This would certainly be true if one compared each individual student while at public school vs. how s/he did at home. However, all the cites compared home-schooled children vs. average children in school.
There may be other biases as well:[list][]Home-schooled children may have been doing badly in school, or having problems there. []Religious parents may be more likely to home-school.Better educated parents are more likely to home school.[list] I certainly agree that if home-schooling is working very badly, it’s likely to be rapidly discontnued.
december - you’re an actuary. Not only that - a casualty actuary for Chrissakes. Please tell me that you understand the fundamentally important concept of selection.
One cannot compare an “average” homeschooler to an “average” state schooler because the “average” homeschooler sample suffers from selection - those for whom it does not work have already been removed from the sample.
It’s like having an inaccurate rating model in motor insurance - your losses and gains due to the inaccuracies don’t balance eachother out because those for whom the insurance is bad value will go to another insurer, leaving you with just those for whom it is good value.
And glee’s point is perfectly valid, unless you’re seriously saying that UK schools are so superior to US schools that a non-top-20 UK school would be far better than any school in the US. Somehow I doubt that there is that much of a difference between the systems - educational methods have not changed much, as we have already addressed.
Furthermore, glee is really talking about the benefits of extra-curricular activities - ones that cannot be obtained by the homeschooled. Which leads back to my very first point in this thread, that schools do more than provide an academic record - they attempt to produce well-rounded individuals who will function in society. Of what use is a sterling set of exam results if you can’t get a job because you can’t relate to people?
An ex-boss had a saying, i"Learn something from every piece of paper that crosses your desk." Facts that would be insufficient for a rating model or a medical journal publication may nevertheless have some degree of useful informtaion.
I am not disagreeing with glee’s point; the parents of one million American students are disagreeing.
Exactly.
So, why are all these American parents nevertheless choosing to home school their children?
and don’t think that we didn’t notice that your ‘reply’ to kabbes point re: your RL occupation requiring the knowledge that comparing data in two groups where one was ‘selected’ has all sorts of problems.
You’ve continued to try to extrapolate from insufficient data from a skewed source, to the whole. Good thing you don’t have to continue to prove that you know your stuff as an actuary.
Take it to heart and offer it as a thesis for discussion? Probably not.
You’re trying to do the equivalent of actually rating motor data by looking at all the data for one class of business and just the data that didn’t give rise to bodily injury claims for another class. Your result are giong to be horribly unreliable.
Their child doesn’t do well in public school and does better with one on one education
Their child has special needs and these needs are poorly addressed by public education (I think this is where Primaflora said she is).
They don’t like the government
They want a religious-based education for their child (and home school over choosing a religious private school).
They believe they can give their child a better education than the public school.
They don’t approve of the peers public school offers.
This list is not inclusive, but is some of the reasons I’ve heard people consider or choose homeschooling. As you can see, some of the reasons directly relate to your thesis - a better education. And, when this is the motivation, and both student and parent is cut out for homeschooling (and not everyone is), homeschooling can be wildly successful.
One of my friends was primarily homeschooled by his former hippie mother, and it was a dismal failure. Her theory of education was “let the child discover and learn on his own,” which she saw as a far superior method of education than the guided instruction of my school years. For some kids this would work - my friend “discovered and learned” how to consume a wide variety of recreational drugs.
I don’t throw this example out to prove that homeschooling is a bad choice for everyone - just that it isn’t the right choice for everyone.
and again Dangerosa remember that while those ‘unsatisfied’ parents account for 1.7% of American’s students, and you posted a thoughtful, reasoned list, we’re only interested in data that supports the OP.
Perhaps you could read our postings and learn something from them.
Oh, are they? :rolleyes:
And you know this how, exactly?
Perhaps some of your 1,000,000 parents are creationists, who don’t want to be taught evolution.
Perhaps some pupils are simply playing truant.
Perhaps some pupils are working in their parent’s business (including illegal activities).
Perhaps some parents live in a neighbourhood where the public schools are badly funded.
You agree that my School is better than homeschooling - how about this ‘test’.
How many US homeschooling parents would prefer to send their child to a School like mine?
My guess is 999,990 (there’s always a few oddballs).
What is your estimate?
If less than mine, please could you explain why.
P.S. Please could you provide an example question from the National Geography Bee?
(This would help me judge the quality of the education US homeschoolers get.)
wring, if you’re going to be picky, two earllier cites estimated that growth rate at 11% and 15%. At an extrapolated 11% to 15% growth rate, there would be 1,162,000 to 1,293,000 home schooled students in 2002, which would be 2.3% to 2.6% of all students. (Right, kabbes?) I think the magnitudes of the number of homeschoolers and the growth rate has some sort of significance. YMMV.
Actually both are ‘selected.’ Students who are having difficulty in public school are more apt to be put into some alternative education.
wring, you are not being consistent… On another thread, you defended a post whose only “suppoort” was the statement, “It would not be inconceivable if…” On this thread, you quibble about the significance of over one million students.
kabbes, you are applying a different standard to my post than to yours. You state correctly that the high level of academic success of American home schoolers may not prove that home schooling being more effective, because the data isn’t comparable. Fair enough.
But, your post made assertions with no evidence at all. E.g.,
*“Somehow I doubt that there is that much of a difference between the systems - educational methods have not changed much, as we have already addressed.” *
*“glee is really talking about the benefits of extra-curricular activities - ones that cannot be obtained by the homeschooled.” *
Regarding your second point, I have seen publications which argue that home-schoolers can arrange appropriate extra-curriculars. I am not arguing that these publications are correct; but rather giving an example of a post that is not actuarially proved.
Neither you nor glee answered the question that I am really interested in. Is the UK experiencing the growth in home schooling as the US is? I suspect not, because I haven’t heard anything in that direction, but I would like to know for sure.
But instead of asking the tiny minority of homeschoolers why they do it, you state that it proves amateur educators are more effective than professionals. No logical link.
Cite? Statistics? Even perhaps … an anecdote?
I’m sorry, this is an accusation by … you?! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
CITE! CITE!
So which are these homeschoolers that match the activities my School offers?
To give one example, Garry Kasparov has not played a clock chess simultaneous display (broadcast live on the Internet, with 2 TV stations, 3 radio stations and 3 national newspapers present and an audience of 200 getting commentary from an International Master) at any home in the US.
But he did at my School.
I have seen the above which argues that amateur actuaries are better than professional ones. I am not arguing that this post is correct; but rather giving an example of a post that is not actuarially proved.
For some strange reason, December, you argued that you weren’t incompetent. But by your logic, that has been proved (since you love to mention unsupported allegations as if they were true).
And this would be different from how you ignored the following?
glee – I’m happy to continue this discussion with you, but first we need to establish whether or not the UK is experiencing a rapid growth of home-schooling. Can you possibly get this information? As a teacher, it might be available to you.
december:I’m happy to continue this discussion with you, but first we need to establish whether or not the UK is experiencing a rapid growth of home-schooling. Can you possibly get this information? As a teacher, it might be available to you.
Ya know, december, it’s usually not that hard to dig up the facts for yourself. I am neither a UK resident nor a grade school teacher, but by the simple expedient of typing “homeschooling increase UK” into Google and clicking on the first link that came up, I was able to find a pro-homeschooling article that included the following information:
december go back and read that other thread again. You asked for, and recevied, an interpretation of what Gary meant. IN that case, ‘not inconceivable’ : You’d posted that the news agency ignored/refused to print certain info. Gary demonstrated that the ‘info’ you allege that they ‘refused’ to print seemed to have only been available after their article had run. He was being generous by saying it was ‘not inconceiveable’ that they didn’t have the info, offered you a chance to demonstrate otherwise.
No inconsistencies, and also no facts. E.g.[ul][]Did Reuters actually know about the hand grenade when they wrote their first article?[]If they knew, why did they omit it?[]If they didn’t know, why not? After all they’re a pre-eminant, worldwide news organization and the perp was their employee. []When did Reuters first find out about the hand grenade, and when did they first report on it?What other key facts were not included in the Reuters story? [/ul]We could all take a guess at these questions, but none of us knows the facts.
Carry on with the discussion.
This is the homeschooling thread.