what oversight should home schools have?

Great Debates
121

I am defining “homeschooling” to include those parents who make so intentional effort to teach their children in the home. Those who do not are not schooling, whether or not they have actually been convicted of any crime (thus, the kids who are left to run amok as in some of the “horror stories” posted earlier are not homeschooled even if their parents claim they are and even if the state has not interceded). I think this is rather plainly obvious. One wonders why it has to be said.

You are correct; it is difficult to make a census of all homeschoolers, especially in states that do not require registration. Virtually no social science study relies on census methods anyway, so the inability to identify all homeschoolers is really quite irrelevant. It would be impossible without violating Constitutional rights to conduct a complete census of all homeschooled children, using either your definition or mine. Even the Census Bureau has no authority to forcibly gather more information than is necessary to determine the population for the purpose of fixing Congressional representation. Whether or not one’s children are homeschooled is irrelevant to that determination. So, your “hypothetical study” is both practically impossible and illegal. So why are we discussing it at all?

Identifying and accounting for bias in the selection of a study group is always important, but you can’t eliminate bias in a study of apples by throwing in a bunch of pears simply because you’re too stupid or too lazy to figure out which fruits are pears and which are apples. Your arguments for selection bias are speculative; at most what we can conclude is that the studies to date may suffer from selection bias, but we can’t tell what that bias might be without further information. You, however, appear to be convinced that that bias is such that the study results look more positive than the truth – but you do not give us anything more than speculation to base that on. Sorry, but that’s not enough: you need evidence, not mere speculation. And, thus, I still believe that your demand that “homeschooling” be defined in the manner you advocate is a deliberate (if crafty) attempt to force the inclusion of truants in the sample in order to negatively impact the result.

As to Illinois’ regulation of home schools: I told you what that was quite some time ago, in this post, so you may spare us all the indignance over my supposed failure to provide you with that information when you asked for it. I do not agree with you that any form of regulation constitutes oversight, although I will write that off as a linguistic quibble rather than anything of substance.

I do not agree that parent educators should be subject to the same degree of regulation as nonparent private educators. If it were not for the fat that Illinois has very miminal requirements for private schools, I would object to the application of those requirements to home schoolers. I have two reasons for my disagreement. First, parent educators (homeschooling parents) are not engaged in the business of teaching other students for profit; the state’s interest in regulating education providers as a form of consumer protection is absent in the homeschooling case. Second, any significant regulation of homeschooling makes a government invasion into the home a virtual certainty, something which cannot be permitted without probable cause. This extremely fundamental right of the citizenship is not endangered by regulation of private schools not in the home. It is the union of the school and the home that makes homeschooling categorically different from other forms of private schooling, and the reason why the burden tips from the school to prove faultlessness, to the state to prove fault.

It might also help if there was any legal requirement for public schools to teach effectively. There is not. Parents who have tried to sue public schools for failing to effectively teach have invariably lost those suits (except, rarely, when special education is involved and the state’s attempt to teach was plainly “inappropriate”, and then only as a result of recently-adopted federal law), even in states where a free education is guaranteed as a constitutional right of citizenship in the state. You have no legal right to expect any particular quality or form of education from a public school; all you have is the right to be permitted to enter the doors in the morning and leave in the afternoon. Why should you have any more such right to expect it from a private school, especially when you have not paid for it?

122

The definition of “homeschooling” matters very much when claims are going to be made that “homeschoolers” score above average on standardized tests, are involved in x amount of activities, etc. and when tryng to determine what persentage of home educated children receive an inadequate education.You are making the assumption that including all children not attending school will make homeschooling look worse. I only said we have no reason to assume the results will be the same.

123

I’m not trying to demonstrate need for new laws or mandatory oversight- if a state doesn’t want to oversee homeschoolong at all, it’s fine with me. You are arguing against some of the existing laws.

As far as I know, none of those studies involve mandatory participation, and I’m not arguing that they should. But in nearly every discussion or article I’ve ever seen about homeschooling, at some point the argument is made that homeschooling works because homeschooled children do better on standardized tests, or because they have a higher college acceptance rate or that homeschooled children do socialize with other children through activities. If the studies only include certain homeschoolers (those taking tests, or involved with support groups), then the results can’t be generalized to all homeschoolers, just like if a study could be done that left out homeschoolers who take standardized tests or are involved with support groups the results couldn’t be generalized to all homeschoolers.

Sounds fair to me, but my sticking point is

If all it takes to be a homeschooler is a parental declaration of “we homeschool”, then we won’t really be leaving out parents who make no attempt to provide an education. We’ll only be leaving out those who both don’t provide an education and don’t say the magic words (as well as some who do provide an education, but don’t make the declaration).And I don’t know that we can exclude the child kept out of school to provide daycare or to work, if the parents belief is that a 14 year old girl’s education should consist of learning to care for younger children and running a household, since she’s meant to be a wife and mother,or than a 14 year old boy’s education should consist of working in the family business, since that’s how he will spend his life. I don’t think that those are appropriate as the only form of education for a 14 year old, you quite possibly don’t think so and I’m sure no dept of education would think so.

124

** hit sumit too soon**
But that doesn;t mean no parents will think so.

125

This is exactly what the Amish do (except for them it’s 15, not 14), and the Supreme Court said they had the right to do it, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972).

Just because you don’t agree with a family’s chosen way of life does not mean that it is wrong or that they don’t have the right to pursue it themselves or to pass it on to their children.

126

There are many things that I don’t personally approve of. That does not mean we need laws to provide oversight to prevent them from happening. High school educations for the masses are relatively new and if a parent chooses not to give their children one, then while I may not think that is quite right, I can’t say I wish that the state control be extended to prevent this. I realize that what I don’t approve of does not necessitate intervention by the state.

127

:confused: The OP, and indeed the entire thread so far, has been discussing a theoretical framework for all homeschools. Implementing this framework would certainly necessitate new laws, in virtually EVERY state, would it not? I am arguing for a minimalist set of laws(or none at all if possible) and advocates of more frequent/intrusive oversight are arguing for more restrictions to be built into this framework. I’m trying to get concrete justification for those additional restrictions.

If I were arguing against some of the existing laws I would have cited those laws and cases involving them attempting to show they were fair or unfair to the families. Why is it now a question of me advocating striking down other laws? If we can come up with a fair framework, each state would decide if they should adopt it or not. At THAT point I may begin to argue against some laws showing how the framework we designed would work better than the current laws, but since the framework is hardly begun I’m nowhere near that point.**

So are you trying to dismiss the studies results from the discussion? When someone says “those studies don’t cover all homeschoolers” my response would be, no studies ever cover ALL of any studied group. Are you claiming these studies are not representative of homeschoolers in general? From my experience these results are typical, I guess it’s possible my experience is not typical, but that’s going a bit IMHO. It would take some pretty strong convincing to tell me that my experiences over the past twenty years or so were all fluke encounters with unrepresentative members of the homeschooling community. Are we back to the nebulous “some group we don’t have any data on MAY be neglecting/abusing their children” claim supported by various anecdotes? Or is it now being modified to “some group we don’t have data on, and can’t get data on, may be neglecting/abusing their children” supported by various anecdotes?

This is also not just a single study. I cited three independent studies. Are you claiming all three of them are unrepresentative? Or just the one I cited for socialization? Or are you disputing just the claim of socialization? **

Sure, but, as you yourself have helped give evidence for, most families who have truant children aren’t even making a pretense at homeschooling. And the one family you DID encounter who said they were homeschooling actually was. I guess the point is the parents who weren’t homeschooling could SAY they were homeschooing to avoid truancy charges even though they still never make any real attempt to educate the child and only use them as free daycare or an extra income. If this isn’t happening now, as your own experiences seem to indicate, what makes you think it will happen more frequently in the future?

A minimalist approach would probably solve these kinds of situations by filing an intent form. If the parents don’t file an intent form then they can be investigated ONCE upon reciept of a report of educational neglect by CPS. From that point on it takes a much stronger case before they come into the home again.
**

As KellyM pointed out, this type of education, or apprenticeship as it’s commonly called, is perfectly valid, especially if they adopt this education style for religious reasons. The fact that yourself, and boards of education, would probably disagree is EXACTLY why I’m suggesting controls on the ability of CPS and boards of education to set the standards by which homeschools/homeschoolers will be evaluated.

My example earlier of a family who raised their daughters to be housewives and taught them only what they felt they would need for such a role is indeed parental perogative as supported by the Supreme Court. If you wish to put power in the hands of an official to possibly overrule that parental perogative then you’ve got to have an extremely good case that exercise of this perogative WILL cause harm to a significant number of people. I haven’t seen that case yet. As I mentioned, the family who raised their daughters to be housewives are all good, and perfectly capable, citizens, which is all the state should care about.

Enjoy,
Steven

128

Besides, you can deal with false declarations of intent by requiring that they be made under penalty of perjury. Then anyone who claims to be homeschooling just to avoid getting in trouble will face additional charges for making a false declaration.

129

I am not at all convinced that the same decision would be made for any group that is not very like the Amish, including having a long history of having their own longstanding ,successful and self-sufficient society based on religious belief , such that the children need not enter the larger society to find employment, nor fall back on government assistance should they be unable to.

Both of these statements seem to be arguing against the concept of compulsory education (at least for high school) at all, a different issue than whether there should be any oversight of homeschooling (even if the only oversight is standards and a method of evaluation against the standards after a claim of educational neglect is made).

130

Although I could be remembering incorrectly, I believe you’ve said previously that required curricula and standardized tests are unfair. Since some laws do require that, you’re arguing against those laws.

I’m neither trying to dismiss the studies from the discusson, nor am I claiming that they were deliberately biased. In the post where I first referred to the studies, I referred to two different ones.This one, included students tested by the Bob Jones University Press Testing and Evaluation Service. The study itself states " Because this was not a controlled experiment, the study does not demonstrate that home schooling is superior to public or private schools and the results must be interpreted with caution ." The socialization study included families randomly selected from mailing lists, those who participated in Ray’s previous study, and those who received surveys forwarded from homeschooling groups and networks. The first study did not include any homeschooled children who did not take standardized tests, and the report itself acknowledges that it was not a controlled study, and can’t be used to demonstrate the superiority of homeschooling. The second was also not a representative sample. We have no idea how the excluded groups might differ in their scores on standardized tests or in socialization than the included groups, perhaps due to some difference that affects both their taking of tests or participation in groups and the quality of the education provided. and therefore the claim can’t be made that “98% of homeschoolers participate in two or more activities”. At best, it could be claimed that 98% of homeschoolers involved with homeschooling groups and networks participate in 2 or more activities. To use an example from the other side, I can’t take one public high school and make a claim that the students’ high scores on standardized say something about public education in a city as a whole. Perhaps there’s some difference that both causes students to attend that school and influences the test scores.

The claim is not exactly "“some group we don’t have data on, and can’t get data on, may be neglecting/abusing their children” . There are two separate claims ( at least from me) The first is that “some people will neglect their children, and we don’t know what percentage it is (nor are we ever likely to find out) and there must be some means to distinguish between those who are providing an appropriate education and those who are not, including standards defining an appropriate education, unless we completely eliminate the concept of compulsory education " The second is " The results of studies which exclude certain groups of homeschoolers can’t be generalized to all homeschoolers.”

I don’t know that your experiences are representative of homeschoolers in general. Where have you met these homeschoolers? You are apparently pretty involved in homeschooling, so I would imagine you’ve met most of them at homeschooling groups or events.If so, they probably are typical of homeschoolers who join groups and attend events, but may not be typical of homeschoolers who don’t join groups and attend events.

I didn’t say it’s not happening now, I said it didn’t happen to me.( other posters have experienced people claiming to be homeschooling who in fact weren’t)
I have no reason to believe my experience can be generalized to the nation as a whole. I live in a large city, where within a twenty minute drive of my house there are at least twenty private elementary schools. Most of them are religious schools which also accept non-members, and which have a relatively low tuition. In all of the families I have met, through work (both clients and coworkers),neighbors, sports teams,scouts,outside classes, etc I have met only one homeschooling family. It occurs to me that the reason the truants I encountered may not have made the claim
of homeschooling might be simply that they have never heard of it, since it’s not very common here, not because they wouldn’t lie, and such lying might be more common in a place where homeschooling is more common.

There are two ways to generalize my experience. One is that most truants don’t claim to be homeschooling. The other is that most students not attending school are not being educated.

131

Amazing. In your reading of the decision, did you happen to come across this piece?

This doesn’t seem to be an Amish-Only decision to me. The litmus test this decision seems to be establishing is if an alternative(in the sense of being something aside from general public education) education system can adequately prepare the children to function in the world they will be living in. In the case of the Amish it is Amish communities, but the court did not stop there. The court said that the right of parents to educate their children should not be abridged as long as the parents are capable of providing “equivelant” education. All the evidence we have of homeschooling so far seems to indicate that homeschooled students do just fine in society at large.

In case you’re wondering what the court was referring to when they mentioned the case of “Pierce” they meant PIERCE v. SOCIETY OF THE SISTERS OF THE HOLY NAMES OF JESUS AND, 268 U.S. 510 (1925). In particular the decision referred to this passage from the Pierce decision.

The case involved two private schools whose students were going to be placed in public schools in accordance with a cumpulsory education act passed in 1922. Since homeschools are typically considered private schools, this decision applies directly. Parents are free to send their children to whatever school they wish, even ones with different educational styles, as long as they are capable of producing adequate citizens. I contend this proof has already been made for the case of homeschools, in general, producing adequate citizens.**

Actually I’m arguing against inclusion of required curricula and, quite possibly, against standardized testing(depending on the test design and administration as well as what action is taken upon reciept of the scores), as parts of the framework as a whole. Again, I have not addressed ANY current laws either to support or refute them.

Once the framework we’re working on is complete I may compare it to some current frameworks and THEN argue pros/cons of the frameworks against each other AS A WHOLE, but as of now I haven’t criticised any current laws other than to say I don’t feel the restrictions they impose will be necessary in our framework. Our framework will have other ways of handling the situations those laws were meant to cover. I typically prefer to have suggestions ready at hand before I begin criticizing existing systems. I find this quite handy in case I am asked some variation on the question “Think you can do better?” in response to my criticism.

The standard for “an appropriate education” is ability to function in society. This is all the courts have said the state has an interest to ensure. Much nitpicking has come from people with different ideas of what someone needs to function in society(and the courts have typically deferred to education professionals to make this determination), but as far as I can tell the law, as interpreted by the supreme court, sets a very low bar. As the courts have said, interference with parental perogative can only be justified on the grounds of failure to provide a basic level of education. I have repeatedly asked for proof that some significant fraction of homeschools fail in this duty and nothing has yet been produced.**

I feel like I’m arguing against the existance of the Illuminati here! Where are these groups of homeschoolers who are so cloistered? You can’t see them because they are cloistered! Then how do you know they exist and wield the influence you say they do? Does your evidence for their existance rely on anecdotes such as the ones at the beginning of this thread? Every one of those seems to fall into the category of parents who are not even making an effort to educate the children at home, and therefore they are truant, not homeschooled.

How can such abuses be stopped? Each and every one of the posters who related those anecdotes could, and probably should, have reported such families to CPS. Even if the families who were the sources of those anecdotes were all registered as homeschooling, reports with material like those posts contained could still trigger an investigation on grounds of educational neglect/abuse. In the end I just don’t think it’s worth abridging the rights of all homeschooling parents to possibly detect, and maybe stop, hypothetical abuse by some unknown percentage of families.

Another possibility is the posters may not have the full picture and the families they reported on, while engaging in irresponsible, quite possibly illegal, activities, could still have educated their children enough to clear the bar of being able to function in society. Please recall that the bar is very low. A 16 year-old who smokes dope and wanders around during the day sounds very much like a description of a great many publically-educated students I have known.

Why is the demand going out for the homeschooling community to be abuse/neglect free when public schools are not held to this type of standard? Why is there continual assertion that there is some significant fraction of homeschoolers who are not adequately educating their children and this needs action but demonstrable fact that the public schools fail to adequately educate a fair number of children each year goes unremarked?

Asking for the same accountability for homeschooling parents as public educators have SOUNDS good on the surface. It sounds reasonable and fair. Now let’s consider this same system of standardized curriculum and testing, along with board of education oversight, produces dropouts who wander the streets and do drugs as well as graduates who are not literate. If the public school system has kids who fall through the cracks we shrug and say “it’s inevitable”, but if the homeschooling community has kids who fall through the cracks people scream for more oversight. I’m just at a loss to explain why homeschools are seemingly being held to a higher standard. Why do homeschoolers have to PROVE themselves at every turn?

Enjoy,
Steven

132

quote:
I didn’t say they are cloistered, I said those who don’t belong to homeschooling groups, and I’m taking no position as whether the results would or would not show that they are providing an adequate education,simply that it’s not been shown. I know that at least one such family existed when I met them.Is it your position that the only legitimate homeschoolers are those who belong to groups or take standardized tests or go to college? Because those are the only cases in which anything (good or bad) can be said about the results.

Regarding the court cases -These quotes
from Pierce

and from Yoder

make it obvious to me that neither Supreme Court decision intended to limit the States ability to regulate education. And the section I quoted above

makes it clear to me that the Court did not establish an absolute right for parents to determine their child’s education.As for why I think it was a decision that would only apple to groups very like the Amish, that’s because of the lengthy discussion of their lifestyles and religious beliefs in the decision and this quote in particular

If the Court meant to invalidate all compulsory education laws requiring attendance beyond eighth grade, there would be no need for such a discussion of the Amish lifestyle.

And how exactly, would you prove that a person was neglecting their child’s education without standards and a means to measure against them? I said earlier that I have no problem with the only oversight being an investigation after an allegation is made. But how in the world can anyone ever be accused of providing no education or an inadequate education when adequate education is never defined? How can a child be truant if the parent has an absolute right to decide what his/her education shall consist of? The word has no meaning in that case.

133

I don’t see a basis for this. In the Pierce Decision there was a re-write of the 1922 law including a new restriction which said compulsory public school attendance did not apply to students in private schools. The privately educated students were still able to pass the basic skills tests so the other goals/facets of their educations were ruled none of the state’s damn business. If the state has no bounds on its ability to regulate education then why was this clause forcibly added by the court?**

I never said it abolished all compulsory education beyond the eighth grade. I said

In the case of the Amish they were exempted from compulsory eighth+ grade education because they would be living in a society where the education they needed beyond that point would be provided by the community. Each cutoff point for compulsory education would be different based on the society the student will be part of as an adult. In the case of the Amish it was eighth grade, for others it may be different. The point is it CAN be cut off. The right of the board of education to mandate post-eighth grade studies does NOT trump religious freedoms in the case of people whose religious beliefs say they should raise their sons to take over the family business or raise their daughters to be housewives. PROVIDED such an education would still allow them to be fully-functional members of the society they will be part of.

If a school board mandated three years of mathematics for a high school and a homeschooling family believed their daughters did not need these courses because they were, like my friends, intending for their daughters to be housewives, this decision would apply to them. Even if they are not Amish. That’s what the section of the decision which said “or others similarly situated” meant.

I also acknowledged the courts tend to lean on the boards of education for definitions of things like “adequate education”. In the case of Pierce they used the basic skills test as defined by the local board of education. The disclaimers the court wrote into their opinion simply means they are not experts on what children should know at what times and they leave it up to the boards of education to determine that.

I have advocated checks on the board of education to ensure they are fairly evaluating homeschooled students. The court places its trust in the school boards, but I don’t and I think I have damn good reason not to. **

But there ARE standards, the discussion was on what should trigger an evaluation against those standards as well as if the standards were fair. In most cases, as you saw the courts refer to, the standards were set by the school board or local department of education(although the power of the board of education is limited when it attempts to interfere with religious matters or set standards which would abridge other basic rights).

All the homeschoolers I’ve ever seen these standards applied to, either voluntarially(as in the case of studies) or through some sort of legal process, have shown themselves to be able to pass those standards. My idea is to ensure the standards are fair and stay fair when dealing with such a highly variable group as homeschooled students. I furthermore assert these standards should only be used to evaluate a known homeschooler in the event of reasonable cause, proven before a state official and a homeschool advocate, to suspect educational neglect. It seems we are in agreement in not wanting mandatory periodic evaluations, but agreeing to evaluations based upon reports of educational neglect(although I advocate such reports should be scrutinized a bit harder than you seem to**).

Enjoy,
Steven

134

I live in California. There are many ways to go about home schooling. I only know what I am doing. I know that we are test at the end of each year lide the rest of the state is. It is the same test.

We see our teacher at least once every thrity days. We can ask for help before hand. I really like that our son will have the same teacher from age four until the 8th grade.

We read 20 books every 30 days.

We have groups to join such as Gate and Campfire Kids.

There are classes just for parents. THere are park days every week and field trips.

I have found that there is a lot of give and take.

I love the fact that my son who just turned 5 last week is doing 1st grade work and is reading at a thrid grade level.

I do think that should guide lines and test. That way just as if they were sitting in a class room or at home they is record of how things are going.

I think that should be a great range of things offered. Not everything works for everyone. Thats why home schooling can work so well. You have time to go over something until it works or work faster if need be.

But I think what we give our kids more than anything else is the gift of time. They know that some loves them so much that want to be with them and that you really want them to do thier personal best.

School is not always great. The things I did before with older son in our local school was far more work for us. Hours of home work every night. Plus silly things that happened such as my son called " gay" every day. the school had no problem with that. I think if they were calling him Nng*r we would have had some actions.

That is not to say that is what made look into something else. There were many many things.

You have to work at it in many ways.

I love the fact that my son can ask question and we take the time to look it up in many ways. We can read lots of books or decorate the house for Chirstmas. Paperchains are great for hand and eye, working with ruler, and patterns. Baking cookies is great. He reads the recipes and measures it out. Singing, dancing too are some much fun.

I think home schooling will only grow.