Of the couple dozen or so homeschooled people I’ve met, only one is a well adjusted, smart (though not necessarily well educated), kind human being. Also he’s my best friend in the entire world. All the others are either religious hateful idiot shitbags, or strung out junkie idiots trying to get away from the Horrors of their religious hateful abusive idiot shitbag parents.
Anecdotes aren’t data, YMMV, yadda yadda yadda, lobster bisque.
In short, maybe not ban, but definitely regulate.
Both of my nieces were home-schooled at various times during their school years, primarily because of health issues. Their parents picked up the lessons from the school each day, and returned them the next when they picked up that day’s curriculum, and there were some other kids who were doing the same thing.
In the 1990s, their parents lived in Kansas City and Houston, TX, back when HSing was mostly considered a wackadoodle lunatic fringe kind of thing, and in both cities, they met TEACHERS who homeschooled, because the public schools were so bad, and the private schools were frightfully expensive and/or no better, and had long waiting lists. They knew they definitely didn’t want to raise their future children in those cities.
A craft store owner in my old town, a devout Lutheran herself, didn’t know that people like the fundies described elsewhere in this thread existed until some of the kids started coming to the store’s lesson room for “socialization.” These kids did indeed know the Bible inside and out, and not much else, and didn’t seem to know basic math, an age-appropriate knowledge of current events, etc.
The people I’ve known personally who HSed, regardless of their religious and/or political beliefs, have almost always had the right intentions, and I even know of several Christian families who used a secular curriculum because they were doing this for other reasons.
All I know is that the current schooling system is overrated.
It’s actually not that important. People only think it is. The reality is
education and schooling aren’t the same thing. You can still get an incredible
life education without schooling.
We live in a world that is operating still on an old and outdated education system.
Institutionalized schooling was invented to prepare and condition future factory workers or assembly/office workers. Sure, you could throw in higher thinking and critical thinking, but that’s more in university. The reality of schooling is that it was an efficient way to control the masses and create a system that much resembled the actual working life system.
Well, we are getting away from that system slowly. People don’t need to work 9-5 anymore. You can work any hours, you can work from any location on this planet, you can do so many different things that it’s time that education be revamped.
Home schooling doesn’t have to be only parents with their kids for 18 years. That’s really naive and short-sighted.
I’d take it to another level where you can have a small group of maybe 3-6 students who are educated in a more “personalized” system…something more like coaching, mentoring, or apprenticeship. This way, they can still get homeschooling by their parents, but also from outside teachers/coaches in particular things, and with a small group of other peers to get some social interactions and develop social skills.
The key for future education is the specialization and catering to each individual’s specific needs. That is the key. It’s too hard to do that now because we can’t have 100 teachers in every school for 100 students. They need 1 teacher to take 30 students in a class etc. Or 1 professor to lecture to 1,000 in a lecture hall. Seems kinda dumb because you could just stay at home and watch youtube mastery videos and it’s the same thing, maybe even better because it’s free or really low cost compared to paying $10k per year at colleges or more.
With A.I. you will be able to facilitate the needs of every person as a unique individual and tailor all the education to the specific needs of each person. That is the future of education…of course once neural link goes live, you can just download the information to your brain and instantly be educated (like the Matrix), but that’s at least 10 years away.
Most homeschoolers I have met–yes, this is anecdotal, bear with me–have been religious Jews or Hindus. While they make up a pretty miniscule percentage of the overall picture, homeschooling addresses a real and dire need for them. Banning homeschooling to smite the faces of Mormon polygamists is a bit shortsighted, IMO.
The library I volunteered at in another time had, on its calendar, a weekly get-together titled “Secular Homeschoolers.”
There’s also a philosophy called “unschooling” where kids don’t follow any lesson plans. Yeah, that’s going to work really well out in the real world, isn’t it?
No, I think it adds alot.
What is wrong with first hand information? What is wrong with learning about the topic from the ground up? What is wrong with maybe herself testing some homeschool students and finding out their knowledge levels? Again, some of these “sources” could well be her own students or persons in her own community. How hard is it to say to someone “can I talk to you about your homeschooling experience”?
And she didnt have to sit in her Harvard office either did she? Why couldnt she driven around the country and visited several homeschooling families? All it would have taken was to go on say Facebook and find some people who had both good and bad experiences with it.
Yes, I’m sure reading published stats and data has its place but I think it should only be a part of hands on research.
That depends.
Maybe it would be a rebuttal, maybe it wont be. Maybe she could dig around and find some people who had bad home school experiences that could go along with her claims. Maybe she wont. She wont know until she tries.
Yes, I really believe that if one chooses to write papers, speak at events, and wish to have such research go into changing laws and public policies one should actually know the nuts and bolts about what they are talking about.
Thing is I have known all kinds of homeschooled families. For example, a truck driving family who did it because both were on the road. A family of professional bowlers who did it because they traveled with the pro bowling circuit. A gymnast who did it because she needed to be in a gym 6 hours a day. Several families who did it because the public schools in their inner city area were just so bad.
I’ve met just a couple whom I would say were doing it wrong. One Mom was into “un-schooling” (look that up) which I didnt buy into. Another because the parents were just paranoid. Another because the kids manipulated their parents to jump from public to private to homeschool, etc… But those were just a small percentage.
I have seen WAY MORE kids messed up by problems in the public schools for things like gang violence, extreme bullying, PTSD from sadistic gym teachers, sexual abuse and the schools doing nothing about it and such.
So again. Yes, I believe that if she wanted her research to be taken seriously to the point of wanting to make laws and public policy she needed to get out of the library and do some on the ground, one on one, research.
I took a look at the statewide link as it actually links to various member groups. Only a single statewide group is listed, Christian Home Educators Confederation of Kansas (CHECK). I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that evolution isn’t on the curriculum.
Next up, the local groups. In order:
Midwest Parent Educators. They are one of the member orgs of CHECK above and have a Christian focus in education.
Reno County Homeschool Connection Ltd. Their mission statement: “The Mission of Reno County Homeschool Connection is to join together Christian families and to assist each other in our efforts to homeschool our children. Our goal is to provide support, enrichment, and tools to ensure success in homeschooling through a variety of educational classes, events, field trips, and support groups while providing an environment for like-minded fellowship, and creating a connection within our community. We believe parents are ultimately accountable to God for the instruction and training of their children. Our desire is that our children will learn to think clearly, concisely, and critically with character reflecting that of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
LOK Homeschool Group. Their purpose: “Our purpose to uplift and encourage each other as we share the common interest of “training our children the way they should go” and “teaching them” as the Lord God has instructed us.”
Imagine Homeschool Community. This one looked like it might actually be inclusive, but their calendar is outdated so I’m guessing they are dead in the water.
E.D.U.C.A.T.E. This one also claims to be diverse. Is also dead in the water as their facebook page is even gone.
Smoky Valley Home Educators. “We, as parents, have joined together to promote stronger families, raise Godly children to stand against the world’s standards, and encourage quality education for our children through moral support, friendship, and planned activities. We, as Christian parents, believe that we have a Biblical responsibility to do so according to the inspired Word of God as written in the Scriptures: Deut. 6:6-7, Prov. 22:6, 2 Tim. 3:16-17, Eph. 6:1-4, Isa. 54:13, 2 Tim. 2:15, Josh. 24:14 and 1 Cor. 14:33.”
Cornerstone Family Schools. “Cornerstone Family Schools (CFS) is an independent educational organization dedicated to assisting Christian families who have chosen to train their children in a responsible manner primarily at home.”
Holy Family Home Educators. The name says it all here.
Teaching Parents Association. Appears to be another name for the Kansas Home Educators association. They lead one of the biggest KS conferences for homeschooling called the “Kansas Home School Expo.” The awesome Expo even has a children’s program called the “Faith Builders Academy.” While your children are being entertained at the FBA, you can attend the “Art of Marriage Seminar” where you can learn that “Marriage, the way God intended it to be, is a true art form.” Oh, their Purpose page spends more time talking about things like the evil homos and transgender people than education.
By this point (and remember, those are listed in order, not cherry picked), I was getting nauseous, so I gave up. I think I’ve demonstrated that the vast majority of people are home schooling because they don’t want their kids to learn evolution or hang out with “sinners.”
The issue I have is that throughout the thread, posters have failed to acknowledge that according to Supreme Court precedent fit parents have a fundamental right to the care, custody, and control of their minor children. It is a fundamental right, one of our basic freedoms.
I get the sense from many posters that this is not the case, that the state has an interest in communal raising of children so that they are supplied with state-approved levels of education.
And although it is unfortunately true that abuse of children does occur, in no other situation are free people required to prove the negative. I don’t have to open my home to the police so that they can make sure I’m not manufacturing meth in the basement, nor do my wife and I have to appear at a state approved office to ensure that no domestic violence is happening----even though we know that many abusers keep their victims isolated.
That is completely opposite of the idea of freedom, that I am allowed to live my life unless presented with evidence, obtained in accordance with the Constitution, that I am doing something untoward.
I disagree with this idea that in a free country, I have to prove to this professor or to the government that I am doing a good job of raising my children.
I’d love to see where you think this right is enumerated in the Constitution, what with you being an originalist and all. Hell, even Andy doesn’t think there is precedent as he noted in Troxel v Granville:
The thing is that although you may know *different *kinds of homeschooling families, you don’t know *all *kinds. You don’t know the ones who aren’t homeschooling their kids at all, who simply don’t send their kids to public or private school and when the neighbors report that the kids are not attending school , they tell the authorities that they are homeschooling. You wouldn’t meet the Turpins whereever you meant the bowlers or the gymnasts. And you can’t possibly know what “most” homeschoolers do as there is no way to find out as some states don’t even require notification of homeshcooling and others require little or no regulation. If you’re looking at a self-selected group that take the SATS and goes to college, and participates in social activities , homeschooling can look very good. But that’s not looking at the whole group of people who claim to be homeschooling.
Everyone is presumptively banned from employment at Harvard. I don’t think you grasp what the term means.
“Presumptive ban” isn’t really a meaningful term in this context. It just means you need to demonstrate competence to take part in an activity, because society at large has a compelling interest in having it done to a certain minimum standard.
By this definition, you are banned from driving a car in your state. Have you found yourself unable to drive a car in your state?
I know this is going to come as a big shock to you, Magiver, but many things that you personally haven’t seen nonetheless exist in reality, and their existence is well documented.
This is one of the reasons why, when it comes to making public policy, it’s a better idea to rely on the findings of well-informed researchers who have investigated the subject thoroughly than on the reflexive resentment of ignorant ideologues whining that said researchers ought to be fired without cause, for having dared to point out problems that said ideologues don’t want to admit the existence of.
Thanks HMS Irruncible, I’ve been trying to explain this in multiple posts now, but you did it better (and, let us hope, more effectively).
I think the courts would throw out any such mandate.
DMC has already asked you to substantiate this claim. I’ll just add that parents’ undoubted rights to care and custody of minor children are not unlimited rights. You are not allowed to do anything you want with your kids just because you’re the parent. Children have rights too, and those must be respected even when it involves limiting parental control.
A fallacious argument. This issue isn’t about “raising your children” in general, this is about providing specialized services that fulfill your children’s guaranteed right to an education.
Do you also disagree with the idea that you should have to prove to the government that you’re capable of doing a good job of providing medical care to your children before you’re allowed to, say, perform an appendectomy on them?
Fuck no, right? Competent and effective medical treatment requires more than merely being a parent, it requires knowing what the hell you’re doing. We don’t just assume that parents can automatically be trusted to provide all the medical care that their children may need and have a right to get.
Similarly, competent and effective education also requires knowing what the hell you’re doing, rather than merely being a parent. There’s nothing tyrannical or “unfree” about requiring parents to demonstrate that they know what the hell they’re doing before trusting them to be the sole providers of their children’s education.
I believe children have a right to an education. And I am VERY pro-homeschooling. I think it should be available, and great pains taken to make sure that any regulation is not excessively burdensome. However, I also believe there needs to be a standard. If someone says “I want to homeschool my daughters and teach them only the things they need to be a traditional wife–nothing past basic reading and arithmetic–because I don’t want them to be able to leave our community”, would you consider that the right of the parent?
I know this is an extreme example, but if we disagree on this issue, I am not sure we can have any discussion about the details.
I may have missed it, but haven’t seen anything so far in this thread about one of the “other” factors driving parents to homeschool their kids - the desire to avoid having them vaccinated.
As this site notes, homeschooled children mostly are exempt from vaccination requirements, and even in states that require they be immunized, they’re lax about obtaining documentation from parents. So, adding to concerns about these kids receiving a complete education, there are worries that their health (and that of the general public) is being placed at risk.
Having followed this debate (mostly in the Wall St. Journal, whose op-ed articles and editorials are pro-home schooling), conservative support for this practice and of having taxpayers pay to send kids to private/religious schools seems to revolve around 1) worries about indoctrination of students (political and social) in public schools, 2) failures of public schools to educate pupils, and 3) a desire to stick it to teachers’ unions.
*note that support for reform and accountability in home schooling is not confined to antis among left-wing academics. The organization whose webpage I linked to (and with which I am not very familiar) is pro-home schooling but also wants to prevent abuses in the practice (check out the board/staff page).
No, home schooling should not be banned, but it must be regulated. The state has a compelling interest in education.
Domestic tranquility requires that all participants in our national enterprise share a common understanding of citizenship. This understanding is best achieved through public education. Since private schools and homeschooling exist as options they must convey the position of the state in matters of citizenship.
Homeschooling should require some form of licensing to ensure that a minimum curriculum is being followed and it should be coordinated with the local school system for uniform testing.
Did you actually read Dr Bartholet’s paper that I’ve now linked to multiple times? Do you see where she is extensively discussing large numbers of well-documented “bad home school experiences”?
In fact, do you have any idea how social-science research actually works? It’s not just a matter of somebody having a speculative idea derived only from theoretical “book learning” with no connection to real-world experience unless they go out there in person and collect some anecdotes.
Dr. Bartholet knows far more about the actual “nuts and bolts” of homeschooling practices in the US than you do. The fact that she doesn’t base her research on her own personal experiences of talking to homeschoolers (even though, like almost everybody else in the US and certainly like almost all educators, she doubtless does have those personal experiences) doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have the requisite reliable knowledge. It just means that she’s not ignorant enough to confuse reliable social-science knowledge with personal anecdotes.
What “mandate”? Are we going to have to explain again the difference between an actual legal ban on a practice and a “presumptive ban” on it?