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If a family is willing and resourced to (deeply) consider homeschooling because of one subject (you mentioned Algebra for 8th graders[1]), then another less exp

If a family is willing and resourced to (deeply) consider homeschooling because of one subject (you mentioned Algebra for 8th graders[1]), then another less expensive/effortful path could be hiring an afterschool math tutor, or sitting down with your child to work through Khan Academy together. Both suggestions require extra time, while still keeping your child "within the system" through attending school and (presumably?) receiving a decent-enough education in other non-math subjects. If the malaise extends to (many) other subjects, then I could see how home schooling becomes a more attractive option. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37741653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37741653

petertodd 3y ago
> then another less expensive/effortful path could be hiring an afterschool math tutor, or sitting down with your child to work through Khan Academy together. ...so now after your child spends hours every day at school, they have to spend yet more hours learning what they should have learned in school. You can see why so many parents decide that for more effort, they can save their child a lot of wasted time, effort, resentment, and bad influences. Particularly families where at least one parent can stay at home (and these days, working from home makes that so much easier once kids are old enough to learn by themselves).
- p1esk 3y ago
  You seem to imply that most parents who decided to homeschool actually do a good job at it. Is there any data to back that up?
  - Draiken 3y ago
    From what I've read, there's almost no data in it since it's all done in private with little to no oversight. This makes the comparison very hard, since one side is has all of its successes and failures critiqued in public, and the other side is only ever talked about with anecdotal data. Personally I believe there should be some sort of periodic standardized test for homeschooled kids too. Even if it's not for "passing" a grade, so we know in which level of learning they are compared to everyone else. If we can't compare them, how can we evaluate its merits and flaws?
    - scarmig 3y ago
      I'd be a fan of some nationwide objective test, given once per year, that tracks level of achievement of all students, homeschooled, public, or private. Sadly it seems we're moving away from that as a country, because no one likes to be objectively measured. For the SATs, homeschooled students score ~75 points higher than public school students. We can draw only limited conclusions from that, though. People self select into taking the SATs. And there's the the bigger issue of demographics: given the demographics of homeschoolers who take the SAT, you'd expect them to outperform anyway. Regardless, more data is better.
    - MacsHeadroom 3y ago
      All home schoolers are required to take state standardized tests annually in many states. They consistently score in the top 20%-30% on average.
      - Draiken 3y ago
        That's good to hear! I would say that "in some states" is the key here. A lot can change depending on the state.
      - Pinsy352 3y ago
        Many states is an overstatement. Only 13 require any sort of testing. Even in those 13, not all grades are tested, and often a parent may provide a nonstandardized 'portfolio' in place of testing. The other 37 states have no required testing whatsoever.
    - Pinsy352 3y ago
      We don't even require parents to notify all states that they are homeschooling their kids. Those kids just disappear from the system entirely, no reporting on outcomes. Homeschooling struggles from a deep distrust of any sort of oversight, IMO. It means their best successes get discounted because "of course they'd succeed anyway with involved parents" and their worst abuses get rugswept as "not real homeschooling." No way to numerically make determinations like "is homeschooling as good or better than public school on average" if you refuse to make the population of homeschoolers identifiable.
  - suoduandao3 3y ago
    "the achievement test scores of this group of home school students are exceptionally high--the median scores were typically in the 70th to 80th percentile; 25% of home school students are enrolled one or more grades above their age-level public and private school peers;"[1] But it's psychological outcomes and averages, so I'd take any study with a grain of salt. It does match my experience having home-schooled friends growing up, it's just so much more efficient to be learning at one's own pace than that of the slowest kid out of 30. [1]https://epaa.asu.edu/index.php/epaa/article/view/543 https://epaa.asu.edu/index.php/epaa/article/view/543
    - bena 3y ago
      This is kind of self-selecting. If your kids are poorly taught and don't have any collegiate aspirations, why are you going to subject them to achievement tests. You're not. So the only home school students taking those tests are those who are going to do well. Compared to public schools, where most kids are going to take some kind of achievement test. Whether it be the SAT, ACT, or state-level grade advancement test.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        It was indeed self-selected (parents volunteered to administer the test) and notes itself that it did not attempt to control for variables, and so should not be used for comparison purposes. Also, the demographics are pretty wonky, as they note: - 94% white - 97.2% two-parent marriages - 93.8% Christian mother (no info on other parent?) - 2-3x general pop's attainment of 4 year degree or higher - ~2x likelihood to be in the highest income brackets (50k+) - Essentially no home schooling families in the lowest income bracket (0.8% vs 12.6% of all families with children)
        suoduandao3 3y ago
        Regarding the first point you raise, here's a different study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15582159.2015.998966 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15582159.2015.99... I honestly think social sciences aren't all that amenable to the scientific method - too hard to control all variables - and I'm sure someone could cherry pick studies to say the opposite of what I'm posting here. But, what else can we do?
ndriscoll 3y ago
The math situation is a clear signal that school administration/education departments do not prioritize education, and in fact find it unfair that some students actually manage to learn something, and want to stop that. It's not that they don't have the resources or enough interest to fill classes; it's that they don't want kids to learn too much. It's fair to infer that this attitude is not limited to math. Ostensibly education is why the schools exist. If they're not going to do that, let's at least let the kids go play in the park or something. They'd probably get better socialization that way anyway.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > Ostensibly education is why the schools exist. Does anyone actually believe this? It would be more than naive to do so. On r/teachers just the other day, I was reading about one of them complaining that all they really are, are baby-sitters so they parents can work dayshift. Even they know what they're for. But if everyone were to suddenly be willing to speak this truth aloud, it'd be too absurd to continue. People are shamed and guilted into paying the taxes for education. No one could be shamed or guilted into paying for someone else's teenager daycare. > The math situation is a clear signal that school administration/education departments do not prioritize education, and in fact find it unfair that some students actually manage to learn something, and want to stop that. I was in first grade in 1980 (1981?). It was like this for me the entire run of it. Wanting to learn more, hungry for it, with them rationing what I could learn to tiny little crumbs a few times throughout the school year. Studies were paced out for the dumbest kid in class. I think I made it to my sophomore year of highschool before I gave up, and when I did, that was my fault too. It was bad even then, and at least back then they were still pretending that it was about education.
  - taway1237 3y ago
    >Does anyone actually believe this? It would be more than naive to do so. GP clearly believes it, since they wrote this. I believe it too, and I think this is a mainstream belief, not a "more than naive" one. Your one anecdote based on a Reddit rant (and, I assume, personal bias) is not nearly convincing enough to change my mind.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> then another less expensive/effortful path could be hiring an afterschool math tutor, or sitting down with your child to work through Khan Academy together But the objection is "inequity". Surely this extra effort creates more inequity?
userinanother 3y ago
It is and honestly we’re doing that right now with Seattles equity based schooling program but there is a finite number of hours in the day so you can only do 1 or 2 subjects. If you replace math with remedial math, science with social Justice and writing with unstructured scribbling there just isn’t enough time left over to teach that.
Agingcoder 3y ago
Or go to a private school ?
surge 3y ago
You're assuming kids have the extra time for that. Homeschooling also is much more time efficient. There's a lot of time eliminated even you're not trying to get a whole classroom on the same page (literally and figuratively), and leaves more time for play, extra curriculars or special interests and positive socialization, things that existed more prominently in education when there were smaller class sizes. You can also cater more to where the kid is at in a subject, moving faster in subjects they excel at and slower in subjects they struggle with, as well as accommodate any learning disabilities or idiosyncrasies as well as age specific level of brain development (huge differences in comprehension levels with just a six month age difference in certain subjects. It's also what the ultra rich and children celebrities effectively do, purchasing a bespoke individualized education plan just in a class of 4-5 in private school. I always laugh at the people insist it's best to let their kids be guinea pigs while public school systems which aren't even utilized but it's most vocal advocates for their own children are on a multi decade track of "figuring it out". The most likely place someone is to experience violence in their lifetime is in a school, sexual abuse and assault rates are higher than in the Catholic Church or BSA by population. You can't be mad at people for opting out while the rest of the advocates figure it out for the 5th decade of objective decline and empty promises when problems they've experienced when they were in school haven't even been addressed or have gotten worse. They may be voting for the right people and are active advocates for better education but their kids are in immediate need of a better education.
- lobocinza 3y ago
  And we're just entering the catastrophic "find out" phase.

petertodd 3y ago

> then another less expensive/effortful path could be hiring an afterschool math tutor, or sitting down with your child to work through Khan Academy together. ...so now after your child spends hours every day at school, they have to spend yet more hours learning what they should have learned in school. You can see why so many parents decide that for more effort, they can save their child a lot of wasted time, effort, resentment, and bad influences. Particularly families where at least one parent can stay at home (and these days, working from home makes that so much easier once kids are old enough to learn by themselves).

p1esk 3y ago
You seem to imply that most parents who decided to homeschool actually do a good job at it. Is there any data to back that up?
- Draiken 3y ago
  From what I've read, there's almost no data in it since it's all done in private with little to no oversight. This makes the comparison very hard, since one side is has all of its successes and failures critiqued in public, and the other side is only ever talked about with anecdotal data. Personally I believe there should be some sort of periodic standardized test for homeschooled kids too. Even if it's not for "passing" a grade, so we know in which level of learning they are compared to everyone else. If we can't compare them, how can we evaluate its merits and flaws?
  - scarmig 3y ago
    I'd be a fan of some nationwide objective test, given once per year, that tracks level of achievement of all students, homeschooled, public, or private. Sadly it seems we're moving away from that as a country, because no one likes to be objectively measured. For the SATs, homeschooled students score ~75 points higher than public school students. We can draw only limited conclusions from that, though. People self select into taking the SATs. And there's the the bigger issue of demographics: given the demographics of homeschoolers who take the SAT, you'd expect them to outperform anyway. Regardless, more data is better.
  - MacsHeadroom 3y ago
    All home schoolers are required to take state standardized tests annually in many states. They consistently score in the top 20%-30% on average.
    - Draiken 3y ago
      That's good to hear! I would say that "in some states" is the key here. A lot can change depending on the state.
    - Pinsy352 3y ago
      Many states is an overstatement. Only 13 require any sort of testing. Even in those 13, not all grades are tested, and often a parent may provide a nonstandardized 'portfolio' in place of testing. The other 37 states have no required testing whatsoever.
  - Pinsy352 3y ago
    We don't even require parents to notify all states that they are homeschooling their kids. Those kids just disappear from the system entirely, no reporting on outcomes. Homeschooling struggles from a deep distrust of any sort of oversight, IMO. It means their best successes get discounted because "of course they'd succeed anyway with involved parents" and their worst abuses get rugswept as "not real homeschooling." No way to numerically make determinations like "is homeschooling as good or better than public school on average" if you refuse to make the population of homeschoolers identifiable.
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  "the achievement test scores of this group of home school students are exceptionally high--the median scores were typically in the 70th to 80th percentile; 25% of home school students are enrolled one or more grades above their age-level public and private school peers;"[1] But it's psychological outcomes and averages, so I'd take any study with a grain of salt. It does match my experience having home-schooled friends growing up, it's just so much more efficient to be learning at one's own pace than that of the slowest kid out of 30. [1]https://epaa.asu.edu/index.php/epaa/article/view/543 https://epaa.asu.edu/index.php/epaa/article/view/543
  - bena 3y ago
    This is kind of self-selecting. If your kids are poorly taught and don't have any collegiate aspirations, why are you going to subject them to achievement tests. You're not. So the only home school students taking those tests are those who are going to do well. Compared to public schools, where most kids are going to take some kind of achievement test. Whether it be the SAT, ACT, or state-level grade advancement test.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      It was indeed self-selected (parents volunteered to administer the test) and notes itself that it did not attempt to control for variables, and so should not be used for comparison purposes. Also, the demographics are pretty wonky, as they note: - 94% white - 97.2% two-parent marriages - 93.8% Christian mother (no info on other parent?) - 2-3x general pop's attainment of 4 year degree or higher - ~2x likelihood to be in the highest income brackets (50k+) - Essentially no home schooling families in the lowest income bracket (0.8% vs 12.6% of all families with children)
      - suoduandao3 3y ago
        Regarding the first point you raise, here's a different study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15582159.2015.998966 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15582159.2015.99... I honestly think social sciences aren't all that amenable to the scientific method - too hard to control all variables - and I'm sure someone could cherry pick studies to say the opposite of what I'm posting here. But, what else can we do?

ndriscoll 3y ago

The math situation is a clear signal that school administration/education departments do not prioritize education, and in fact find it unfair that some students actually manage to learn something, and want to stop that. It's not that they don't have the resources or enough interest to fill classes; it's that they don't want kids to learn too much. It's fair to infer that this attitude is not limited to math. Ostensibly education is why the schools exist. If they're not going to do that, let's at least let the kids go play in the park or something. They'd probably get better socialization that way anyway.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
> Ostensibly education is why the schools exist. Does anyone actually believe this? It would be more than naive to do so. On r/teachers just the other day, I was reading about one of them complaining that all they really are, are baby-sitters so they parents can work dayshift. Even they know what they're for. But if everyone were to suddenly be willing to speak this truth aloud, it'd be too absurd to continue. People are shamed and guilted into paying the taxes for education. No one could be shamed or guilted into paying for someone else's teenager daycare. > The math situation is a clear signal that school administration/education departments do not prioritize education, and in fact find it unfair that some students actually manage to learn something, and want to stop that. I was in first grade in 1980 (1981?). It was like this for me the entire run of it. Wanting to learn more, hungry for it, with them rationing what I could learn to tiny little crumbs a few times throughout the school year. Studies were paced out for the dumbest kid in class. I think I made it to my sophomore year of highschool before I gave up, and when I did, that was my fault too. It was bad even then, and at least back then they were still pretending that it was about education.
- taway1237 3y ago
  >Does anyone actually believe this? It would be more than naive to do so. GP clearly believes it, since they wrote this. I believe it too, and I think this is a mainstream belief, not a "more than naive" one. Your one anecdote based on a Reddit rant (and, I assume, personal bias) is not nearly convincing enough to change my mind.

robertlagrant 3y ago

> then another less expensive/effortful path could be hiring an afterschool math tutor, or sitting down with your child to work through Khan Academy together But the objection is "inequity". Surely this extra effort creates more inequity?

userinanother 3y ago

It is and honestly we’re doing that right now with Seattles equity based schooling program but there is a finite number of hours in the day so you can only do 1 or 2 subjects. If you replace math with remedial math, science with social Justice and writing with unstructured scribbling there just isn’t enough time left over to teach that.

Agingcoder 3y ago

Or go to a private school ?

surge 3y ago

You're assuming kids have the extra time for that. Homeschooling also is much more time efficient. There's a lot of time eliminated even you're not trying to get a whole classroom on the same page (literally and figuratively), and leaves more time for play, extra curriculars or special interests and positive socialization, things that existed more prominently in education when there were smaller class sizes. You can also cater more to where the kid is at in a subject, moving faster in subjects they excel at and slower in subjects they struggle with, as well as accommodate any learning disabilities or idiosyncrasies as well as age specific level of brain development (huge differences in comprehension levels with just a six month age difference in certain subjects. It's also what the ultra rich and children celebrities effectively do, purchasing a bespoke individualized education plan just in a class of 4-5 in private school. I always laugh at the people insist it's best to let their kids be guinea pigs while public school systems which aren't even utilized but it's most vocal advocates for their own children are on a multi decade track of "figuring it out". The most likely place someone is to experience violence in their lifetime is in a school, sexual abuse and assault rates are higher than in the Catholic Church or BSA by population. You can't be mad at people for opting out while the rest of the advocates figure it out for the 5th decade of objective decline and empty promises when problems they've experienced when they were in school haven't even been addressed or have gotten worse. They may be voting for the right people and are active advocates for better education but their kids are in immediate need of a better education.

lobocinza 3y ago
And we're just entering the catastrophic "find out" phase.