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When I moved into my current house about 10 years ago, the family next door home schooled. I'd never known any home schoolers before and definitely had some not
by brightball 3y ago
When I moved into my current house about 10 years ago, the family next door home schooled. I'd never known any home schoolers before and definitely had some notions about how terrible it must be until I learned about it.
This family was part of a home school group with other families. The kids went to different houses every day and had an instructor focus on 1 subject for half of the day, mixed in with free time, depending on the age. 2 subjects per day, so as a parent your teaching commitment was a half day a week on 1 subject.
They would do field trips. They held a school play in a garage complete with costumes and video. And the kids were smart, well mannered, socially adjusted kids with very happy and normal lives. And there are plenty of sports opportunities as well. As far as I know, they all went to public high school too.
Completely shifted my view of what I thought home schooling was, which was the kids stuck in 1 house with 1 parent all day in social isolation.
The reality was closer to a model of a Montessori school which has a huge amount of success stories.
- CharlesW 3y agoThere are many home-schooling success stories, and also many home-schooling horror stories. 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...
- keiferski 3y agoIt seems to me that the only relevant question here is how home schooling compares to public schools when it comes to “horror stories.” And there certainly aren’t a lack of public school horror stories…
- pixl97 3y agoThere are plenty of 'public school' horror stories because these things are public and can be audited in a great number of cases. You don't get to hear the homeschooling horrors when they happen because they are private. Maybe you'll be a therapist and years later get to talk to one of these people how they are effectively crippled for the rest of their life. Or you'll be like me that grew up in a place that had a bunch of religious organizations that homeschooled most of their children with educations that I'd consider completely and totally deficient, and then pull those same people back into the organization as cheap/uneducated labor they could abuse.
- keiferski 3y agoSure, I don't think anyone denies that there are some home schooling horror stories. But it really doesn't seem like most public schools do a great job either, so the question is if this broken system damages more people than one dominated by home schooling.
- klodolph 3y agoWe have some insight into the answer to this, because public schooling is (more or less) a replacement for home schooling. Home schooling has an incredible amount of inequality built in to it. Affluent parents can hire instructors. Poor parents may not even be able to meet their children’s basic schooling needs, if it weren’t for public schools. Obviously there’s a lot of middle ground between those two extremes, and the circumstances today don’t exactly match the circumstances of the mid-19th century, which is roughly when modern public schools started appearing in the US (based on the “Prussian model”). There are a lot of different objectives that public schooling sets out to achieve. It can be too easy to focus on narrow sets of metrics like test scores, or collect a bunch of anecdotes about bad experiences in public schools (or bad experiences in homeschooling). IMO it’s probably a lot easier to fix this broken system rather than burn it to the ground and do homeschooling instead.
- scarmig 3y ago> IMO it’s probably a lot easier to fix this broken system rather than burn it to the ground and do homeschooling instead. Imagine your school district has banned teaching algebra to 8th graders, for reasons of equity. You're upset at this, since you have a child about to attend 8th grade. You go to a school board meeting, express yourself, and are at best ignored or more likely called names. What, from the perspective of a parent with a child who needs an education, do you then do? Fixing the system would be nice and all, but how do you do that before your kid becomes an adult, let alone make up for all the damage public schooling has been doing in the meantime?
- otoburb 3y ago
- AlwaysRock 3y agoI don't know if that is the only relevant question. If you have a terrible time in public/traditional school, you may resent and blame a whole slew of factors. If you have a terrible time while homeschooled, you are likely to resent and blame the people teaching you or the ones who made that decision for you. Your parents. That is a pretty serious factor to weight.
- scythe 3y agoResearch on the question is limited. One review found weakly positive average outcomes for homeschooled children, although they performed worse in one interesting dimension: they were considered inferior military recruits. https://www.educacaodomiciliar.fe.unicamp.br/sites/www.educacaodomiciliar.fe.unicamp.br/files/2022-07/The%20Social%20and%20Educational%20Outcomes%20of%20Homeschooling.pdf https://www.educacaodomiciliar.fe.unicamp.br/sites/www.educa... Selection effects create a "blind men and the elephant" problem when considering anecdotes about homeschoolers. Homeschool children who return to public school may do so because their parents lack the resources to homeschool them effectively, so they might perform worse (academically & socially) than the average homeschool child. But homeschool children who get jobs in the technology industry and post on Hacker News are probably more successful than the average. It remains for the reader to determine whether the lack of "success" of homeschool children who join the military, in contrast to homeschooler mean success elsewhere, is due to a selection effect or a psychological effect of homeschooling.
- pitaj 3y ago> they were considered inferior military recruits. It's not that surprising given that the Prussian schooling system upon which ours is based was meant exactly for that.
- FireBeyond 3y agoAn acquaintance of mine and his wife just started an alternative, semi-home school (hybrid system). Neither of them have any education experience, just a libertarian/anti-government mindset. They were able to franchise a school for, I believe $10-15,000 (certainly under $20K), a background check, and a 2 hour open book test for them both. I struggle to see how this is acceptable for not just "homeschooling" your own kids, but other people's kids.
- rando_dfad 3y agoThe biggest US public school horror story is how we have taken a great instrument of social progress and decimated it. Public schools in countries where schools are treated well have phenomenal success. US schooling has been taken over (at the level of the state legislatures; blame goes to state Congress not to the schools) by companies selling "achievement" test. And also by charter schools whose success is based on only selecting high-achieving problem-free children? Why do teachers say they are nothing but babysitters? Maybe because they aren't allowed to teach, to inspire love of learning in the children? And their classroom budgets are so tight they buy school supplies out of their own pockets, while living on an income that is close to poverty level? While facing felony charges for having the wrong book in the shelf behind their desk??? When things like "Creme de la Creme Early Learning Center of Excellence" are real institutions instead of something from a comic dystopia, you know you have a problem.
- qerti 3y ago[flagged]
- vb6sp6 3y agoNo one was teaching this. It was a book in a library.
- lawlessone 3y agoI agree with you but he is arguing in bad faith. "think of the children" is just the vehicle bigotry. Notice he isn't complaining about straight hook-up apps. You don't need a need a book to use to these apps and I have strong doubts children are queuing at libraries to read them.
- vb6sp6 3y agoyeah, im just adding some additional info for any impressionable future reads who may take his statement at face value :)
- 3y ago
- rando_dfad 3y agoExcuse prior rant. New rant beginning here: The real public school horror story is that today, in America, a "good school" is defined as one where your child won't get shot. I leave the rest of the rant as an exercise to the reader.
- userinanother 3y agoGetting shot is random in America schools. A good school does not have metal detectors and drug dogs
- Amezarak 3y agoSimilarly, there are many public school horror stories. For example, despite spending $21k/student, making it the third-highest funded school system in the country, 23 Baltimore schools failed to produce a single student with basic math proficiency.[1] One of my friends went to a school where she was beaten every day and the teachers had totally given up and most of them did not teach. Unfortunately, we need much more data than we have. The article mentions school quality is often not the driving reason for homeschooling, but you can definitely imagine public schools where almost any level of homeschooling is a better alternative. [1] https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/state-test-results-23-baltimore-schools-have-zero-students-proficient-in-math-jovani-patterson-maryland-comprehensive-assessment-program-maryland-governor-wes-moore#:~:text=The%20Maryland%20State%20Department%20of%20Education%20recently%20released,percent%20could%20not%20do%20math%20at%20grade%20level https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/state-test-r.... My children are in public school, but I am not sure if they will stay there. Even in "good" schools, there's many problems (especially in middle schools) and a lot of time is wasted if your kids have any academic ability at all.
- psychlops 3y agoI doubt if homeschooling would work in Baltimore either.
- whatshisface 3y agoWhat "different" schools allow parents to do is pull the top 1% of lucky students out to escape. Maybe most of the parents in the low cost of living areas can't give any time to their children because they've got three jobs, but there are always going to be the few that can. The same goes for a few who can one way or another afford private school. It's better that three percent get through than none.
- jewayne 3y agoWell, unless having the three percent get through makes it impossible to improve the condition of the other 97%. Survivorship bias is our favorite logical fallacy here in the US.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoAlmost exactly like public and private school!
- newsclues 3y agoSounds like regular schools or private boarding schools. Schools are a tool to teach people at scale. Tools can be used well or poorly and for various end goals.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bitlax 3y agoI guess enough time has passed that people are posting Elizabeth Bartolet again.
- omginternets 3y agoAre there any broad indicators of what separates the success stories from the horror stories?
- achates 3y agoAlso many public school horror stories.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoThere are many public school horror stories, and a few public school mediocrity stories (for those who can afford to move to a district where the homes are all $800,000 median now).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 303uru 3y agoSure, that's one model. The underlying problem is the completely unregulated nature. Similarly, there is household in my neighborhood that home schools. The kids (all 8 of them) never leave the house. They have a 8ft. fence and 1 acre yard where I assume they get some outside time. No one visits. Only dad is allowed to talk to anyone and when he does it's extraordinarily weird.
- brodouevencode 3y agoFor this anecdote I can provide you with about 20 anecdotes that are the complete opposite in nature. There is no regulation, but does there need to be? Homeschoolers take the same standardized tests as everyone else - that's about as regulatory as it needs to be (and even that's questionable).
- rjbwork 3y agoThis is just not the case. In many states it's nearly completely unregulated, and the home school lobby is working diligently to strip even those regulations.
- colpabar 3y agoYou didn't answer his question - why are regulations on teaching your own children in your own home so necessary?
- 303uru 3y agoStripping myself of my morals and ethics, sure. Maybe I don’t need to give a shit whether someone else’s kid has any future. I’d rather care.
- brodouevencode 3y agoThis assumes government schools has everyone's morals and ethics in mind.
- n3storm 3y agoMontessori is succesful with healthy wealthy beloved children.
- MadcapJake 3y agoIt's like people are reinventing all the same stuff schools do at scale. Can't we be more efficient as a society? Not to mention the privilege that is draped over every detail of this setup.
- brightball 3y agoAre big efficient schools better than lots of small schools?
- bloaf 3y agohttps://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-most-dangerous-equation https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-most-dangerous... This article makes a case that the statistics of small sample sizes has bamboozled many different well-intentioned groups, including the small school movement. The argument is that the fact that many of the best schools are small is an artifact of statistics (de Moivre's equation) rather than evidence small schools are superior.
- giantg2 3y ago"Can't we be more efficient as a society?" Not the way government tends to work in US.
- jgeada 3y agoIt is wild that this is the take. This eep distrust of government is at the root of many American problems. It is deliberately created and fed, and it directly leads to some truly awful results: bad education, bad healthcare, virtually no public benefit for all the taxes we pay. But we do get world's largest military, large corporate subsidies, highest per capita healthcare costs. Unlike in most other Western countries, education in the US is controlled at a local level; every town, district, and city etc has its own rules, has to hire its own staff and pay for it all out of local taxes. And because the generally tiny constituency of each district, a very small number of nutcases can change the rules and impose their point of view for the school district. And because of the local funding, there can be huge resource and quality differences between schools for adjacent locations, just due to crossing some arbitrary jurisdiction line. It is madness, but it is a madness that is deeply loved/entrenched here.
- dmurray 3y agoAt what point does this become not "homeschool", but "school, with different licensing requirements for the teachers"? It doesn't seem right to discuss this setup in the same breath as children schooled by their own parent.
- draw_down 3y ago[dead]
- graemep 3y agobecause it is not institutional or full time. it is like the difference between a commercial child care service, and having your friend's kids or you kid's friends over for the day. I think it depends largely on who controls the process - the parents of a paid professional. That said, it is not a typical approach either, nor is schooling by a parent. I have used (and this is typical in the UK, although i do not know about the US) paid face to face tutors, taught my self, provided the kids with textbooks etc. to teach themselves, paid for online courses, helped them find other resources and so on. The paid tutors are qualified (both of them are qualified in the subjects they teach, one is a former school teacher).
- pokstad 3y agoWe’ve seen something similar here with co-op schools. Not done in the home, but the teaching is handled by parents of the students. They are very happy with their school.
- TheBigSalad 3y agoOK but that's virtually the same thing as public school.
- zen_1 3y agoExcept with a much lower chance of kids getting bullied, assaulted, or shot
- TheBigSalad 3y agoOK but you've just made a small school. It's hardly home schooling other than the teachers not being professionals.
- AdamN 3y agoI wouldn't call that home schooling. That's more like a co-op model. They probably used professionally drafted curricula too.
- ttymck 3y ago66 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37277997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37277997
- maire 3y agoCalifornia provides awesome homeschool support. A lot depends on where you live. In California the student enrolls in a home school program through a local public school. You are assigned a homeschool liaison and can enroll in public school classes. The kids and parents get a weekly checkin and support. You have to pass public school tests. You get a budget from the public school to use for materials. My grandsons are getting homeschooled through 6th grade. My daughter decided it was just too hard to duplicate a high school education at home so she is phasing them into public school in middle school. She gave each child the choice of home school or public school. The Covid lockdown made that choice easy for the kids. They know that if they don't keep up, she will send them back to public school. That is quite the motivator. Just like your neighbors she works with other parents to keep the kids socialized, take them on field trips, and to form a support system. She also signs the kids up for sports. The downside (from her observation) is since some of the early homeschoolers were bible based, she had to really review the school material. A surprising number of text books use the bible as history or have questionable science. She also noticed that many parents homeschool their kids because they can't participate in regular school (for various reasons). Her kids homeschool as a choice. The biggest upside is that time is more flexible and the liaison is flexible. The family took a trip to NYC and the liaison was asking the boys quite a few questions about what they saw and learned.