doreen, get your head out of your ass

[Guinastasia]

Ah, my appologies, Ace.

Hmmm…looks like a drive by OP.

[The_Ace_of_Swords]

No problem, then.

Drive by? I’d say she was plumb driven out.

[Mtgman]

*Originally posted by wring *
**1. from the parents perspective - “I want what I think is best for my child” and of course, that’s much easier to do with home schooling, where the parent has complete control.

2. from society’s perspective - ‘we need to insure the best possible education for all children, that all children are safe, to the best of our abilities’.
   Homeschooling will play up #1, but risk potential failure for #2, in that w/o oversite, there’d be no way for society to insure that all children are exposed to certain commonly expected/necessary etc concepts (simple arithmatic, reading, writing etc.); and there is also the potential for physical and emotional abuse to go unoticed (yes, of course, there’s potential anyhow, but at least if the kid is routinely being seen by others, there’s a better likliehood - and as you note even if most home schoolers attend extracurriculars, not all do, but virtually all of the public school attendees would be seen)

Public School offers a less than perfect #1, however does offer quite a few other options at remedying issues (as previously discussed), and a much better #2.**

Ok, you seem to be making a couple of assertions that I’d like to see proof of please(you’ve made others, but I choose not to question them at this time, I think we may be able to clear this disagreement without getting too involved). First assertion: Homeschooling will risk potential failure to insure the best possible education for the children, that does not adequately insure all homeschooled children are reasonably safe.

This is essentially a re-construction of your statements above. Is this a fair representation of your assertion? If so, please answer the following questions, preferably with cites. What is the percentate of homeschoolers who recieve inadequate education? Please include some information on the method used to determine inadequacy for informational purposes.

Secondly, what is the difference in the per-capita cases of physical abuse in homeschooled children versus publically educated children?

Your second assertion: Public School offers a much better way to insure the best possible education for all children, that all children are reasonably safe.

If this is an accurate representation of your assertion, please answer the following questions, perferably with cites. Please provide evidence that the per-capita instances of gross educational neglect, as evidenced by illiteracy or inability to handle simple mathematics, is significantly lower in publically educated children than in homeschooled children. If you have some sort of evidence which indicates ratios of instances of psychological disorders, which are not biologically caused, in homeschoolers versus similar disorders in publicly educated students that would be great too.

As for the safety question, the cite I asked for on abuse would answer most of it, but I’d like a little more clarification please. If you would, would you please get some info on the number of cases of schoolyard abuse, either at the hands of teachers or fellow students, and add that to the totals of the public school group? We can throw in cases of abuse by siblings in a homeschool setting on the other side as well. Another quick check of that ratio should tell us if this is a significant concern.

No, I don’t really expect you to produce this info, but I’m really tired of people continuing to act as if homeschooling was some sort of cult that only psychotics get into(comparing homeschoolers to the madmen who founded Jonestown is a particularly good example). I’ve shown numbers which show homeschooling to be more effective at educating children. I’ve shown numbers which show homeschooling is a highly social activity, quite possibly more social than public school because of interaction across age groups instead of a large group of peers and one or two adults. I say quite possibly more social because interaction with such varied age groups helps the child understand there are more viewpoints out there than the ones they are currently holding. If a third-grader in public school says “turdburglar” and a large percentage of his classmates giggle, then he is given to believe it’s a funny word and will be funny in other circumstances. If a child of that age says it in a homeschool setting with older siblings or students from

All I get in response to sharing this info as well as my personal knowledge gained from being homeschooled, being a homeschooler, and being involved in the homeschooling community for over twenty years, is more repetition on some theme of the chicken-littlish “But they’ll lock the kids in the house all day, brainwash and beat them!” BULLSHIT! This is NOT happening in the homeschooling community with ANY more frequency than it does in society as a whole. If you say it is then you had better come up with some numbers. Usually when I ask for such cites I get weaseling and people saying “But they COULD lock the kids in the house all day and brainwash and beat them!” To which I answer. If you have no proof that they ARE doing this, then you better have a damn good reason to believe this behavior would materialize if more families began homeschooling. If you have such a reason, instead of just fear and anecdotal horror-stories, show it.**

Bottom line for me is that all society has a stake in insuring that kids are educated. The only way to insure that home schoolers are included in the ‘all’ category, is to require a certain amount of hoop jumping for those who wish to home school.**

I think we agree on the bottom line. The disagreement comes on the details of how to reach the bottom line. If you advocate hoop-jumping, expect questions on details like how large the hoops are, how often someone should jump, how high the hoops are, and who sets up the hoops. As of now the majority of the proposals are to have the board of education decide how many hoops, how big the hoops are, etc.

Now, MY concern, which has every bit as much founding as your fear of abuse in homeschools, is the possibility that a racist might get onto the board of education and when a minority family is being evaluated, may surreptitiously raise the hoop a bit or add an additional hoop they really shouldn’t but are using their own authority, and the threat of removing the child from the homeschool, to make the family comply. Perhaps a bigot makes it into office and decides that a homosexual couple with a child(perhaps from a previous relationship of one of the parents) shouldn’t be able to teach their child at home and writes up the paperwork saying the child isn’t in a healthy social environment. There are as many possibilities here as there are variations on the “But they’ll lock the kids in the house and beat them!” nonsense.

In fact I think my fears may have a better basis because I CAN cite specific cases of unfair treatment of homeschoolers by officials.

If we decide to use hoops for homeschoolers to jump through then I want at least TWO hands on those hoops. I want one of them to be someone who is sympathetic to the idea and goals of homeschooling. Someone to ensure the hoops are not multiplied, narrowed, or raised at the sole discretion of the official. Someone else to help determine if it’s ok to touch the hoop as long as you can make it through or if you have to clear it entirely. I don’t think this is an unreasonable request.

Remember, we’re not mandating homeschooling for all students. I trust parents who feel they are incapable of providing adequate education for their children at home to seek other educational opportunities, public school being one of them.

Enjoy,
Steven

PS. Slip, Thanks turdburglar!

[Mtgman]

@($*@&#%! I can’t believe I did that.

“First assertion: Homeschooling will risk potential failure to insure the best possible education for the children, that does not adequately insure all homeschooled children are reasonably safe.”

should read

“First assertion: Homeschooling will risk potential failure to insure the best possible education for the children, and homeschooling does not adequately insure all children are reasonably safe.”

Sorry,
Steven

[Mtgman]

JEEBUS! I swear I’m literate folks, don’t take this as any reflection on homeschooled students, it’s a personal thing that I hop around too much while composing long replies. I had a paragraph there which was incomplete because I jumped around and didn’t finish it before I posted. Please substitute the following paragraph for the incomplete one above.

I’ve shown numbers which show homeschooling is a highly social activity, quite possibly more social than public school because of interaction across age groups instead of a large group of peers and one or two adults. I say quite possibly more social because interaction with such varied age groups helps the child understand there are more viewpoints out there than the ones they are currently holding. If a third-grader in public school says “turdburglar” and a large percentage of his classmates giggle, then he is given to believe it’s a funny word and will be funny in other circumstances. If a child of that age says it in a homeschool setting with older siblings or students and other parents from other homeschools during a co-operative class/field trip the joke would not be as well recieved because of the different levels of maturity of the audience. THIS is more representative of the reaction someone would get in a real social situation where age groups were not artificially constrained and the mix of young/old was more balanced. Socialization of this type helps children understand there is a wide variety of experience levels and viewpoints in the real world. Not everyone thinks the word “turdburglar” is as funny as a group of 90% third-graders would. I consider the exposure to multiple social groups and age groups during my education to have been a great benefit to me socially and I intend to give this same opportunity to my children.

Enjoy,
Steven