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For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

• heisenbit 3y ago
  There are nutty parents. There is a distinct risk they are able to „protect“ their children for longer from unwelcome but normal influences in a home and micro schools.
• jawns 3y ago
  We are in our ninth year of homeschooling. My wife and I attended private and public schools and grew up with typical biases against homeschooling, e.g. they lack social skills. When we got married, we always assumed we'd send our kids to traditional schools. What we learned, though, is that homeschooling has changed since we were in school. Back then, it was a niche, and the sort of parents who chose to homeschool usually existed on the fringe (and probably lacked social skills themselves). Nowadays, there are a lot more "normal" families who choose to homeschool. Our family, and many others we've encountered, values and promotes social skills. Our kids attend co-ops, play sports, and do other activities with their peers. And because the demographics of homeschoolers have changed, so too have the ways that they homeschool. It's not very surprising that there is more collaborative teaching, where parents remain the primary educators, but certain subjects are outsourced to co-ops, online sessions on Outschool, etc.
  • mythrwy 3y ago
    The argument about lack of socialization from failure to attend public school might have some basis. But thinking back, I came out of the public schools with some pretty anti social behaviors and attitudes that I picked up there. Being cool is so important at that age in that setting. I often wonder what life would have been like had I been taken out say, age 12 or 13 and given a more solid education to match my natural inclinations away from the cruelty, the misbehavior and the general time wasting that characterizes much of public school in the US. Kuddos to you for putting in the effort to give your kids the best possible real education. It has to be a lot of work.
    • ryandrake 3y ago
      Is public school really that cruel these days? I have a 10 year old, and everyone in her class seems so wholesome and... exceedingly tolerant for lack of a better phrase. Compared to when I was a 10 year old where public school was a Lord Of The Flies thunderdome with bullying, and shoving people into lockers, and fights, and in-groups and out-groups and nerds vs. jocks, all the cruel 80s stereotypes. Sure, there's the occasional story of extreme bullying that happens to make the news, but it seems like these are far outliers these days. I see absolutely zero need to pull her out. The academics are ok--not what an expensive private school might offer, but they track well with what I was learning at that age. The social/institutional environment is much better than when I was a kid. The few parents I know who homeschool (admittedly, mostly from my wife's church group) do so for religious separatism reasons, not for educational outcome. They object to public school on ideological grounds and perceived "indoctrination," not on the academics.
      • ufmace 3y ago
        It's probably impossible to generalize among all public schools. Some are and some aren't to various degrees depending on a thousand factors. The problem is more like, how do you realize if a particular public school class is bad and what are your practical options once you do.
      • mythrwy 3y ago
        I don't know about today and don't have kids. This was in the late 70's/ 80's. It was as you say, Lord of The Flies indeed. Good to hear maybe it has improved. Or maybe the bullying is all online now. I'd like to point out, 10 years old isn't really in the thick of it yet. Might rethink your statement say, Junior year of high school.
      • NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
        > Is public school really that cruel these days? This is a good question, but how am I supposed to find out the answer with any real certainty short of exposing my kids to it? Not really a sane option. "Hey, kiddo, go dance on the minefield and see if there are any left" isn't my style of parenting. > Sure, there's the occasional story of extreme bullying that happens to make the news, but it seems like these are far outliers these days. It's quite possible that the extremes are just the ones that make the news. The low-intensity torment is in my opinion just as traumatizing, but unless some parent raises a big stink about it then it usually doesn't even rise to the level of neighborhood gossip.
  • jimmytucson 3y ago
    How much time does homeschooling take for you? Does it roughly equate to one full-time job? I have wanted to homeschool my kids but I am afraid I would have to quit my job or downshift to part-time. And since they are different ages, I worry that if I taught them all at the same time, the curriculum would average into something too challenging for the younger and not challenging enough for the elder. How do you manage to meet all their needs at once?
    • baryphonic 3y ago
      I homeschool my two kids. I was worried about the time commitment at first, but it's honestly quite small. At most, I spend two hours in the morning for both kids. Typical mornings are an hour to an hour and a half. Some subjects like social studies we do together (my kids are two years apart). Others, like math or language arts, are per child (I usually have the other one read or practice piano when giving a one-on-one lesson). My wife does a lot of the supplemental activities like taking them to our co-op or to museums. A lot of time in public schools is either wasted or simply a consequence of classes having ~30 students each. I also find that homeschool kids can be taught the discipline to work on their own after a lesson. I check the work in the evenings or before school starts in the morning. I can understand why many people might not want to homeschool, but I find it's been a blessing for my kids & our family.
      • theonething 3y ago
        So did you work while you were homeschooling your kids?
    • NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      Motivated children can easily outpace public-schooled children with 3 or 4 days a week at 3 hours a day. They can be very self-directed, but the trouble with it is they go down rabbit holes and they'll excel at one or two subjects to the detriment of others. My daughter would want to spend 6-10 hours a day on art, but wouldn't want to do her French or math homework. My son just told me that alef (in the Hebrew alphabet) was the symbol for Graham's number, but balks when I try to get him to memorize his multiplication tables. > And since they are different ages, I worry that if I taught them all at the same time, the curriculum would average into something too challenging If there is a subject where that is the case, I do not know what it would be. Once they're past the age of 7 or 8, most or all children are capable of what they would be at older ages. I don't think, for instance, that an 8 yr old learning to read is slower at it than one learning that for the first time at age 14. For the record though, didn't get to teach my son to read. With his sister, I tried from age three on up... every few months I'd see if she was more agreeable to it, and she wanted nothing to do with it until sevenish. She could sound words out phonetically if I pushed from the start, but with a look on her face like I was pulling teeth with pliers. So I waited with my son until he was almost seven... and he could just read. I have no idea how. My wife claims she didn't, and his sister certainly didn't either. I think, really, that public schools doing age segregation has more to do with them trying to perfectly homogenize the product they crank off the assembly line, than it does with making sure each student gets enough learning opportunity.
  • NickM 3y ago
    Speaking from experience, there were plenty of normal families who chose homeschooling decades ago. The problem is that the weird people make a lot of noise, and then homeschooling gets a reputation, which causes the self-aware normal folks to shy away from talking about homeschooling too publicly because they don't want to be associated with the negative stereotypes. The trouble is, this can become a feedback loop, because the only way to dispel the stereotypes is if more normal folks speak up. I've seen this same phenomenon affect other subcultures too, and I suspect there's probably a name for it, but I don't know what it is.
  • homeskool111 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • abnry 3y ago
      Very, very wrong. I know numerous homeschooled peers who have advanced degrees, including PhDs.
      • bigbillheck 3y ago
        You know what they say about the plural of 'anecdote'.
        • abnry 3y ago
          Of course, but I can respond to anecdotes with anecdotes.
    • SoftTalker 3y ago
      I mean it greatly depends on the quality and dedication of the parents doing the homeschooling. I never considered it for my kids because our public schools are pretty good, and I did not feel I had the experience or resources or time to do any better. But some people have more of a passion for it and find answers to those issues. I'm sure there are kids who are poorly homeschooled, but your anecdote does not meany anything in the big picture. Shall I tell you about all the public-school kids I met who ended up flunking out of college?
    • lieut_data 3y ago
      Homeschooler here, from the era before this modern trend. Definitely grew up around students with poor social skills -— and even started out that way myself! —- but I graduated university with honours in computer science and have a successful career in software engineering. I could share lots of anecdotes in the reverse, but that’s really all they are. Either way, homeschooling wasn’t nonsense for me, and I’m choosing to continue that legacy with my children alongside this next generation of parents who believe homeschooling is the best option for their family.
    • 3y ago
  • AlwaysRock 3y ago
    Just as a counterpoint... I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. I played sports the entire time (was the captain of various teams), had plenty of friends, and was pretty social. Even still, I felt like my social skills were significantly stunted when compared to others my age. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable just hanging out with others because most of my social time was spent doing activities. Was in high school ~10 years ago and the other homeschool families we knew were a mix of farm/ultra religious low social skill homeschoolers and fairly normal folks with decent social skills. TLDR: I think there is a social aspect of being in school that homeschool kids miss out on, regardless of how many extracurricular or sports they may do.
    • edmundsauto 3y ago
      I was public schooled and also felt uncomfortable sitting around hanging out, without a purpose or a goal or activity. May not be home schooling that is the cause - people are just different.
      • AlwaysRock 3y ago
        I feel that same way but I wouldnt lump that in with social skills. When I went to a public high school we didnt do a lot of sitting around and hanging out. We went to classes.
    • rayiner 3y ago
      What do you mean by "social skills?" As an immigrant with parents who limited social activity with peers, growing up I felt handicapped by my social skills in some areas (particularly dating, which my parents discouraged up to the moment they started asking for grandchildren). Now I'm pushing 40 with three kids and a real job, I realized I had just learned a different set of social skills. Because I was always expected to converse with and participate in activities with adults, I had no trouble when it came to joining the workforce, interacting with bosses, etc. And whatever discomfort I had navigating the artificial social context of age-segregated school just didn't matter--it wasn't a valuable skill outside that unique context.
  • rayiner 3y ago
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    • deleted 3y ago
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  • el_benhameen 3y ago
    If you’re willing to share, I’m curious to hear what changed your mind about homeschooling and what made you choose to homeschool your kids.
    • jawns 3y ago
      There were a few things that led to us recognizing and adjusting our biases. But what led us to homeschool ourselves was pretty straightforward. My wife was a teacher in private schools for about 7 years, and once our oldest was ready for kindergarten, we decided that she could either go out and teach other people's kids, or she could homeschool and teach her own kids.
      • SamBam 3y ago
        If I could pry further, that doesn't seem a "straightforward" answer to me, it sounds a little pat. Both my wife and I are teachers, and have kids, and we don't have a problem "teaching other people's children" -- that's why we went into teaching.
        • ryzvonusef 3y ago
          I assume the cost of the children's formal education (private school might have discounts for employees, but they still probably have to pay some fees), plus possibly the lower salary of teachers might have been a factor. (also daycare costs for the kids not school going age yet) If they are saving money by not paying school fees, and having to transport family and wife to the school/daycare everyday, and they are getting a professional qualified teacher at home, with a very favourable teacher : student ratio and unlimited teaching time.... well I can understand why they are willing to take the hit of losing the teacher-spouse's salary.
  • gemstones 3y ago
    As a homeschooled kid: Be warned that I heard “homeschooling has changed since we were in school” in the early 2000s, from multiple parents who are now estranged from their adult children. It hasn’t really changed that much - it’s just something parents like to tell themselves to avoid thinking about the experiences their children are missing.
    • lolinder 3y ago
      It sounds like you had a rough experience. I'm sorry about that. That said, for a lot of families homeschooling had changed by the late 90s and early 2000s. I was homeschooled around that time with my siblings, as were my wife and her family. We all still have great relationships with our parents, and our homeschool experiences were very far from the stereotypes. We participated in many different co-ops. We took every AP class offered at the local high school. We're all functional adults with normal social lives. It's obviously hard to come to any conclusions from warring anecdotes alone, but I thought it's worth sharing mine. Strained relationships with adult children suck, but they're not a given when homeschooling, nor does sending your kids to public school necessarily save your relationship with your kids.
      • gemstones 3y ago
        12/13 of the circle of homeschooling families that made up our socialization group in the 90s/00s have gone no contact with their parents now. Congrats on your success, it’s not the norm.
        • lolinder 3y ago
          Not the norm within your social group, which was presumably mutually selected by your respective parents. That suggests that these families are not 13 independent data points, but rather a group of 13 families that all had similar predispositions and evolved along similar lines. I'd like to see the stats overall before coming to a conclusion about what the norm is.
          • 3y ago
  • ryzvonusef 3y ago
    could you share more about the mechanics of it? Do you have a separate "school" room? All the kids in one room, or separately? How many hours each day? How effective is your spouse in partitioning the "parent vs teacher" roles? How does your spouse manage to handle your kids in different "classes" (and thus education stages) at the same time? I understand to Home-school in some US states, you are supposed to follow some sort of curriculum, how much flexibility do you have?
• pierat 3y ago
  Synposis: Shitty Silly-Con valley company is selling "teaching homeschoolers" under the guise of "microschooling" and "guides" instead of proper teachers. Reading in any of these scam companies, and you'll find quickly that they are not schools, and these are not accredited teachers. But again, deregulation and demolishment of public sector structures and laws to further private interests IS the point, as we'll see. And their payment model is bonkers.... https://www.prenda.com/empowering-learners https://www.prenda.com/empowering-learners The Prenda Fee - "The Prenda fee for the 2023-2024 school year is $2,199." (As in, each student's family pays this to Prenda) The Guide Fee - "The guide fee is set by you as the guide and will vary from microschool to microschool." (AKA The Uber/AirBNB model of education, where the intermediates have no knowledge and all the risk.) And some states allow redirecting funds from state education money to pay for this new scam. And this goes back to a previous post I commented on, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37179921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37179921 . Now, we can add "Expensive Imaginary Scam Education". In reality, send your children to public school, and use the money you'd waste on this scam to visit museums, universities, libraries, historical sites, and the like. BE the enriching force in your child's life.
  • zerbinxx 3y ago
    Is it really a scam if it helps kids fit in and learn? I have a pretty strong baseline bias against homeschool, but a lot of the testimonials in the article are pretty positive. For every fear people have of homeschools being dangerous or inadequate, it’s hard to look at public education as anything but that.
    • ceejayoz 3y ago
      Testimonials are as useful as Amazon five-star reviews, and the actual data on educational interventions/approaches takes decades to come back.
    • Clent 3y ago
      Testimonials are always positive.
  • BeetleB 3y ago
• BeetleB 3y ago
  > Home-schooled children have attended Ivy League schools and won national spelling bees. They have also been the victims of child abuse and severe neglect. Some are taught using the classics of ancient Greece, others with Nazi propaganda. So ... just like kids in public school? Somewhat orthogonal to the article: In my state a lot of people were forced to home-school during Covid, and a significant percentage of them continue to do so. They found the experience and outcomes a lot better than what they had been getting at the public school. I listened to their experiences on a local radio show, and was fairly disappointed with the home school curriculum - it was far more focused on alternative subjects not taught in schools, and quite a lot of the "usual" curriculum was omitted (very little math, for example, and if they did teach science, it was with a lot less rigor). It was almost 80-90% about "experiential learning" vs "book learning". I get the value of experiential learning and do agree public schools have too little of it, but I fear these kids are being cheated out of the possibility of getting into STEM - there's no way they can do anything in the hard sciences without some good foundations. The other thing that always confounds me: Virtually every study out there shows that on average, by a certain age, home school kids outperform public school kids in most/all arenas (social, academic, etc). At worst they perform at the same level. The parents are very happy with the outcomes. I've known homeschooled kids that are easily 2 grades ahead of where they would be at a typical public school - and with no social shortcomings whatsoever, but they may be outliers as the parents were brilliant themselves. So, both anecdotal and research shows it to be superior. Yet most adults I've met who were home schooled as a kid are unhappy with their parents' choice.[1] I suspect it is akin to how most people overvalue what they don't have, seeing only the benefits of what they've been deprived and not the downsides. [1] Although as I write this, I realize I should account for the fact that many/most kids really hate their school experience - particularly high school. So perhaps the home schooled kids aren't any less satisfied with their education experience than typical public school kids.
  • foogazi 3y ago
    > I've known homeschooled kids that are easily 2 grades ahead of where they would be at a typical public school - and with no social shortcomings whatsoever For certain kids school is holding them up But that’s the problem with a standardization. What are the odds that all kids need the same amount of time for all subjects Initially everyone was home schooled. The school system is a feature & bug of scaling up
• mikhmha 3y ago
  Why are people in the US so against public schools? I am someone who did not really enjoy “school” and found it anxiety inducing but I still see the benefits of it. In public school you are forced to mingle with the people of your generation. The ones who will inevitably go on to run the country in whatever big or small way. The objective of public school is to break down the regional identities of old and assimilate the youth into the “new” national identity. And what do we see in countries without functional public schools? Everything sucks. And there is no cohesion between peoples. I see it in the home country of my parents.
  • gnopgnip 3y ago
    It’s a small but vocal minority and not representative
  • BeetleB 3y ago
    > Why are people in the US so against public schools? The sentiment is not universal - perhaps not even close to a majority. Most people in the US value public schools. As to why people want to homeschool? The reasons are diverse and differ for everyone. Themes you'll see: - Religious parents who object to some aspect of the public school system (anti-coed, against some of the indoctrination kids get, etc). - Smart parents who realize public schools are very inefficient and cater to the worst students. They fear their kids will not get the quality education they themselves got, and feel they can teach at a more advanced level, in a more efficient manner. If you're very skilled in certain subjects (e.g. math), it is very scary to send your kids to an average school. The probability that they will be above average in whatever subject you are good at is fairly low. - Along the same lines, people from other countries who are great at certain subjects because their home countries valued them but the current one doesn't. That's why schools like "Russian School of Mathematics" exist. Not everyone lives in a city that has one, so ... homeschool. - Parents who believe schools are the source of anti-social behavior and vices, and don't want their kids to end up that way. Having seen kids who were home schooled, this really works. - Along the same lines, stuff like bullying. Especially for those who grew up elsewhere, it seems insane how normalized bullying in schools is in the US. A lot of Americans view it as a rite of passage: You go to school so you can learn skills to stand up to bullies. For immigrants, all of this means your kid learns less (whether successful against the bullies or not). - You have ideology X and simply value a lot of things not taught in school, and devalue what they do teach. - Culture: I had a great education, but as I have gotten older, I realized that the school/teachers alone are not sufficient - you need to be in a culture that values what you are learning. Many immigrants (and even Americans) see American culture as anti-intellectual, and that impedes what they retain (even when they learn it and get A's). They may feel the public school teaches well enough, but fear their kids will be stunted because of the culture. I once tutored some kids, and they did not know "basic" things like number of days in a year. It's not that they were dumb, or had not been taught it. It was just a random useless piece of knowledge. They learned it, passed the test, and forgot it. And no matter how hard I tried to make it relevant for them, it wouldn't be because it wasn't relevant in their home environment or amongst their peers. Where I grew up, it was socially unacceptable not to know this, so everyone knew it, whether a top student or a barely passing one. You can argue that this really isn't important to know, but now extend that to almost everything they teach - including arithmetic and other parts of math. I would teach them, they could clearly understand and learn it, they'd do their homework, and then forget it until they have to prepare for the tests. And then forget it again. You won't progress far in math if you learn that way. And those who are interested in math are often shunned. I've lived in countries where basic arithmetic (including multiplication) is a basic skill everyone (who is literate), can do on paper. They may "suck" at math, have failed algebra, but even to their old age can do multiplication and other arithmetic with relative ease. Why? Because society will judge them as idiots if they can't. It doesn't matter that calculators are available. Someone from that country will suddenly be concerned when they see how what is unacceptable where they come from has been normalized, and what is a bare minimum back home will cause you to be shunned. Verizonmath[1] is very much a thing in the US. Verizon was definitely not an outlier. Every since it blew up in 2006, I've noticed it everywhere - I often take photos of proper ads from real companies advertising a price of 0.99 cents when they mean 99 cents. At yard sales, it's very common to see things advertised as 0.50 cents. Outside of places like HN, when I've pointed it out, I get push back - some percentage don't even see what is wrong, and the rest insist it's OK to list prices that way, even after acknowledging the mathematical error. If you come from Eastern Europe, you probably don't want your kids thinking it's OK. If the teacher teaches it properly but all their fellow students think it's OK, chances are your kid will think it's OK. [1] http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/
• abnry 3y ago
  I was homeschooled K-12. Even 15 years ago, my parents would say that they were like general contractors for my education. And it is really is true. I had a mix of co-op, community college, online, self-study, and parent-guided study for all my courses. This was more so for highschool and less so for primary or grade school, which was mostly directly taught by my mother. And as others have said, homeschooling is very, very time efficient. IIRC, during grade school I was done by lunch time (maybe one or two smaller things required).
  • williamtrask 3y ago
    More or less the same experience here. I also think it prepared me pretty well for WFH (which I now absolutely love).
• satvikpendem 3y ago
  I don't really "get" homeschooling. How can parents be knowledgeable in all the subjects that school teachers teach? There are also cases of parents homeschooling for the purpose of religiously or otherwise ideologically indoctrinating their children, something that does not often happen in public schools, both due to the curricula as well as heterogeneity of thought via socializing and sharing information with many other students. I suppose the pro is that you can teach exactly what you want, but that's also a con, as above.
  • scotty79 3y ago
    It's not about what is taught to kids but about what kids retain. And it seems that primary role of school when the bottom line is considered is keeping kids busy so their parents can work in peace. So there's really no strong objection if some parents want to opt out of this because not many will.
  • BeetleB 3y ago
    > How can parents be knowledgeable in all the subjects that school teachers teach? Ask parents who home school. Also, just read the article. > There are also cases of parents homeschooling for the purpose of religiously or otherwise ideologically indoctrinating their children, something that does not often happen in public schools, At some level, it definitely happens in schools. People who deny it's happening have a worldview where what they teach is the "norm" or consider it "basic fact". Just ask any parent who has said something along the lines of "I don't want my school teaching my kids X. What does X have to do with education?" - replace X with anything in the social justice sphere.
  • add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
    > parents homeschooling for the purpose of religiously or otherwise ideologically indoctrinating their children No, I think you do get it.
  • danans 3y ago
    > How can parents be knowledgeable in all the subjects that school teachers teach? Some surely can, especially autodidactic parents, but most can't. The vast majority of parents aren't going to be able to teach their kids geometry, algebra, or analytical thinking and writing skills. Institutional schooling is the only way most people can access that knowledge.
• bigfryo 3y ago
  Lol.. reading that article shows us how the establishment really wants to get rid of homeschooling and is afraid of it growing in one of the population.. they can hardly wait for some scandal in homeschooling so that they can exploit it as a crisis to shut down homeschooling
  • deleted 3y ago
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• iambateman 3y ago
  A couple things to pull out… (1) sometimes alternative education is worse. There’s no question that, in some cases, alternative school is worse for a child’s development than standard public school. I’ve personally seen children who were falling behind because their parents were not equipped to teach them in high school. (2) it can sometimes be better. Alternative school is higher variance than public school - the children who do poorly probably do worse while it can be spectacular for some children. We shouldn’t ignore that a relatively large percentage of homeschooled kids emerge at or near genius level. For kids for whom homeschooling works, it really works. (3) policy should encourage choice. On average, the US public school system is mediocre by world standards and in some parts of the country it’s an utter failure. Parents should be trusted with the care and education of their children because they’re in the best position to know what their child needs. Certainly some regulation around that freedom is in order, but we should expect more competition to produce more growth from a policy standpoint. Just like capitalism is the best-bad economic system we have, parent-choice is the best-bad educational system. Some parents will fail at their job and others will not. But centrally planned educational systems have massive problems, and parents must be allowed to opt out of those problems as their only real form of accountability. (4) we should avoid drawing conclusions from individual stories. When something bad happens at a public school - kid fails, someone gets shot, drugs are found, some one gets pregnant, there’s a fight - we accept those as being part of life, not a problem with public school. But when something bad happens to a homeschooler, we tend to wonder if the _system_ of homeschooling is broken. But the reality is that those stories are likely more surprising but probably not more common than the bad things which happen at a public high school. In the story, someone is quoted as saying “Eventually, something horrific is going to happen in one of these situations.” Which may be true and I hope we can find a way to avoid anything bad happening to anyone. But let’s not forget how many horrific things happen every week in high schools across America. It is a false promise to say that simply going to a public high school would fix all the problems found in homeschooling. Finally, if a parent wants to outsource the teaching of their child to a person who is operating out of a house, we should let them. The parent is the person most able to accurately assess their child’s needs, and it has to be their responsibility to make good choices for their children.
  • snarf21 3y ago
• jkestner 3y ago
  The reason we moved our kids from Montessori to public school is to throw our lot in with the majority of society. It’s made me active in the PTA and school library because up close it’s hard to ignore the challenges staff deal with, and with skin in the game, I don’t have the time to wait for someone else to do it. Hopefully the work we put into the shared system raises the tide for all families, so my children grow up within a healthier community. (It already feels great working with other parents on it.) I recognize that it may not be academically ideal for my own kids, but studies (no time to cite) have noted that socioeconomic status is a top indicator of academic success. They’ll be fine.
  • whimsicalism 3y ago
    Thank you, you are making a good choice, and as someone whose parents made a similar choice (sent me to an underperforming urban public school when they could have afforded private), I am very grateful to them now.
    • jkestner 3y ago
      Thanks. Could you say more about why you’re grateful?
  • woodruffw 3y ago
    Thank you for sharing. Having gone through public schools for (parental) reasons not dissimilar to your own, I agree entirely about "skin in the game": a society that encourages its most privileged to turn away from public resources is not a healthy one, and not one where anybody's interests (including the privileged) are ultimately well served.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • vasco 3y ago
    > socioeconomic status is a top indicator of academic success Usually because you go to a better school, no? Smaller class sizes, better teachers, better outcome. If you intentionally go to a worse school, some of that effect should be negated.
• neonate 3y ago
  http://web.archive.org/web/20230826164333/https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/homeschooling-microschools-pods-esa-vouchers/ http://web.archive.org/web/20230826164333/https://www.washin... https://archive.ph/jY2ca https://archive.ph/jY2ca
• Justsignedup 3y ago
  This is giving me the worst of vibes: - options for people who don't want to expose their children to out-of-family ideas, to perpetuate family biases - a completely unregulated market for children to go to a "school" with a few other kids, giving them small classrooms, BUT, no teacher with specialization or educational background. Would be extremely hit or miss, with little resource if it isn't working out. - only for those who can afford it. It just feels... it feels like people have completely given up on society and said fuck it, we'll make our own. This is sad. The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. Edit to those who say "but mah freedum" -- So far evidence shows that societies that force all people into the same system, regardless of income, end up having systemic positive changes because every member of the society is invested into it. Look at Finland, they only set one thing up: rules for how kids are allowed to be selected for schools. Everything else was because all the wealthy people wanted their kids to get benefits, so everyone benefited. In the US school funding is dependent on local municipalities, so some places have excellent education, and everyone who can't afford it is stuck with crap. This is why I dislike it. You either buy your way into a solid life, or you're fucked. The audience here tends to be high earners, at least for middle-class. Most of America cannot afford 10k per year for schooling, much less the significantly higher cost required.
  • ssivark 3y ago
    > The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. But what if there is a fundamental diversity in educational goals, that different sets of parents want to aim in different directions as “better”? How would you accommodate that?
  • williamtrask 3y ago
    > people have completely given up on society and said fuck it, we'll make our own. Fwiw, this type of thinking played a pretty strong role in how America began (and in other social/moral movements). It's not always a bad thing. > This is sad. The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. I get your point, but just to continue my analogy, King George might have said something similar in the late 1700s. A good general counter-narrative to this line of thinking is James Scott's "Seeing like a state" which documents the degree to which governments regiment society in ways that reduce social welfare.
• deleted 3y ago
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• cogman10 3y ago
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  • rayiner 3y ago
    I think that's a lazy take. It's not the facts, it's the worldview. Socializing children into your moral and religious worldview is something that's widely recognized as a human right: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/... ("The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions."). There's no fact I would not discuss with my kids. But as someone from an Asian country, I'm becoming increasingly wary of how teachers talk about certain facts--specifically, from an individualist, humanist perspective. I want my kids to understand that they're a cog in a machine, rowing with many other people to move forward a society, and have myriad reciprocal obligations to care what other people need, what they think, to respect their feelings, to allow them to save face, etc. I don't want them to grow up to be "muh freedoms!" Americans. I think a lot of cultural minorities—which these days includes Christians with orthodox beliefs—are in the same boat.
    • woodruffw 3y ago
      Homeschooling is, to a first approximation, the most individualistic approach to a child's education possible. If your goal is to instill values of mutual cooperation, a sense of obligation, etc. in a pluralistic society, I'd think that you'd want to send them to a public school in a large city. That's what the last ~200 years of American immigrants and children of immigrants have more or less done.
      • rayiner 3y ago
        > Homeschooling is, to a first approximation, the most individualistic approach to a child's education possible. In a superficial way, sure. The dominant American culture is intensely individualist. So if you don’t want your kids to grow up that way, you need to buck conformity in that narrow sense. > If your goal is to instill values of mutual cooperation, a sense of obligation, etc. in a pluralistic society, I'd think that you'd want to send them to a public school in a large city. The prevailing culture in large city public schools turns those ideas on their head. The focus is on individual self-actualization, and questioning authority, hierarchy, elders, and norms. It’s about what society owes individuals (“rights”) instead of what individuals owe society. There’s a veneer of cooperation and obligation, but it’s framed in terms of what “privileged” (whites, the rich) owe everyone else, not what each individual owes society.
• andrewstuart 3y ago
  Home schooling is a real burden on many parents who aren't professional teachers of course and are pulled in many directions. One of the most exciting emerging trends in home schooling is to pool the resources of multiple home schooling parents. It's simply not practical for parents to commit all the hours needed for full time home schooling 9 till 3:30PM every day. So home schooling parents can team up and share the load a little bit. This means the kids gather together at one parents house because many kids can learn from the person doing the teaching. "Grouped home schooling" also solves the usual criticism of home schooling which is the lack of social contact between kids. Often as well it makes sense for the parents all to contribute a little money so that instead of the parents having to teach things that they are not expert in, the can pay as a group for someone with subject expertise to assist. It can be problematic though gathering so many kids into one house for group home schooling, so another exciting development in modern home schooling is when a location is found somewhere in the community for it to happen. Often there's a room available at the church. Alternatively, if the parents pool an amount of money each then such a location can be leased long term and can be set up with desks and chairs for the kids to sit at. When you combine all these forward looking advances in home schooling you can see that home schooling has come a long way since the 1970's when kids sat at the kitchen table with mum teaching the lessons. Exciting times for home schooling!
  • glitchc 3y ago
    >This means the kids gather together in one location because many kids can learn from the person doing the teaching. >Often as well it makes sense for the parents all to contribute a little money so that instead of the parents having to teach things that they are not expert in, the can pay as a group for someone with subject expertise to assist. >It can be problematic though gathering so many kids into one house for group home schooling, so another exciting development in modern home schooling is when a location is found somewhere in the community for it to happen. Again, if the parents pool an amount of money each then such a location can be leased long term and can be set up with desks and chairs for the kids to sit at. This is tongue in cheek I presume, as it's sounding just like a regular school.
    • 3y ago
• giantg2 3y ago
  As the bureaucracy and rhetoric at regular schools increases, so too will alternative options.
• m3talsmith 3y ago
  I was homeschooled back in the 90’s and it was all on me to teach myself. Have things really changed?
• lugu 3y ago
  I was told thought public school was invented, not to instruct, not to educate but to emancipate kids. Giving them a chance to see the world from a different perspective from their family. One might call it endoctrinement, yes, but if you are confronted to two concurrent belief systems, you are more likely to see them for what they are.
  • willsmith72 3y ago
    This sounds nice, but there's a huge correlation between belief systems of a family and those of their surrounding culture, and therefore those present at school. If someone were instead to home-school their children, and use that as an opportunity to show their children different systems in different parts of their country or world, I think that would be far more effective.
  • colechristensen 3y ago
    "liberal arts" dictionary definition is literally this. It has fallen behind though because the folks in charge have lost this as a goal and there are so many out there with expensive useless degrees who have trouble navigating the world.
  • opportune 3y ago
    Historically schools were usually a way to do one of two things: provide a strong education (mostly in the humanities) to the upper class, and teach basic literary skills so that kids could read religious scriptures and then later, post Enlightenment, adequately participate in government and society (including basic arithmetic and non-religious literary skills). The first public schools in New England were motivated by the pre-Enlightenment attitude and public schools became more widespread with the post-Enlightenment attitude. The idea of public schools as a way to enforce national unity (~WW1 when it became a priority in the US to de-italicize ethnic identities and loyalties) and teach kids skills that would set them up for nationally important jobs like those in science and technology (Cold War) was a much later phenomenon.
  • bitlax 3y ago
    No argument there! https://www.mrctv.org/blog/not-single-student-proficient-math-across-13-baltimore-city-schools https://www.mrctv.org/blog/not-single-student-proficient-mat...
• twodave 3y ago
  If my wife and I were to put our 4 special needs kids into public school it would result in them having a bunch of unbelievably negative experiences: - they would NOT receive a quality education or be taught to be self-learners. - they would be passed along, even with failing grades, putting them further behind their peers, highlighted their differences and denying them their dignity. - they would all end up in social situations that we ourselves would prefer to avoid. Not caused by their peers (though that can and does happen even in homeschooling families) but by the institutions that are responsible for public education - we would spend just as much (if not more) time and effort fighting the system as we do just taking the reins. If we want to get help for our kids, we literally have to pay thousands of dollars to get them each diagnosed with a mental handicap, because they aren’t cripple or have other readily-identifiable disabilities. Still, we teach all of our kids as they’re capable that THEY are responsible for their own education. Anything else is a) a lie and b) setting them up for failure and a wrong sense of entitlement.
  • standardUser 3y ago
    A good friend has two children, one with fairly severe autism and one with extra-strong interpersonal skills. They both go to the same school, but the kid with autism gets special care, including specialized teachers working with him. This is certainly not to say you are wrong! Rather, it's to point out the vast differences between one public school and another. I have to remind myself sometimes that, even though my public school experience was pretty solid, I had a lot of things working in my favor, like living in a solidly middle-class liberal suburb, having access to lots of honors and AP classes and having several brilliant (and over-qualified) teachers in some departments. Most Americans do not get anything close to such a sweet deal out of their public schools.
    • twodave 3y ago
      Our kids have all been diagnosed with FASD, but in our state at least that isn’t enough to qualify for specialized care. Not that it matters a ton, because we would still be fighting the other bullet points. We can get scholarships through the state if we get our kids diagnosed with a mental handicap, and that costs around $3k per child and requires them to be evaluated intensively (which is more difficult for some of our kids than others). So that’s the path we are taking, because at least after the $3k much of the therapy they each need can be reimbursed through the state (up to a certain amount each year). There are a ton of kids in this situation—-either adopted or in foster care, mom abused drugs and alcohol during the pregnancy, and even those of us who pay to adopt these kids from birth/early age (~$30k each for us) there is just very little support available. We are essentially doing the state a favor by not putting these kids into foster care or making them be the public school’s problem, and we don’t get repaid unless we happened to know about FASD, get a diagnosis and apply for an adoption subsidy BEFORE adopting them. It’s absurd.
• nitwit005 3y ago
  Everyone shows up to be taught by a common teacher, with government and non profit funding? That's just school.
  • opportune 3y ago
    Except they have much more flexibility, up to individualization, in terms of curriculum content and pacing, teachers from potentially more varied backgrounds/main jobs besides teaching, and the ability to eject unruly and problematic kids that impact other kids’ abilities to focus and learn?
    • allturtles 3y ago
      So... They have reinvented private school?
      • supazek 3y ago
        It doesn’t cost $10K a year to attend.
      • opportune 3y ago
        Yes but not only does it cost much less (financially, debatable with time) but it’s individualized. Not many private schools offer truly individualized education
    • nitwit005 3y ago
      You're describing a private school.
• CodeWriter23 3y ago
  What did you all think was happening? Parents chose to hold their children back in subject areas they were weak in? Of course we delegate teaching certain topics to professionals. The thing about those professionals, they know their continued employment is based on the merit of their work. You can fire your children's teacher(s) and hire better ones.
  • hedora 3y ago
    The article spends a long time on the fact that the “teachers” are not professionals and do not claim to be. Most of the controversy would probably go away if there were accreditation boards for these courses, but there are not. Also, much of the coursework is being offered by unregulated, gray market, for-profit platforms, and if you read HN at all, you already know this will end in enshitification.
    • sintaxi 3y ago
      What makes you think the free market doesn't regulate?
      • SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        In this case I would say that the latency of finding out a method or microschool isn’t teaching in an effective way might be longer than I would like to see as a parent. So that’s a small problem as this is all rapidly developing.
      • hedora 3y ago
        There is a ton of information asymmetry in education. (The parents don’t sit through the classes, and the kids have no reference points), which means it will devolve into a “market for lemons” in the absent of regulation.
• JackMorgan 3y ago
  I'm pretty uniquely situated to discuss this: - I was homeschooled from K-8 then went to regular school from 8-12 - I am a state certified middle school teacher in TX - I taught 5th and 6th grade public school in TX and AK - I've volunteered at a private democratic free school - I've taught at the university level as a tutor and then as a assistant professor American public schools use one of the worst pedagogical systems. If you do any research into the field, you are quickly confronted with uncomfortable realities like: - Bloom's Two Sigma problem: "the educational phenomenon that the average student tutored one-to-one using mastery learning techniques performed two standard deviations better than students educated in a classroom environment." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem - democratic free school students earn more than their peers and graduate from college at a higher rate - some of the most respected educators in America have walked away from the public school system calling it a "12-year jail sentence in which bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned" https://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html https://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html It is true that some homeschoolers graduate with below average social skills - but the same is true for half of all public school students. Some homeschoolers test behind the public school average - just like half of public school students. On the other hand, luminaries of our field point out that one on one tutoring (which often happens with home schoolers) more often produces students significantly ahead of public school classrooms. There just is no way to have a classroom as effective as one on one tutoring. A parent who cares and does their best to organize all the amazing and free resources can easily match the quality of classroom instruction. And it doesn't have to take 6+ hours a day. Plenty of homeschoolers test in the top 10% of their state with just an hour or two a day of effort. Even one hour a day per child can outpace a public school classroom. Obviously homeschooling is not for every family. If you've got two working parents who commute, it might not work out without some kind of co-op or micro-school. But if you are in the fence, homeschooling can be very effective. There's plenty of sports, meetups, co-ops, social events, and free online resources. It's possible to produce a fantastic education for your children without sending them to public school. Public school should be thought of as the lowest common denominator to exceed, not the pinnacle to reach for. Don't do what my mom tried for a few months and set up desks and try to lecture. You aren't trying to remake a classroom with lectures and homework, you're providing a rich environment filled with intrinsic motivation. You're not trying to force your children to conform to the rigid and demotivational rules of public school, you're freeing them to follow their own interests. You aren't trying to make an educational cattle chute with easily graded standardized tests, you're letting them grow and never lose that sense of wonder, creativity, and critical thinking. Additional resources on how children often need very little instruction at all: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-W5bk7sE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-W5bk7sE0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFAhWrLfm-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFAhWrLfm-0 - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-school https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201003...
• deleted 3y ago
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• suzzer99 3y ago
  “Eventually, something horrific is going to happen in one of these situations,” said Jen Garrison Stuber, advocacy chair the Washington Homeschool Organization. “A kid’s going to get killed, a kid’s going to get seriously injured or molested, because the safeguards that you have at a private school aren’t happening.” Uhh, not that I'm a big homeschool advocate, but kids get molested and (now) killed all the time at public and private schools.
  • JackMorgan 3y ago
    A very good point. Public and private schools for all of recorded history have countless examples of child abuse. Kids die with alarming frequency in public schools. In 2022 there was an average of one shooting a week in US public schools. Even if you decide that the risks are not that high of a kid actually dying, there's a very real chilling effect. There's now paranoia, stress, and an atmosphere of fear. These are not healthy things.
    • SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      > In 2022 there was an average of one shooting a week in US public schools. Not to downplay the tragedy of what we think of in terms of a school shooting… But the claim you are making is NOT what we think of, a Covington or Coloumbine or Uvalde. That stat is a gun control talking point intentionally designed to mislead. That list counts any shooting within a few blocks of a school, and at any time of day. There is one on that list that someone shot a cat at 3am. shooting + near school = school shooting My city had a 16yo meet another student in the school parking lot late at night, over drugs of course, one was shot at and it’s now a school shooting on whatever sub-organization Michael Bloomberg is pushing at the moment (there are at least five I know of).
      • deleted 3y ago
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      • JackMorgan 3y ago
        See my last paragraph. The chances of a kid dying is extremely low. The paranoia, fear, and desire to make it safer have caused many schools to feel like minimum security prisons.
• mensetmanusman 3y ago
  During Covid we homeschooled and I learned a fourth grader can memorize all the elements of the periodic table, that was fun!
• exabrial 3y ago
  MicroSchooling I think is the best of all worlds. Kids get individual attention, teachers make a lot of money, parents get a great value on dollar spent on education.
• 6stringmerc 3y ago
  Sonlight is a great example. Home schooling has not always been about education…
• emodendroket 3y ago
  Home schooling seems so harmful to socialization and such a vehicle for teaching ridiculous nonsense (or just not really teaching much of anything at all) that I think the countries that make it illegal have the right idea. It's even more egregious that some states are, apparently, actually throwing money at completely unregulated "micro-schools" where you are taught by someone with no qualifications whatsoever.
  • bitlax 3y ago
    https://www.mrctv.org/blog/not-single-student-proficient-math-across-13-baltimore-city-schools https://www.mrctv.org/blog/not-single-student-proficient-mat...
    • emodendroket 3y ago
      I don't think putting kids in poor inner cities in home schooling is going to improve math scores if that's your implication.
• asimpleusecase 3y ago
  “They have no oversight, no taxpayer accountability, no academic or curriculum standards,” said Beth Lewis, director of Save Our Schools Arizona, a public school advocacy group. “We don’t know what kids are learning.” The irony is deep with this one. It could be rephrased “They are not recognising our gatekeeper status nor participating in our bureaucratic processes and frankly that is just not fair. We especially object to our loss of exclusive access to tax payer funds. The idea that the tax payer themselves could have a direct say in how those funds are used in educating their children is just outrageous.”
  • agentgumshoe 3y ago
    The hubris here of their "we know what's best for your child" assertion is astounding. "We don't know what kids are learning" is a wonderful thing to hear from a government rep.
    • reducesuffering 3y ago
      > Beth Lewis, director of Save Our Schools Arizona, a public school advocacy group Uhh, that isn't a "government rep." What kind of school did you go to?
      • agentgumshoe 3y ago
        Oops my bad. That'll teach me for not going back and double-checking. But looking at it, I don't support their approach anyway.
  • digitalengineer 3y ago
    " If we look at what goes on in other countries, the U.S. stands out as the anomaly. When other countries allow homeschooling, they regulate it much more strictly. They demand that parents show they are qualified to teach and that they turn in the curricula they plan to use. Other countries impose home-visit requirements, which are both a protection against child maltreatment and also a check on whether the parents are actually providing the education they say they are." The Harvard Gazette: "A warning on homeschooling" https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-professor-says-there-may-be-a-dark-side-of-homeschooling/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-pr...
• bowsamic 3y ago
  Home schooling should be either illegal or extremely tightly regulated. I don't think that parents should have the right to avoid a state-authorised education
• yosito 3y ago
  I was home schooled back in 2001. My parents didn't do the teaching, instead, we had a satellite dish that we installed to pick up some conservative right wing curriculum and recorded it on VHS tapes that I was supposed to watch. I didn't actually watch most of it, I'd usually fast forward through it and spend my time watching local news channels instead. My real education at the time was coming from the hands on experiences I had in real life, which was far more useful (and less propaganda-filled) than any curriculum could have been.
• pk-protect-ai 3y ago
  As a parent and former child, I truly appreciate the work the author has done. If only I had such a creative environment during my childhood... Discussing bullying here is off-topic, in my opinion. Bullies are seldom part of such creative environments unless forced. They will not focus on these creative topics; instead, they will seek a victim to establish dominance, which does not necessitate participation in communal creative activities.
• camgunz 3y ago
  I think what a lot of people are missing about school alternatives is that, while public school has a lot of failings (I had a pretty miserable religious and public school experience myself), it's pretty clear that none of the proposed alternatives work at scale. Charter schools aren't equipped for 1/4 of their kids to be totally impoverished. Micro schools aren't equipped for kids with wheelchairs, or the 20% of kids who learn reading in a totally weird way, etc. Selection benefits these organizations tremendously (i.e. you can say "there's no ramp into my house, I'm sorry your kid in a wheelchair can't attend), but that clearly doesn't scale and worse, it leaves out all kinds of kids. It also deprives the attending kids of diversity. It probably also dooms kids whose parents think benefit from this system to a substandard education. There's a quote in TFA from the proprietor of a micro school that's something like "[a child] wants to learn about the US and the constitution; who am I to tell her she has to learn about ancient Egypt?" Well don't ask me, ask Library for Kids [0] (TL;DR their phonetic alphabet prompted Greece to make their own, and the works written in Greek are the basis for western civilization). The Netherlands established childrens' right to an education, which means that no matter what their parents think or believe, children will be educated in a way largely determined by professionals, but also subject to the democratic process. Why is this important? Because there are a lot of nuts parents out there who want their kids to learn pretty weird stuff, and in the aggregate that weirds society literally for generations, and at the individual can abuse kids in truly horrible ways (think about young girls born into cults). I get that public school is lord of the flies and fails lots of kids, but this stuff isn't the answer. Education is massive and hard. We're not gonna fix it by subsidizing amateurs. [0]: https://libraryforkids.com/why-do-we-care-about-ancient-egypt/ https://libraryforkids.com/why-do-we-care-about-ancient-egyp...
• yrro 3y ago
  It's absolutely insane that home schooling is legal!
• MagicMoonlight 3y ago
  So it's not home schooling, it's setting up a school without appropriate training or licences.
  • pas 3y ago
    a very v0.1 reinvention of private schools
• mattpallissard 3y ago
  > They have no oversight, no taxpayer accountability, no academic or curriculum standards,” said Beth Lewis, director of Save Our Schools Arizona, a public school advocacy group. “We don’t know what kids are learning. That's the point. As a homeschool parent I have to say; It's. None. Of. Your. Business. It's not the main reason we homeschool our 5 kids, but it's important to us still. We've been doing this for a decade now, across 3 states. Nearly all of the homeschool families I've met (high double digits) are high achievers who are going to be just fine on their own without strangers telling them what to do with their children. Sidebar because Washington Post; We lived in Washington for a few years. WA has particularly onerous requirements around education in general when compared to the rest of the country. I'd go as far as to say that they're completely bonkers.
  • gnicholas 3y ago
    > Sidebar because Washington Post; We lived in Washington for a few years. WA has particularly onerous requirements around education in general when compared to the rest of the country. I'd go as far as to say that they're completely bonkers. Despite the location of WaPo's current owner, it's not named for Washington state.
    • mattpallissard 3y ago
      Thanks, I'm surprised I didn't realize that before.