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I think communal support in this manner is a good idea. Schooling children at home on a lower income is possible, and I've known people who have made it work su

I think communal support in this manner is a good idea. Schooling children at home on a lower income is possible, and I've known people who have made it work successfully (pre-COVID). I also think things like homeschool "pods" or "co-ops" where families form isolated clusters to help share the burden can help. Worth noting that, at least in California, a decision was made to allocate funding to schools based on last years enrollment numbers, rather than this upcoming school year's numbers. One major implication is that charter schools that are more prepared to help parents deal with schooling at home will not receive increased funding to help with the massive increase in enrollment applications these schools have received.

danans 6y ago
> Schooling children at home on a lower income is possible, and I've known people who have made it work successfully (pre-COVID). Very often these are people who are highly educated themselves, having college degrees or are self-taught and whose work is intellectual or creative/technical in its nature. It's not a solution for people or communities who don't have those built-in advantages. You can't expect low paid essential workers (grocery store clerks, janitors, etc) - people who have no higher education and even limited primary education but on whose labor we are all heavily dependent - to form home-school "pods" that provide anything like what their children had access to in their school. Doing so would be (and by all accounts currently is) exacerbating the inequities already present. The public school teacher to a less educationally resourced community is much like rural schoolhouse teacher of the past was to theirs. Those teachers were often the only person in the community with any higher education at all. The parents within rural community weren't resourced to teach their children the basic skills needed to operate in an ever more sophisticated world, which is why they often imported a schoolteacher from a nearby city or town. That said, even a lot of parents with higher education struggle to help their kids with subjects that they haven't considered since their own primary schooling, like algebra or critical reading and writing.
- lliamander 6y ago
  It's a way to make the best of a bad situation, not a long-term alternative to brick-and-mortar schools. Providing funding for childcare services (from public school budgets) would also be a good idea, but if we are going to have large-scale child-care services, why not just re-open schools? If the point of closing public schools is to minimize the amount of social contact in order to keep the spread of the disease low, then it necessarily means more parents will need to care for their children at home. Homeschool pods and charter schools make this process less of a pain. Btw, not all homeschooling families are well-educated. Many do it for religious reasons, or because they have concerns about the safety of the school environment, or because they have a child with special needs that aren't accommodated by the public school system. Charter schools that facilitate homeschooling have teachers who are resources for the parents and a variety of pre-packaged curricula that parents can choose from.
  - danans 6y ago
    > It's a way to make the best of a bad situation, not a long-term alternative to brick-and-mortar schools. Agree 100% > Providing funding for childcare services (from public school budgets) would also be a good idea There is no money in public school budgets for this. The pandemic hasn't lowered expenses for public schools by any appreciable amount. > but if we are going to have large-scale child-care services, why not just re-open schools? If the point of closing public schools is to minimize the amount of social contact in order to keep the spread of the disease low, then it necessarily means more parents will need to care for their children at home. The idea is to provide financial assistance to help low income parents pay for child care when they must leave the home for work, and do so in smaller pods to minimize disease transmission. Parents with high incomes and/or high work flexibility or work from home jobs are already forming these pods and hiring college students as childcare/tutors. Poor families with inflexible work are not able to do this. These pods are a net increase in cost, since the safety and care function was previously provided by the school facilities and staff has been lost. As you say, it's making the best of a bad situation. The problem is that only people with particular privileges either in job flexibility or income can afford to make the best in the situation. > Btw, not all homeschooling families are well-educated. Many do it for religious reasons, I'd argue that from a literacy perspective, a religious home schooling family is better educated than many others even if they don't have secular credentials. The Bible isn't that easy to read, after all.

danans 6y ago

> Schooling children at home on a lower income is possible, and I've known people who have made it work successfully (pre-COVID). Very often these are people who are highly educated themselves, having college degrees or are self-taught and whose work is intellectual or creative/technical in its nature. It's not a solution for people or communities who don't have those built-in advantages. You can't expect low paid essential workers (grocery store clerks, janitors, etc) - people who have no higher education and even limited primary education but on whose labor we are all heavily dependent - to form home-school "pods" that provide anything like what their children had access to in their school. Doing so would be (and by all accounts currently is) exacerbating the inequities already present. The public school teacher to a less educationally resourced community is much like rural schoolhouse teacher of the past was to theirs. Those teachers were often the only person in the community with any higher education at all. The parents within rural community weren't resourced to teach their children the basic skills needed to operate in an ever more sophisticated world, which is why they often imported a schoolteacher from a nearby city or town. That said, even a lot of parents with higher education struggle to help their kids with subjects that they haven't considered since their own primary schooling, like algebra or critical reading and writing.

lliamander 6y ago
It's a way to make the best of a bad situation, not a long-term alternative to brick-and-mortar schools. Providing funding for childcare services (from public school budgets) would also be a good idea, but if we are going to have large-scale child-care services, why not just re-open schools? If the point of closing public schools is to minimize the amount of social contact in order to keep the spread of the disease low, then it necessarily means more parents will need to care for their children at home. Homeschool pods and charter schools make this process less of a pain. Btw, not all homeschooling families are well-educated. Many do it for religious reasons, or because they have concerns about the safety of the school environment, or because they have a child with special needs that aren't accommodated by the public school system. Charter schools that facilitate homeschooling have teachers who are resources for the parents and a variety of pre-packaged curricula that parents can choose from.
- danans 6y ago
  > It's a way to make the best of a bad situation, not a long-term alternative to brick-and-mortar schools. Agree 100% > Providing funding for childcare services (from public school budgets) would also be a good idea There is no money in public school budgets for this. The pandemic hasn't lowered expenses for public schools by any appreciable amount. > but if we are going to have large-scale child-care services, why not just re-open schools? If the point of closing public schools is to minimize the amount of social contact in order to keep the spread of the disease low, then it necessarily means more parents will need to care for their children at home. The idea is to provide financial assistance to help low income parents pay for child care when they must leave the home for work, and do so in smaller pods to minimize disease transmission. Parents with high incomes and/or high work flexibility or work from home jobs are already forming these pods and hiring college students as childcare/tutors. Poor families with inflexible work are not able to do this. These pods are a net increase in cost, since the safety and care function was previously provided by the school facilities and staff has been lost. As you say, it's making the best of a bad situation. The problem is that only people with particular privileges either in job flexibility or income can afford to make the best in the situation. > Btw, not all homeschooling families are well-educated. Many do it for religious reasons, I'd argue that from a literacy perspective, a religious home schooling family is better educated than many others even if they don't have secular credentials. The Bible isn't that easy to read, after all.