So, from my understanding of this story: there’s this family in Texas who homeschools their kids. Back in 2005, the uncle of the kids told the school district that they weren’t learning much of anything because the parents were expecting to be raptured soon anyway (a claim the mom denies). The school district investigated, and demanded proof that the kids were actually being educated. The family protested that they didn’t need to, and shouldn’t have to, on religious liberty grounds, saying that the uncle was lying out of bias.
The case is now before the state Supreme Court. What do you think should happen? For that matter, what if the parents openly and proudly said they were expecting to be raptured, and claimed that was just part of their religious beliefs? Would that, and should that, change anything?
More links are here. (Yes, yes, Daily Kos, but you can just ignore the context and commentary if you like and click straight on the links.)
So I guess the school district decided to act on an uncle’s statement that they weren’t learning anything because they were going to be raptured. Based on the above it sounds like they should have backed off after the parents said that wasn’t true. Sucks for those kids, but that’s what you get when you decide to be born in Texas.
Seems like it would depend on the laws concerning home schooling in TX. From the article, it appears there is little or no oversight mandated. Maybe someone more versed in TX law can chime in.
Is the state required to give a diploma of some kind to home schooled kids without testing?
You’d think that this example would be one to get the legislature to change the rules, but being Texas the majority is rubbing its hands saying “our plan is working.”
According to the version of the story I read earlier today (or yesterday), this case came to the attention of the local school authorities when the oldest girl ran away from home and tried to enroll herself in a public school. From the article on Alternet: Christian Couple Sue for Right to Keep Their Kids Uneducated as They Await Rapture:
I saw this version in some other places too. Raw Story tells it like this. She was 17 at the time.
[QUOTE=Trinopus]
Texas doesn’t require parents who home-school their children to register with state authorities. While they must meet “basic educational goals” in reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics and citizenship, they don’t have to give standardized testing or otherwise prove student progress is made.
[/QUOTE]
Wait, what ?! So basically home schooling is based on the honour system ? Seems both bullshit AND unfair to the kids.
Not that I’m very favourable to home schooling as a concept, but if there simply *has *to be some then it seems to me it has to be evaluated and at the very least meet the education standards of regular schooling.
Laws vary by state. A dozen or so, like Texas, do not require notification. Another ~15 only require that you notify the district or state. The rest require some level of evaluation.
While I trust the average parent to do a better job at home than the average teacher at school, I do appreciate the concern about children not learning anything at all.
It’s the age old tension between letting Darwin have his way, and feeling like children need to be given a chance even if their parents are sillier than a bag of kittens.
That’s not what I wrote. Teaching one child is easier than teaching a class. Try it some time.
That said, I’ve not seen evidence that training educators significantly improves outcomes. And my educators were certainly not selected from our best and brightest.
I slightly agree with the second sentence, wholeheartedly disagree with the first. How many homeschool families do you actually know personally? There are a lot of normal ones-- completely secular (or at least not insane religious), smart parents, real science, cool kids. The only homeschool families many people know about are the ones that make the news. Not exactly the posterchildren for normalcy.
We homeschool, not because we’re nutters-- religious or otherwise-- but because we feel it’s the best learning environment for our son right now. My wife’s a children’s librarian by trade and has plenty of classroom teaching experience. He’s currently in the first grade, but testing higher in both math and reading. I would have benefited from a homeschool environment growing up, and he’s a lot like me. As he gets older, should he want to go to a regular school, we’ll let him.
Our daughter, in pre-school, is along for the ride. She wants to stay with her brother, but I suspect she’ll want to be in a classroom with other kids before long.
That being said, nutters like the ones in the OP, truly give us normal homeschoolers a bad name. But they’re not representative of the whole.
There’s definitely a time a place for it. My nieces were home schooled for a few years due to bullying issues and general awfulness of inner-city schools. They moved back into traditional brick-and-mortar schools once they moved to a different area.
I think with homeschooling you find that, on average, they do as good or better than conventionally schooled kids. But, there are going to be some disaster cases where parents just do a hack job. Whether or not those are worse than the worse you see from conventional schools, I don’t know.
Most of the homeschool situations I know are very impressive, but these are pretty fluent people and they actually employ tutors for very specialized subjects, like foreign language and music. Andy yeah, it gets tougher and tougher as the kids get older. Good luck teaching your kid calculus if you only had algebra in school!
What about when these adults grow up? I have been reading a lot about the FDLS branch of the Mormon church, and they have about a gazillion kids and encourage all the moms to go on public support “milking the beast”. We are paying for all that shit. I don’t really want kids growing up uneducated and ignorant and on my dime.
Frankly I am not a big fan of homeschooling at all but if it must be done, there must be freakin standards. And I think all homeschooled children should have a requirement to spend at least a year or two in a normal school as a young adult.
Do you have evidence that homeschooled children are more likely go on public assistance than conventionally schooled children? If not, I can’t see what your complaint is.
According to the Texas homeschooling coalition homeschools are treated as private schools under state law and the only requirements for a private school is they teach reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics, and good citizenship, that the curriculum be bona fide and that the curriculum is in visual form.
If these people are not teaching their kids then it is not a bona fide curriculum and they are in violation of the truancy laws. If they say it is part of their religious beliefs not to educate their children then Texas’ RFRA kicks in. The education of the children is a compelling state interest so then the question would be if there was a way to accomplish that education with minimal burden on their religious beliefs. If their belief is no education then there is no way to accommodate them and the RFRA does not protect them.
A three year long study by a Vanderbilt professor found that home schooling students do not seem to be disadvantaged in any way. Presumably there is a lot of variation but on average home schooling seems to be just as good as public education.
If “homeschool” parents aren’t actually educating their kids, why does the reason matter—whether it’s because they’re expecting the rapture, or they want the kids to work all day in the family store or on the farm, or because they’re just too lazy to bother?