4 ms·

> Many of America’s new home-schooled children have entered a world where no government official will ever check on what, or how well, they are being taught. I

by tivert 3y ago

> Many of America’s new home-schooled children have entered a world where no government official will ever check on what, or how well, they are being taught. Isn't escaping from those officials the whole point? Either because they're failing at their job or doing things that are disagreeable to some subset of the population?

add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
Sounds like a generational Dunning-Kruger situation.
Loughla 3y ago
The college I most recently consulted with had to take a homeschool "transcript" that can literally be a signed paper from the parent handwritten with nothing to back it up. It's astounding. I don't know if that's just because that particular state doesn't have very strict rules around homeschooling, or if that's standard; I just haven't done the research.
- Amezarak 3y ago
  How else do you think a transcript should work? What makes you think a random private school transcript has anything else backing it up? Presumably the students are also applying with ACT/SAT scores in hand, which do have an established meaning.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > How else do you think a transcript should work? What makes you think a random private school transcript has anything else backing it up? Are you saying things written on a fancy letterhead with a stamp can't be unquestionably trusted?
  - Loughla 3y ago
    Because they have some kind of accreditation body that monitors and approves the schools with established standards and approved/documented practices, whereas homeschool does not? And ACT/SAT has become optional since covid for most institutions.
    - Amezarak 3y ago
      > Because they have some kind of accreditation body that monitors and approves the schools with established standards and approved/documented practices, whereas homeschool does not? There are "accredited" homeschool programs, and the "accreditation" means probably about as much as it does for "accredited" private schools, many of whom don't even bother. Elsewhere in the comments I mentioned the Baltimore public school system, where clearly whatever "accreditation" it has is completely and utterly worthless. Heck, even my ABET accredited university, although overall of high quality, had a few teachers that taught me nothing at all and who had no checks on their failure to teach.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      I don't think it's the case that if you show up with a transcript written in crayon and don't bother to submit a standardized test score, your college admission prospects are likely to be very good. The tests may be optional, but I don't think that means they have to assume you'd have done well on them, if other evidence looks iffy.
    - bigstrat2003 3y ago
      > And ACT/SAT has become optional since covid for most institutions. So they should go back to requiring it. Seems pretty easy.
  - eszed 3y ago
    >Presumably the students are also applying with ACT/SAT scores in hand, which do have an established meaning. Except... >More Than 80% Of Four-Year Colleges Won’t Require Standardized Tests For Fall 2023 Admissions >An additional 85 schools will be test-blind or score-free, meaning that applicants’ standardized exam results are not considered even if they are submitted. Included in that number is the entire California public university system.... >[And] at least 1,450 colleges and universities have made their test-optional and test-blind policies permanent. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/11/15/more-than-80-of-four-year-colleges-wont-require-standardized--tests-for-fall-2023-admissions/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/11/15/more...
    - Amezarak 3y ago
      One imagines that students with any reason to suspect the university they're applying to will not know enough about their high school, or possibly derogatory information about their high school, will submit an application with test scores attached in the "optional" cases. One of the other reasons for this is because students completely unprepared for college from public schools are an increasing problem. This is also why they now all offer remedial classes under varying names and programs, and why first-year university programs are much easier than they were in say, 1940.
    - jimbob45 3y ago
      "Test-optional" and "test-blind" are vastly different. If I can get a leg up on the competition by taking the test, then it's basically required even if it's technically optional.
      - eszed 3y ago
        True. I find the ideological movement against standardized testing really disturbing. Their basic point is that students from affluent families are more likely to do well on standardized tests (which is true), and that therefore eliminating the tests as enrollment requirements will level the playing field (which does not follow). For instance - to use your example - which student is more likely to be given your advice: the one from an affluent family attending a well-funded school, or the (let's posit much smarter) one from a family of non-college attendees living in an under-funded district? When the SAT was a formal requirement they'd be more likely to be judged on an actually level playing field.
- Ancapistani 3y ago
  How is that any different from someone who attended a rural public high school? Many of the school districts in my area have consolidated, and it's not even possible to verify attendance of students from the small schools that no longer exist. To my knowledge, there is no "accreditation" that matters for public high schools - there are only thresholds for which state funding is available.
- ejb999 3y ago
  how is this worse than some schools not even requiring students to be able to read, write and do some mathematics in order to graduate with a HS diploma? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-suspends-graduation-requirements-citing-discrimination-against-minority-students/ar-AA1iMeD4 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-suspends-graduation...
  - watwut 3y ago
    Difference is thatbin one case it is a scandal that is investigated. In the other, there is no one to investigate, no rules are broken, it is just homeschooling exactly as meant to be per law.
    - bitlax 3y ago
      https://nypost.com/2023/09/23/students-at-40-of-baltimore-high-schools-failed-math-proficiency-exam/ https://nypost.com/2023/09/23/students-at-40-of-baltimore-hi... Oh please. No one's going to jail for this.
asynchronous 3y ago
It is, and article hit pieces like this are exactly why it will continue to expand. Newsflash, there’s an actual large portion of the population that more and more doesn’t want what is taught to their children regulated by the government.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Yeah, there are a number of people out there who only want to teach their kids what's in the Bible. We should all be so lucky as to be a bunch of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidts. Obviously I'm presenting an extreme example, but society at large has a vested interest in ensuring that children, broadly, are educated. I'm not saying there are no problems with regulations, but I hate how the "deregulate everything!" crowd conveniently ignores the reasons those regulations were created in the first place.
  - _blz2 3y ago
    People are making a choice for their kids, whether they want the after effects of religious or public school 'brainwashing'. For many, its a clear cut choice, one way or the other.
    - mikeyouse 3y ago
      It's weird to strip the kids of any agency or consideration, but you've phrased it well. People are making a choice for their kids -- parents don't own their kids, they have something akin to justified paternalism over them. Society should care whether parents are providing a base level of education and opportunity to these kids. It's pretty apparent from the discussion here who grew up around e.g. fundamentalist Mormons or Baptists where homeschool kids were often abused as a matter of 'doctrine' and those whose experience with homeschool kids is more like the Bay Area version of precocious children learning in nature.
      - pdonis 3y ago
        > Society should care whether parents are providing a base level of education and opportunity to these kids. And society should also care whether government-run public schools are doing this--not to mention whether they are indoctrinating children with values that many parents disagree with.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
> Isn't escaping from those officials the whole point? Either because they're failing at their job or doing things that are disagreeable to some subset of the population? It sounds ideal. But we might want at least some oversight and regulation to, for example, make sure kids aren't being homeschooled on how to build rockets and kill some group of people.
- ejb999 3y ago
  because public school kids never kill people?
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    They generally aren't brainwashed to kill people. Bad apples will fall from any tree. A poisoned tree will mostly produce bad apples.
    - bigstrat2003 3y ago
      > They generally aren't brainwashed to kill people. Nor are homeschooled kids.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      > They generally aren't brainwashed to kill people. Lmao, yes they are. You couldn't be more wrong, kids who attend public school make better military recruits. Public schools teach kids how to conform to institutional systems and follow orders. These are essential skills for effective killers. Btw, since you're so scared of kids learning how to build rockets.. I learned how to build rockets in public school through a program called TARC. The same design principles I learned for model rockets could be applied to homemade weaponized rockets. Does that frighten you? Do you think that makes me Hamas or something? (Hamas is who you're thinking of right? America doesn't have a domestic rocket attack problem, I'm sure you know that.) You should know that most people in the MIC went through public school. If you're actually afraid of people learning these sort of skills, shouldn't you be advocating for kids receiving a bible-only education that renders them incapable of engineering, and therefore weapon design, and unfit for military recruitment?
elil17 3y ago
But should you be able to totally escape from scrutiny? To me it seems very wrong to deny a child the opportunity to learn the things they'd need to function in society like reading, math, and science. Most homeschooling parents are teaching these things to there kids, but there are some who aren't. That ought to be stopped.
- ejb999 3y ago
  there are plenty of public schools, despite spending 10-15-$20K per student are also not teaching those things. THAT ought to be stopped.
  - elil17 3y ago
    Yeah that should also be stopped.
  - Clamchop 3y ago
    Isn't it some comfort that you can see there is something to stop or change?
    - tivert 3y ago
      > Isn't it some comfort that you can see there is something to stop or change? No, of course not. Is being helpless comforting to you? How often does anyone actually fix a serious problem with an institution? Sure it happens sometimes, but the best almost everyone can hope for it to muddle through being subjected to the problems. The impulse to put homeschooling under the thumb of government officials is not comforting, because it would remove the agency of parents to respond to problems they experience or fear in the school system.
      - elil17 3y ago
        Can't there be a middle ground? I'm not saying the government should mandate particular curriculums. What I'd actually propose is something like random checks to make sure that homeschooled kids are actually learning at some point during the day and to check for signs of abuse.
standardUser 3y ago
And part of the point of schools, at least in the modern era, is that kids have access to authority figures if they are being abused at home. That access often ends with home schooling.
jmspring 3y ago
The statement implies the students being taught in schools today are learning at a level they should be. With all the exceptions made and dumbing down of curriculum, most classes teach to the least abled in the class holding back many. That said, I don't think home schooling is an option for all either. Covid showed how difficult it could be for many families.
Exoristos 3y ago
For some, that may be true. For others, it's a replacement for private school that they can't afford.

by tivert 3y ago

add-sub-mul-div 3y ago

Sounds like a generational Dunning-Kruger situation.

Loughla 3y ago

The college I most recently consulted with had to take a homeschool "transcript" that can literally be a signed paper from the parent handwritten with nothing to back it up. It's astounding. I don't know if that's just because that particular state doesn't have very strict rules around homeschooling, or if that's standard; I just haven't done the research.

Amezarak 3y ago
How else do you think a transcript should work? What makes you think a random private school transcript has anything else backing it up? Presumably the students are also applying with ACT/SAT scores in hand, which do have an established meaning.
- tivert 3y ago
  > How else do you think a transcript should work? What makes you think a random private school transcript has anything else backing it up? Are you saying things written on a fancy letterhead with a stamp can't be unquestionably trusted?
- Loughla 3y ago
  Because they have some kind of accreditation body that monitors and approves the schools with established standards and approved/documented practices, whereas homeschool does not? And ACT/SAT has become optional since covid for most institutions.
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    > Because they have some kind of accreditation body that monitors and approves the schools with established standards and approved/documented practices, whereas homeschool does not? There are "accredited" homeschool programs, and the "accreditation" means probably about as much as it does for "accredited" private schools, many of whom don't even bother. Elsewhere in the comments I mentioned the Baltimore public school system, where clearly whatever "accreditation" it has is completely and utterly worthless. Heck, even my ABET accredited university, although overall of high quality, had a few teachers that taught me nothing at all and who had no checks on their failure to teach.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    I don't think it's the case that if you show up with a transcript written in crayon and don't bother to submit a standardized test score, your college admission prospects are likely to be very good. The tests may be optional, but I don't think that means they have to assume you'd have done well on them, if other evidence looks iffy.
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    > And ACT/SAT has become optional since covid for most institutions. So they should go back to requiring it. Seems pretty easy.
- eszed 3y ago
  >Presumably the students are also applying with ACT/SAT scores in hand, which do have an established meaning. Except... >More Than 80% Of Four-Year Colleges Won’t Require Standardized Tests For Fall 2023 Admissions >An additional 85 schools will be test-blind or score-free, meaning that applicants’ standardized exam results are not considered even if they are submitted. Included in that number is the entire California public university system.... >[And] at least 1,450 colleges and universities have made their test-optional and test-blind policies permanent. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/11/15/more-than-80-of-four-year-colleges-wont-require-standardized--tests-for-fall-2023-admissions/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/11/15/more...
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    One imagines that students with any reason to suspect the university they're applying to will not know enough about their high school, or possibly derogatory information about their high school, will submit an application with test scores attached in the "optional" cases. One of the other reasons for this is because students completely unprepared for college from public schools are an increasing problem. This is also why they now all offer remedial classes under varying names and programs, and why first-year university programs are much easier than they were in say, 1940.
  - jimbob45 3y ago
    "Test-optional" and "test-blind" are vastly different. If I can get a leg up on the competition by taking the test, then it's basically required even if it's technically optional.
    - eszed 3y ago
      True. I find the ideological movement against standardized testing really disturbing. Their basic point is that students from affluent families are more likely to do well on standardized tests (which is true), and that therefore eliminating the tests as enrollment requirements will level the playing field (which does not follow). For instance - to use your example - which student is more likely to be given your advice: the one from an affluent family attending a well-funded school, or the (let's posit much smarter) one from a family of non-college attendees living in an under-funded district? When the SAT was a formal requirement they'd be more likely to be judged on an actually level playing field.
Ancapistani 3y ago
How is that any different from someone who attended a rural public high school? Many of the school districts in my area have consolidated, and it's not even possible to verify attendance of students from the small schools that no longer exist. To my knowledge, there is no "accreditation" that matters for public high schools - there are only thresholds for which state funding is available.
ejb999 3y ago
how is this worse than some schools not even requiring students to be able to read, write and do some mathematics in order to graduate with a HS diploma? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-suspends-graduation-requirements-citing-discrimination-against-minority-students/ar-AA1iMeD4 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-suspends-graduation...
- watwut 3y ago
  Difference is thatbin one case it is a scandal that is investigated. In the other, there is no one to investigate, no rules are broken, it is just homeschooling exactly as meant to be per law.
  - bitlax 3y ago
    https://nypost.com/2023/09/23/students-at-40-of-baltimore-high-schools-failed-math-proficiency-exam/ https://nypost.com/2023/09/23/students-at-40-of-baltimore-hi... Oh please. No one's going to jail for this.

asynchronous 3y ago

It is, and article hit pieces like this are exactly why it will continue to expand. Newsflash, there’s an actual large portion of the population that more and more doesn’t want what is taught to their children regulated by the government.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Yeah, there are a number of people out there who only want to teach their kids what's in the Bible. We should all be so lucky as to be a bunch of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidts. Obviously I'm presenting an extreme example, but society at large has a vested interest in ensuring that children, broadly, are educated. I'm not saying there are no problems with regulations, but I hate how the "deregulate everything!" crowd conveniently ignores the reasons those regulations were created in the first place.
- _blz2 3y ago
  People are making a choice for their kids, whether they want the after effects of religious or public school 'brainwashing'. For many, its a clear cut choice, one way or the other.
  - mikeyouse 3y ago
    It's weird to strip the kids of any agency or consideration, but you've phrased it well. People are making a choice for their kids -- parents don't own their kids, they have something akin to justified paternalism over them. Society should care whether parents are providing a base level of education and opportunity to these kids. It's pretty apparent from the discussion here who grew up around e.g. fundamentalist Mormons or Baptists where homeschool kids were often abused as a matter of 'doctrine' and those whose experience with homeschool kids is more like the Bay Area version of precocious children learning in nature.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > Society should care whether parents are providing a base level of education and opportunity to these kids. And society should also care whether government-run public schools are doing this--not to mention whether they are indoctrinating children with values that many parents disagree with.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

> Isn't escaping from those officials the whole point? Either because they're failing at their job or doing things that are disagreeable to some subset of the population? It sounds ideal. But we might want at least some oversight and regulation to, for example, make sure kids aren't being homeschooled on how to build rockets and kill some group of people.

ejb999 3y ago
because public school kids never kill people?
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  They generally aren't brainwashed to kill people. Bad apples will fall from any tree. A poisoned tree will mostly produce bad apples.
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    > They generally aren't brainwashed to kill people. Nor are homeschooled kids.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    > They generally aren't brainwashed to kill people. Lmao, yes they are. You couldn't be more wrong, kids who attend public school make better military recruits. Public schools teach kids how to conform to institutional systems and follow orders. These are essential skills for effective killers. Btw, since you're so scared of kids learning how to build rockets.. I learned how to build rockets in public school through a program called TARC. The same design principles I learned for model rockets could be applied to homemade weaponized rockets. Does that frighten you? Do you think that makes me Hamas or something? (Hamas is who you're thinking of right? America doesn't have a domestic rocket attack problem, I'm sure you know that.) You should know that most people in the MIC went through public school. If you're actually afraid of people learning these sort of skills, shouldn't you be advocating for kids receiving a bible-only education that renders them incapable of engineering, and therefore weapon design, and unfit for military recruitment?

elil17 3y ago

But should you be able to totally escape from scrutiny? To me it seems very wrong to deny a child the opportunity to learn the things they'd need to function in society like reading, math, and science. Most homeschooling parents are teaching these things to there kids, but there are some who aren't. That ought to be stopped.

ejb999 3y ago
there are plenty of public schools, despite spending 10-15-$20K per student are also not teaching those things. THAT ought to be stopped.
- elil17 3y ago
  Yeah that should also be stopped.
- Clamchop 3y ago
  Isn't it some comfort that you can see there is something to stop or change?
  - tivert 3y ago
    > Isn't it some comfort that you can see there is something to stop or change? No, of course not. Is being helpless comforting to you? How often does anyone actually fix a serious problem with an institution? Sure it happens sometimes, but the best almost everyone can hope for it to muddle through being subjected to the problems. The impulse to put homeschooling under the thumb of government officials is not comforting, because it would remove the agency of parents to respond to problems they experience or fear in the school system.
    - elil17 3y ago
      Can't there be a middle ground? I'm not saying the government should mandate particular curriculums. What I'd actually propose is something like random checks to make sure that homeschooled kids are actually learning at some point during the day and to check for signs of abuse.

standardUser 3y ago

And part of the point of schools, at least in the modern era, is that kids have access to authority figures if they are being abused at home. That access often ends with home schooling.

jmspring 3y ago

The statement implies the students being taught in schools today are learning at a level they should be. With all the exceptions made and dumbing down of curriculum, most classes teach to the least abled in the class holding back many. That said, I don't think home schooling is an option for all either. Covid showed how difficult it could be for many families.

Exoristos 3y ago

For some, that may be true. For others, it's a replacement for private school that they can't afford.