In this case the parents say they are educating the kids, and the laws don’t appear to give the state any way to determine that. There is just an uncle who made the ‘rapture’ remark, so I suppose at best they can put him under oath and conduct an investigation. Like I said, this is the price you pay when you choose to be born in Texas.
There is also the 17-year-old girl who ran away. If she had a credible story of substandard education, then maybe the state had a reason to step in. But like I said in my first post, without a thorough understanding of Texas law on the matter, we’re all just shooting in the dark. And even in Texas, that’s frowned upon. 
There is some precedent for religious enclaves educating their children in the US, precedents that have gone through the court system all the way to the top.
Both the Amish and some Hasidic Jews educate their own children, often in a non-English language, essentially operating their own school systems. The Amish frequently don’t educate beyond 8th grade. However, both groups are required to meet certain standards (including English instruction) such that if one of their children decides to leave the group they will have sufficient literacy and numeracy to enter the mainstream educational system and/or trade school and/or otherwise make a living and provide for themselves in the modern world.
I think applicable standards should be set for homeschool groups, whether religious or not. Basically, absent some identified learning disability, the parents are responsible for making sure the kids learn to read, write, and do math which are still the core skills required in education and much of life. Then hold the parents and kids to that standard.
Yeah, you’ve said it twice now…and it still makes no sense. Those kids didn’t chose jack, and it seems the only opportunity they may be getting is the chance to spread ignorance.
Ideally, I would, too. But… it isn’t fair to hold homeschooling parents to a higher standard than conventional schools. There are lots and lots of kids in public schools who can’t read, can’t do basic math etc. Why is there a remedy needed for the homeschool kid, but not for the public school kid?
That’s the way Texas is. They don’t give a damn.
Now as John says, there may be a solution through the daughter who could testify that the kids weren’t being educated. But based on the statements we have about the law Texas doesn’t give a rat’s ass if kids there get an education.
Because at least some of the kids in the public school get sufficient education, and they certainly are in a better situation than a kid who stays home and whom no one bothers to try to educate at all.
Right. Ignoring the various questions about whether homeschooling is a good idea or not, Texas law on the subject goes back to the 1994 case of Texas Education Agency v. Leeper. Texas law requires minor children to attend public school unless they fall within certain statutory exceptions, one of which is that they are enrolled in a legitimate private or parochial school. The Texas Supreme Court in Leeper held that parents who were schooling their children at home in “legitimate home schools” fell within that exception, and didn’t have to face truancy charges for not sending their children to public school.
However, Texas law doesn’t require homeschooling parents to notify their school district of their homeschooling plans, to get approval of curricula, or to have their children take standardized tests. This particular case involves what actual methods school districts can use to demand that homeschooling parents are teaching a legitimate curriculum, as well as a bunch of arcane procedural stuff like immunity for the school district employees and whether the parents have to exhaust their administrative remedies before filing suit. All the briefs before the Texas Supreme Court are available online for those who really want know what the parties are arguing.
Even the homeschooling parents here admit that they’re required to instruct their children, but they disagree that the district can demand to approve their curriculum, among other things. Accepting their construction I’m not entirely sure there would be any enforcement mechanism for the official requirements.
If Texas has test-based graduation requirements, the way many states do, it is perfectly fair to hold home schooled kids to the same requirements.
First, because a ton of research unambiguously shows that home-schooled kids are better educated than public school kids.
Second, because of common sense. Obviously a parent whose connection to the child is based on family love will care more about that child’s successful education, on average, than a government employee who’s there for the paycheck.
Third, because there is no evidence that training people to be educators actually makes them better educators. In fact, the evidence shows that it does not.
Districts are making a massive investment in teacher improvement—far larger than most people realize. We estimate that the districts we studied spend an average of nearly $18,000 per teacher, per year on development efforts. …
Despite these efforts, most teachers do not appear to improve substantially from year to year—even though many have not yet mastered critical skills. Across the districts we studied, the evaluation ratings of nearly seven out of 10 teachers remained constant or declined over the last two to three years. …
More importantly, many teachers’ professional growth plateaus while they still have ample room to improve: As many as half of teachers in their tenth year or beyond were rated below “effective” in core instructional practices, such as developing students’ critical thinking skills. …
No type, amount or combination of development activities appears more likely than any other to help teachers improve substantially, including the “job-embedded,” “differentiated” variety that we and many others believed to be the most promising.
I’m against homeschooling except for very specific medical issues. The State should always educate its population to ensure the least amount of bullshit being taught to kids
It is exactly what you wrote.
If the would-be teacher is incompetent - and most “average parents” really don’t have any idea how to formally teach any subject - then class size is irrelevant.
There are many problems with the US ed system, and undertrained (and frankly, stupid) teachers are one of them. But you were speaking of average types here, not moron teachers and university professor parents.
Anything I say here will bring a warning.
Average parent at home vs average teacher ** at school**.
That answer makes no sense. People are getting their panties in a bunch about the possibility (not proved) that one home-schooling family is not adequately educating their children. In public schools, millions of children don’t get adequate education, according to the government itself. On average, home-schooled children do better than public school children by numerous measures.
You say: “at least some of the kids in the public school get sufficient education.” What about the millions of kids in the public schools who don’t get sufficient education? What about millions of kids who dropped out of the public schools because their schools were so terrible? What about the millions of kids who had no chance of getting into college because their public high school was so terrible?
What about them? If you have any actual ideas for reforms, that would be a good subject for another thread. Otherwise I don’t see the relevance here. This is a case of parents deliberately withholding education from their children. It doesn’t have anything to do with under-performing public schools.
What is your evidence that formally trained teachers bring about better student outcomes than home-schooling pareents? If that is what you are asserting.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s not, but we’d have to start by finding agreement on what ‘formally trained teacher’ means to debate it. Myself, I’d argue on the basis of ‘well-trained teacher’ vs. the other categories, but that’s a diminishing breed.
A vast number of teachers these days have little to no actual teaching/pedagogy training. Some barely have a degree in anything and are teaching - long term and essentially permanent - under ‘emergency credentials.’
Curious readers who like data may find additional information at NCES from their SASS.
And it’s only going to get worse as teaching becomes a less and less attractive career choice.
No they don’t. Every single study that Brian Ray has ever done has been incredibly biased by self-selection and/or self-reporting. The reality is that there are almost no controlled, longitudinal, random-sample (or complete-universe) studies of homeschoolers in existence.
I did see a few some years back that showed (based on full-state participation in maybe the Iowa Assessment?) that homeschoolers score a little higher a verbal and fairly lower on math… That result, at least, is intuitive.