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> 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.

> 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.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      This is mostly due to the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). Which has essentially the same incentives and results that the NRA does -- cater to the craziest of your constituents, fan outrage, then push the most extreme views (to protect everyone). As a result, HSLDA essentially says that no child abuse or sexual assault exists in the home schooling communities, because it's the only way to justify their position that zero regulation is the only appropriate amount of regulation. Reality, of course, has a non-zero rate of abuse (which the HSLDA then does their best to hide). Warning, pretty terrible stuff: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/05/hslda-man-who-kept-children-in-cages-a-her.html https://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/05/hslda-...
- 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?

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.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    This is mostly due to the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). Which has essentially the same incentives and results that the NRA does -- cater to the craziest of your constituents, fan outrage, then push the most extreme views (to protect everyone). As a result, HSLDA essentially says that no child abuse or sexual assault exists in the home schooling communities, because it's the only way to justify their position that zero regulation is the only appropriate amount of regulation. Reality, of course, has a non-zero rate of abuse (which the HSLDA then does their best to hide). Warning, pretty terrible stuff: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/05/hslda-man-who-kept-children-in-cages-a-her.html https://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/05/hslda-...
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?