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As usual, causation is not correlation, and consciously deciding to take your children out of public schools and either homeschool them or put them in an altern

As usual, causation is not correlation, and consciously deciding to take your children out of public schools and either homeschool them or put them in an alternative school show's a significant amount more involvement in your child's life than is the norm. Also, that study was produced by an organization, (http://www.nheri.org/ http://www.nheri.org/) that is specifically dedicated to producing studies about homeschooling. The titles of their reports all allude to defending the idea of homeschooling, and they put out guides to putting it into practice. The children for the study were "almost 12,000 home-school students from all 50 states who took three well-known standardized achievements tests", which aren't required for children to take, unless possibly if they live in Iowa or California. It doesn't seem unreasonable to think that poorly performing homeschooled children would not take these tests, since they have nothing to gain from them. For what it's worth, all the anecdotal evidence I have from growing up and knowing a number of home-schooled children, it's certainly not guaranteed to work better than public schools, and I've never met an intelligent, thoughtful person to come out of it. Not that amazingly smart people can't result, but I've never met them, and I feel like that's the attitude you're up against. I hope there are more and better stats, because presenting ones like yours above will only steel the negative opinion of most people towards homeschooling.

jimwise 16y ago
I think you mean `correlation is not causation'. Where there is causation, there certainly _is_ correlation. In any case, are their any methodological problems with this study that you can point to? Any other studies you can point to that give a different result? I'm also curious about your anecdotal evidence, which you seem to give more weight than this study. Do you routinely ask people you meet whether they were home schooled? Do the ``intelligent, thoughtful'' people you meet routinely come out and tell you that they are not home schooled? Almost three percent of the current US student population is home schooled[1]. You've probably met a lot more home schoolers than you realize... [1] Study (pdf) as of 2007 at http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009030.pdf
Duff 16y ago
Homeschooling or sending your kids to private school is out of the current norm because the compulsory system is so expensive that most folks cannot afford to pay for both. My school taxes in NY are $3,000 for a middle-class house -- $2,500 less than tuition at the local church school. Before about 60-70 years ago, public school wasn't the norm at all. The enrollment in the public schools in my city was 40% less in 1960, when the school age population of the city was double what it is now. Why? Parents sent kids to Catholic schools. The Iowa tests are given to kids all over the country. I took them in Upstate NY. When I lived in NYC, we took a different achievement test... it was either a California test or a NYC-specific one. I don't have any kids, and don't have much skin in the game. I simply presented some information. But equating parents who want to exercise the freedom to educate their kids in a way appropriate to them as abnormal is offensive to any citizen of a free society.

jimwise 16y ago

I think you mean `correlation is not causation'. Where there is causation, there certainly _is_ correlation. In any case, are their any methodological problems with this study that you can point to? Any other studies you can point to that give a different result? I'm also curious about your anecdotal evidence, which you seem to give more weight than this study. Do you routinely ask people you meet whether they were home schooled? Do the ``intelligent, thoughtful'' people you meet routinely come out and tell you that they are not home schooled? Almost three percent of the current US student population is home schooled[1]. You've probably met a lot more home schoolers than you realize... [1] Study (pdf) as of 2007 at http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009030.pdf

Duff 16y ago

Homeschooling or sending your kids to private school is out of the current norm because the compulsory system is so expensive that most folks cannot afford to pay for both. My school taxes in NY are $3,000 for a middle-class house -- $2,500 less than tuition at the local church school. Before about 60-70 years ago, public school wasn't the norm at all. The enrollment in the public schools in my city was 40% less in 1960, when the school age population of the city was double what it is now. Why? Parents sent kids to Catholic schools. The Iowa tests are given to kids all over the country. I took them in Upstate NY. When I lived in NYC, we took a different achievement test... it was either a California test or a NYC-specific one. I don't have any kids, and don't have much skin in the game. I simply presented some information. But equating parents who want to exercise the freedom to educate their kids in a way appropriate to them as abnormal is offensive to any citizen of a free society.