3 ms·

This is why my family and so many people we know are either homeschooling or pooling resources to create small schools for their kids to attend where we have so

This is why my family and so many people we know are either homeschooling or pooling resources to create small schools for their kids to attend where we have some sort of control over their education and expectations of the students. You can't get tailored clothes at Wal-Mart and you can't educate high performing kids in public school. A lot of people have a problem with this approach but, you know, it is easy to ignore those vague ideologically driven arguments when it comes to doing what is best for your own kids especially when you are seeing great results. I have a feeling more people are going to go the bespoke education route even if it takes one parent staying home to do it.

noobiemcfoob 11y ago
While I plan to do the same for my own children unless the system dramatically changes, this approach unfairly favors the middle and upper classes who have the time to do this. The lower classes simply don't have the time and money to do this. That said, if you do have the time and money, more power to you! No reason to disadvantage your kids because the government and bureaucracy can't do it right.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- AlexEatsKittens 11y ago
  Very true. It's a feedback loop as well. Schools perform poorly, so affluent people remove their high-performing children, which lowers the average performance of the school and gives it less funding. And so on. The thing is, you can't blame people for optimizing for their own children, but doing so drags down the quality even further for everyone else. It's a problem that requires some serious intervention.
  - clavalle 11y ago
    I honestly think that is a 'treat the symptom' analysis. We need to think about why there are poor performers to begin with and it has very little to do with the few hundred dollars per student a school might lose because of not hitting performance targets.
- clavalle 11y ago
  > this approach unfairly favors the middle and upper classes who have the time to do this. Yes, that's the argument against it. And it is even worse than you might guess because they don't do just regular classroom stuff. They go on trips. They build things. They talk to experts. They use nice tablets and laptops. etc. Our local nice private school costs ~$20K a semester. We blow the doors off that cost just in lost wages alone. I'm a big believer in solving all problems at once -- we are solving this problem for ourselves and I think we are building a model for public schools to strive for if they ever care to look. We also need to try and solve the larger societal problem you mentioned. The key factor is parent focus and involvement. You can't reform schools alone to make that happen. The government is not getting it right, but not just because the schools aren't running as they should. We need to get to the point where people have the time and resources to care about their kids education on a day to day basis even at the lowest end of the socio-economic scale. We must get a better handle on poverty in this country.
Balgair 11y ago
My wife went to a Shang-Gri-La school until high school. No really, it sounds like a fantasy to me still. She decided on her curriculum from 1st grade onward and she decided on her tests. Yes, heavy guidance from teachers and parents here, but she did push back and insist on certain areas like dance and swimming. The ethos of the school was self improvement. She gave herself grades. Yes really. Here's the site: https://sites.google.com/a/bvsd.org/horizonsk8/ https://sites.google.com/a/bvsd.org/horizonsk8/ Granted this is Boulder CO, and it was 2 decades ago. As far as she has told me, it was public at that time too. Yes, that was/is a public school, money comes from the state and parents. https://sites.google.com/a/bvsd.org/horizonsk8/supporting-horizons https://sites.google.com/a/bvsd.org/horizonsk8/supporting-ho... Looking at the outcomes of the students and her friends, they tend to be either PhDs or in an art collective. They all are very high preforming and great people (I did in fact marry her, so I am biased). As far as she has told me, the economic backgrounds of the kids were independent too. Our maid-of-honor and her best friend through this school came from a household tornado'd by drugs. The maid-of-honor's mother can barely hold a sentence together from all the opiate damage. I say this because when you say "...and you can't educate high performing kids in public school." you are without any doubt completely and totally wrong. Any school can be a great place for any child. I understand that state laws are very different here, but that is not an excuse in a democracy. Especially when you are talking about education of your children. The entire point of society, of having governments, of the whole damn species is children. Education, dollar for dollar, is by far the most important thing you can spend money on as a society or democracy. So not fighting for great public schools like the one my wife went to is just ... sad. I'm telling you, collectives of homeschools may seem like a great idea at the time. But then you get schools like the ones in upstate NY (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/534/a-not-so-simple-majority http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/534/a...) and other crazys hell bent on religious based discrimination. Great public schools are worth fighting for, they are worth battling entrenched unions and politicians for, they are worth sending your kids to. I know, because my wife went to one and I didn't (http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/2415/ http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/2415/ http://www.calstate.edu/pa/clips2004/july/2july/ca.shtml http://www.calstate.edu/pa/clips2004/july/2july/ca.shtml). And, you know what, she's gonna be a public school teacher too.
- 11y ago

noobiemcfoob 11y ago

While I plan to do the same for my own children unless the system dramatically changes, this approach unfairly favors the middle and upper classes who have the time to do this. The lower classes simply don't have the time and money to do this. That said, if you do have the time and money, more power to you! No reason to disadvantage your kids because the government and bureaucracy can't do it right.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
AlexEatsKittens 11y ago
Very true. It's a feedback loop as well. Schools perform poorly, so affluent people remove their high-performing children, which lowers the average performance of the school and gives it less funding. And so on. The thing is, you can't blame people for optimizing for their own children, but doing so drags down the quality even further for everyone else. It's a problem that requires some serious intervention.
- clavalle 11y ago
  I honestly think that is a 'treat the symptom' analysis. We need to think about why there are poor performers to begin with and it has very little to do with the few hundred dollars per student a school might lose because of not hitting performance targets.
clavalle 11y ago
> this approach unfairly favors the middle and upper classes who have the time to do this. Yes, that's the argument against it. And it is even worse than you might guess because they don't do just regular classroom stuff. They go on trips. They build things. They talk to experts. They use nice tablets and laptops. etc. Our local nice private school costs ~$20K a semester. We blow the doors off that cost just in lost wages alone. I'm a big believer in solving all problems at once -- we are solving this problem for ourselves and I think we are building a model for public schools to strive for if they ever care to look. We also need to try and solve the larger societal problem you mentioned. The key factor is parent focus and involvement. You can't reform schools alone to make that happen. The government is not getting it right, but not just because the schools aren't running as they should. We need to get to the point where people have the time and resources to care about their kids education on a day to day basis even at the lowest end of the socio-economic scale. We must get a better handle on poverty in this country.

Balgair 11y ago

My wife went to a Shang-Gri-La school until high school. No really, it sounds like a fantasy to me still. She decided on her curriculum from 1st grade onward and she decided on her tests. Yes, heavy guidance from teachers and parents here, but she did push back and insist on certain areas like dance and swimming. The ethos of the school was self improvement. She gave herself grades. Yes really. Here's the site: https://sites.google.com/a/bvsd.org/horizonsk8/ https://sites.google.com/a/bvsd.org/horizonsk8/ Granted this is Boulder CO, and it was 2 decades ago. As far as she has told me, it was public at that time too. Yes, that was/is a public school, money comes from the state and parents. https://sites.google.com/a/bvsd.org/horizonsk8/supporting-horizons https://sites.google.com/a/bvsd.org/horizonsk8/supporting-ho... Looking at the outcomes of the students and her friends, they tend to be either PhDs or in an art collective. They all are very high preforming and great people (I did in fact marry her, so I am biased). As far as she has told me, the economic backgrounds of the kids were independent too. Our maid-of-honor and her best friend through this school came from a household tornado'd by drugs. The maid-of-honor's mother can barely hold a sentence together from all the opiate damage. I say this because when you say "...and you can't educate high performing kids in public school." you are without any doubt completely and totally wrong. Any school can be a great place for any child. I understand that state laws are very different here, but that is not an excuse in a democracy. Especially when you are talking about education of your children. The entire point of society, of having governments, of the whole damn species is children. Education, dollar for dollar, is by far the most important thing you can spend money on as a society or democracy. So not fighting for great public schools like the one my wife went to is just ... sad. I'm telling you, collectives of homeschools may seem like a great idea at the time. But then you get schools like the ones in upstate NY (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/534/a-not-so-simple-majority http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/534/a...) and other crazys hell bent on religious based discrimination. Great public schools are worth fighting for, they are worth battling entrenched unions and politicians for, they are worth sending your kids to. I know, because my wife went to one and I didn't (http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/2415/ http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/2415/ http://www.calstate.edu/pa/clips2004/july/2july/ca.shtml http://www.calstate.edu/pa/clips2004/july/2july/ca.shtml). And, you know what, she's gonna be a public school teacher too.

11y ago