5 ms·

Most people are in no position to teach their kids appropriately. If you have a highly motivated, well educated stay-at-home parent it can work great of course.

Most people are in no position to teach their kids appropriately. If you have a highly motivated, well educated stay-at-home parent it can work great of course. Otherwise, yes, there is incredible untapped human potential wasted in today's schools, unfortunately.

ThrustVectoring 10y ago
You're kind of assuming the conclusion - that children must be educated. If someone needs to learn something in order to meet their needs or fulfill their desires, there's hardly a force in the world that can stop them from picking stuff up. If it doesn't meet their needs or fulfill their desires, then why are you trying to make them learn it anyways? Setting up an environment that allows children to learn is ridiculously easy. Food, shelter, freedom to explore and experiment, other children and adults to interact with and discover things, more detailed resources if they end up needing math or something to solve a problem, and so forth. Primary schooling costs something like $200k total per student, and this expense could buy a lot of child-focused structure.
- pfarnsworth 10y ago
  200k sounds wrong. I have my children in private school and it costs about $25k each per year. Assuming that the private school is profitable, to get to $200k would need a lot of explanation. Sure, amortization of the mortgage for school grounds, etc, but that won't make up the difference.
  - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
    $200k over twelve years, or ballpark of $16k/yr. Quick Google research says that this is on the higher end of public school expenditure levels, but not unheard of.
    - npunt 10y ago
      Typically schools get between $4-8k/pupil/yr. Rich neighborhoods get more, owing to the greater property taxes collected and the ratio of local/state/federal (approx 50/43/7 in CA). Rich ones have a lot of other resource advantages but that's a discussion for another place. Critically, there's an big economies of scale advantage in schools relative to homeschooling. Resource specialization has advantages. Just spitballing, I'd imagine the curve would show it's at least 2-3x cheaper to provide an equivalent education to a student at a mid-sized school relative to a student in a 5-student homeschool environment, and probably 5x+ for single student - obviously depends on the parent's earning capacity and skill as a teacher. The argument for homeschooling is almost never about cost though, due in part to this enormous disadvantage.
      - rayiner 10y ago
        > Rich neighborhoods get more, owing to the greater property taxes collected and the ratio of local/state/federal (approx 50/43/7 in CA). Usually not. School funding is not allocated at the "neighborhood" level but instead the county level. There is almost no difference between per student funding between the richest and poorest counties: http://hechingerreport.org/the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-schools-grew-44-percent-over-a-decade http://hechingerreport.org/the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-sch... ("I keep specifying 'state' and 'local' funding because the picture gets more complicated when you factor in federal funding. Once you do, almost all of the funding gaps disappear."). You can argue that poorer students should get more funding than richer ones to help equalize other gaps. I'm not sure I agree with that. Most of that money would go to middle class teachers and administrators. I bet those kids would be better off if you just wrote them a check (or put the money in a trust fund that would then pay them an extra couple of hundred dollars every month for the rest of their lives).
        npunt 10y ago
        You're partially right, depending on laws around allocation schools in rich neighborhoods may not get more money. But they often do, and by a lot. There are also differences at the neighborhood level. We see that in California quite a bit. > A yawning gulf separates even school districts serving students from similar demographic backgrounds. For example, in 2009-10, the latest data available, per-pupil revenue was $14,076 in Palo Alto versus $7,679 in Milpitas, both unified districts serving K-12 students. But clearly, affluence counts: In San Mateo County, the Woodside elementary district took in $18,894 per student, while Millbrae elementary got $7,362 per student. [1] The latter example is a 2.5x difference in funding, within the same county. This is in part due to some local support in Woodside [2] but its more than just that. The gaps are huge. I disagree about not equalizing gaps, because there's one scarce resource here that isn't even discussed: quality teachers. By default, quality teachers are more likely to want to work in nicer communities, and we don't need to compound that by offering to pay them less (sometimes far less) to work in underprivileged schools. Meanwhile, giving undereducated kids money instead of education is a great way to fulfill the old adage 'a fool and their money are soon parted'. [1] http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/02/26/some-california-schools-get-twice-the-funding-and-more-of-others/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/02/26/some-california-school... [2] http://www.almanacnews.com/news/2015/12/01/woodside-elementary-is-a-district-with-resources http://www.almanacnews.com/news/2015/12/01/woodside-elementa...
    - pfarnsworth 10y ago
      At first I thought you meant for the entire education, but primary school is not 12 years. So I thought you meant per year. Even covering primary school, your figure of $200k is off. If you meant all of schooling, including middle and high school, then it's closer.
      - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
        Yeah, I meant grades 1-12, forgot that middle and high school is called "secondary schooling". My bad.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    The average public school in the United States spends $11,000 to $12,000 per student per year. Assuming a modest 4% return on investments, that adds up to just about $200,000 in thirteen years (K-12).
sytelus 10y ago
Home schooled kids largely miss out on lot of things. The quality of education (surprisingly) is irrelevant here. The major thing that school enables is socialization, ability to interact with other kids, form friendships, face/become adversaries, collaborate, strategize interactions and so on. All these social aspects would play much larger role in their lives than any formal subject they learned. In ancient times, this would been naturally enabled as parents go on doing their duties and kids in the village play/work together all day. In modern times, school is usually the only available close approximation.
- wernercd 10y ago
  Being homeschooled doesn't mean the kid(s) don't get socialized. There is more than one way to interact with other people in formative years... I have close family members who have been home-schooled and they are very well rounded adults.
- js2 10y ago
  We home school our kids and I cannot disagree more strongly. I'm not sure where this myth that home schooled kids miss out on socialization comes from. We don't lock our children up at home. My daughter (16) is outside the home for: piano, spanish, voice lessons, horse riding, and acting. She currently helps TA kids at a local community theater. This is not to mention the time she spends with her friends. My son (14) is outside the home for: piano, spanish, soccer. And also to play with his friends. They also both regularly take extra curricular classes. Just one example: http://ccee.unc.edu/youth-new/classes/bolin-creek/ http://ccee.unc.edu/youth-new/classes/bolin-creek/ I went to public school. My kids are much more socialable than I was at their age. The social environment at public school is nothing like the real world and I'm glad to have my kids skip it.
  - yequalsx 10y ago
    I notice that the activities you describe your kids doing are, for the most part, structured. How do you know they are socially adept or sociable? Will they freak out once on their own? I have 15 nieces and nephews from 2 sisters. Both home schooled through elementary school and one did it for all of k-12. The k-12 homeschooled kids were done a great disservice by their mom. She has b.s. degree in accounting and is in no way qualified to teach kids. I guess my pint is that our anecdotes cancel each other out but I'm curious to know why you think homeschooling is benefitting your kids. Why do you think you are qualified to teach them the variety of subjects one learns in high school. Why do do you think they are more successful being homeschooled?

ThrustVectoring 10y ago

You're kind of assuming the conclusion - that children must be educated. If someone needs to learn something in order to meet their needs or fulfill their desires, there's hardly a force in the world that can stop them from picking stuff up. If it doesn't meet their needs or fulfill their desires, then why are you trying to make them learn it anyways? Setting up an environment that allows children to learn is ridiculously easy. Food, shelter, freedom to explore and experiment, other children and adults to interact with and discover things, more detailed resources if they end up needing math or something to solve a problem, and so forth. Primary schooling costs something like $200k total per student, and this expense could buy a lot of child-focused structure.

pfarnsworth 10y ago
200k sounds wrong. I have my children in private school and it costs about $25k each per year. Assuming that the private school is profitable, to get to $200k would need a lot of explanation. Sure, amortization of the mortgage for school grounds, etc, but that won't make up the difference.
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  $200k over twelve years, or ballpark of $16k/yr. Quick Google research says that this is on the higher end of public school expenditure levels, but not unheard of.
  - npunt 10y ago
    Typically schools get between $4-8k/pupil/yr. Rich neighborhoods get more, owing to the greater property taxes collected and the ratio of local/state/federal (approx 50/43/7 in CA). Rich ones have a lot of other resource advantages but that's a discussion for another place. Critically, there's an big economies of scale advantage in schools relative to homeschooling. Resource specialization has advantages. Just spitballing, I'd imagine the curve would show it's at least 2-3x cheaper to provide an equivalent education to a student at a mid-sized school relative to a student in a 5-student homeschool environment, and probably 5x+ for single student - obviously depends on the parent's earning capacity and skill as a teacher. The argument for homeschooling is almost never about cost though, due in part to this enormous disadvantage.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      > Rich neighborhoods get more, owing to the greater property taxes collected and the ratio of local/state/federal (approx 50/43/7 in CA). Usually not. School funding is not allocated at the "neighborhood" level but instead the county level. There is almost no difference between per student funding between the richest and poorest counties: http://hechingerreport.org/the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-schools-grew-44-percent-over-a-decade http://hechingerreport.org/the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-sch... ("I keep specifying 'state' and 'local' funding because the picture gets more complicated when you factor in federal funding. Once you do, almost all of the funding gaps disappear."). You can argue that poorer students should get more funding than richer ones to help equalize other gaps. I'm not sure I agree with that. Most of that money would go to middle class teachers and administrators. I bet those kids would be better off if you just wrote them a check (or put the money in a trust fund that would then pay them an extra couple of hundred dollars every month for the rest of their lives).
      - npunt 10y ago
        You're partially right, depending on laws around allocation schools in rich neighborhoods may not get more money. But they often do, and by a lot. There are also differences at the neighborhood level. We see that in California quite a bit. > A yawning gulf separates even school districts serving students from similar demographic backgrounds. For example, in 2009-10, the latest data available, per-pupil revenue was $14,076 in Palo Alto versus $7,679 in Milpitas, both unified districts serving K-12 students. But clearly, affluence counts: In San Mateo County, the Woodside elementary district took in $18,894 per student, while Millbrae elementary got $7,362 per student. [1] The latter example is a 2.5x difference in funding, within the same county. This is in part due to some local support in Woodside [2] but its more than just that. The gaps are huge. I disagree about not equalizing gaps, because there's one scarce resource here that isn't even discussed: quality teachers. By default, quality teachers are more likely to want to work in nicer communities, and we don't need to compound that by offering to pay them less (sometimes far less) to work in underprivileged schools. Meanwhile, giving undereducated kids money instead of education is a great way to fulfill the old adage 'a fool and their money are soon parted'. [1] http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/02/26/some-california-schools-get-twice-the-funding-and-more-of-others/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/02/26/some-california-school... [2] http://www.almanacnews.com/news/2015/12/01/woodside-elementary-is-a-district-with-resources http://www.almanacnews.com/news/2015/12/01/woodside-elementa...
  - pfarnsworth 10y ago
    At first I thought you meant for the entire education, but primary school is not 12 years. So I thought you meant per year. Even covering primary school, your figure of $200k is off. If you meant all of schooling, including middle and high school, then it's closer.
    - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
      Yeah, I meant grades 1-12, forgot that middle and high school is called "secondary schooling". My bad.
- rayiner 10y ago
  The average public school in the United States spends $11,000 to $12,000 per student per year. Assuming a modest 4% return on investments, that adds up to just about $200,000 in thirteen years (K-12).

sytelus 10y ago

Home schooled kids largely miss out on lot of things. The quality of education (surprisingly) is irrelevant here. The major thing that school enables is socialization, ability to interact with other kids, form friendships, face/become adversaries, collaborate, strategize interactions and so on. All these social aspects would play much larger role in their lives than any formal subject they learned. In ancient times, this would been naturally enabled as parents go on doing their duties and kids in the village play/work together all day. In modern times, school is usually the only available close approximation.

wernercd 10y ago
Being homeschooled doesn't mean the kid(s) don't get socialized. There is more than one way to interact with other people in formative years... I have close family members who have been home-schooled and they are very well rounded adults.
js2 10y ago
We home school our kids and I cannot disagree more strongly. I'm not sure where this myth that home schooled kids miss out on socialization comes from. We don't lock our children up at home. My daughter (16) is outside the home for: piano, spanish, voice lessons, horse riding, and acting. She currently helps TA kids at a local community theater. This is not to mention the time she spends with her friends. My son (14) is outside the home for: piano, spanish, soccer. And also to play with his friends. They also both regularly take extra curricular classes. Just one example: http://ccee.unc.edu/youth-new/classes/bolin-creek/ http://ccee.unc.edu/youth-new/classes/bolin-creek/ I went to public school. My kids are much more socialable than I was at their age. The social environment at public school is nothing like the real world and I'm glad to have my kids skip it.
- yequalsx 10y ago
  I notice that the activities you describe your kids doing are, for the most part, structured. How do you know they are socially adept or sociable? Will they freak out once on their own? I have 15 nieces and nephews from 2 sisters. Both home schooled through elementary school and one did it for all of k-12. The k-12 homeschooled kids were done a great disservice by their mom. She has b.s. degree in accounting and is in no way qualified to teach kids. I guess my pint is that our anecdotes cancel each other out but I'm curious to know why you think homeschooling is benefitting your kids. Why do you think you are qualified to teach them the variety of subjects one learns in high school. Why do do you think they are more successful being homeschooled?