader, non-sexual violations of the CPS guidelines for staff/student interactions.
- Over the past four years, it has only substantiated 300 policy violations, of which only 16 resulted in criminal charges.
So … suffice it to say Illinois Policy is selling a pretty slanted narrative there. They aren’t a neutral party. The actual report paints a hell of a lot less damning picture.
It is extremely misleading to say that 500 sexual misconduct allegations were leveled against teachers in one year.
In elementary school it's typical to have a single teacher for a whole year. A bad year can very easily throw off the rest of a child's education as they try to catch up.
Not really (even though the low pay for teachers is a filter for talent) - public school teachers still have to have at least a documented education to teach, and must maintain their certifications/training.
A documented education, however, does show that one can exhibit consistency with regards to a curriculum. Regardless of how you feel about expertise (judging from your comment history, I'd say you probably don't value expert opinions highly), the ability to adhere to a particular regimen is a virtue in education.
Yes, the vast majority of homeschooled children are the product of extremely evangelical families who close ranks in fear that their children will be taught a perspective that doesn't align with the parent's values. And that's fine, but those kids will eventually make it out into the real world.
I can't respond to OP since his comment has been flagged. Your comment seems to align slightly with his/hers. I have no problem with that whether it is informed opinion or not.
I was just wondering overall whether you noticed their username since unschooling is another form of home schooling but with fewer restrictions on how children learn and what they learn. I have a relative who unschooled their kids though I did not take that same path with mine.
Anyway, I know locally that a lot of the kids who are home schooled are outside the public school system for exactly the reasons you describe and I run into them all the time as they work their jobs locally. It's truly a mixed bag kinda like the old saying that the preacher's kids were the most fun at parties.
This is not a true nor respectful comment. Saying religion is a mental illness is not only deeply offensive but factually incorrect when research shows the benefits of religion [1].
My theory: With the huge number of home-schooled kids, there's a never-ending supply of outrageous & clicky "Home Schooler Does X!" long-tail stories for the Press to cash in on. Vs. grim stories about bottom-of-the-curve public school districts would both require the journalists to do more work, and attract accusations of racism & such.