I'm having a hard time believing this, particularly the math scores where religious schools are usually quite far behind everyone else.

Can someone give me a quick rundown of aforementioned "common wisdom"?

There's no such thing as homeschooling in this beautiful country of mine and everything I read about it over the last decade consisted of trivial or contradictory statements.

The 'common wisdom' is that most home schooled kids are schooled by highly religious parents who want to shield their kids from any other viewpoint. This is backed up by figures such as: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling#Motivations which lists religious reasons as being the number 2 reason for homeschooling at 38.4%

Even with good intentions, homeschooling limits the child. Generally, a home-schooled child will have 1 or 2 "teachers" who will not be trained in teaching methods, nor have expertise in as many areas as a school-full of actual teachers would, if they have any expertise at all.

The child's social interactions will be even more limited than their studies.

I'm so excited to homeschool my son. I'm not religious at all and don't want to shelter him from that sort of thing in any way; it's fully up to him how he decides to go in that regard. I'm just picky and I have no faith in the school system here in the US. He's a year old and I've been working on teaching him basic sign language for the last six months. It helps a lot in figuring out what he wants and needs.

Social interaction isn't something I'm worried about. It's easy to find groups of like-minded parents to mingle with. There's a slew of athletics and groups to participate in that will easily provide a healthy camaraderie and social skills. Summer camp, specific classes in schools for only a certain part of the day, museums and libraries, etc. Lots of ways to work around it. It takes a lot of effort to meet those needs but for my son, I'm willing to work my ass off to ensure a rich, engrossing education tailored just for him. I won't stifle him and I'll encourage his interests and passions and hopefully, he'll be more ready for college than I was. Or ready to do whatever he loves and be successful at it.

You don't need a teaching degree to know how to impart knowledge and wisdom, to give someone the tools to think and reason and make their own way.

Homeschooled children in the United States reached 1.5 million in 2007. This represents a 74% increase from the 1999, inception of record keeping, figures of the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics(NCES). This is a 36% increase from the 2003 figures. Homeschooled children represented 2.9% of children up from 2.2% in 2003.

The numbers are increasing.

Not to belabor with statistics, which are available, homeschooled children in the US score significantly higher on SAT and ACT tests as well as on state tests where given. My children just scored three years advanced of their grade levels in all areas on state tests. They have never been to public schools.

As far as socialization as well as the other areas discussed, I submit it may very well be counterintuitive. I/we have encountered hundreds of homeschooled children and I dare say they are better socialized and domesticated on the whole than public school children or most adults for that matter. YMMV. There have been significant studies, for instance, that compare preschool children that are submitted to daycare with those that have not. The behavioral patterns differ markedly in favor of those not exposed to daycare. Daycare, it seems, provides a college of misdemeanor.

While religious and/or moral concerns are cited in the reports and when asked for one reason only it was as was stated above. If given a list of seven reasons and allowed to pick more than one, then concern about the school environment was foremost. Concern about the quality of instruction was about as high as was the desire for a nontraditional approach as was the former.

In the US, the income level and educational level of homeschool families is significantly higher on the average as well.

I'm also worried about the children learning social gameplay, which can't really be taught from a book - but on a playground.

I don't doubt that parents who really want to teach their children well and put in the effort can do a good job (up to a certain point - you only have to stay ahead of the kid, not actually know the stuff).

A parent can do what @UsesProzac says, make a tailormade education, which is a good thing compared to the 1-to-30+ general education happening in schools. As long as parents can use a proper curriculum there should be no big educational problems - it does get iffy when people take their kid out to teach them controversial stuff, like creationism or whatever, because that's just false and while the parents might believe it, it's really unfair to the child, who can't make up his or her own mind without having the options presented.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Homeschooling certainly isn't perfect - but then the quality of the teachers in most public schools isn't always shining either.

When we were homeschooling, we found that parents would use other homeschooling parents as "specialist" teachers. One dad, had a love of math and would take the kids for math. One mom was an art major etc etc.

The socialisation thing is always thrown out there - but I think it's crap. Why is throwing 30 kids of the same age into a room supervised by a single adult part of natural socialisation? It's more like Lord of the Flys, with a good chance of bullying and brutality. Traumatic incidents in an environment like this can shut kids' "socialness" down for years into their adulthood.

As humans we've adapted to accept that the status quo is "normal" and the right thing to do - but as the Porgy and Bess devil says ... it ain't necessarily sooo.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

Even with good intentions, homeschooling limits the child. Generally, a home-schooled child will have 1 or 2 "teachers" who will not be trained in teaching methods, nor have expertise in as many areas as a school-full of actual teachers would, if they have any expertise at all.
The child's social interactions will be even more limited than their studies.

Ah, excellent information all around. Much obliged, gents.

That said, I'd like to offer my perspective on the subject, based on experience solely with public schools. I hope you don't mind if I exaggerate here and there to make my points.

Kids schooled at home - just like at private schools - might very well receive better education than in public schools, particularly if the local school system is (perceived to be) of questionable quality, to say the least. Yes, those kids will most likely do better in life if the education is properly done - which I assume to be the case, just for the sake of argument. Let's also ignore the ideological danger posed by parents as well as the social aspect of mandatory interaction with people from other cultures and social backgrounds.

Here's my problem with it: what about the rest? What about the kids whose parents can't afford private school, who are too uneducated themselves to teach their kids, who are too fucked up or uninterested to take care of their kids' education? Public schools over here used to be the most important institution of integration and equality. Same quality of education, independant of a child's background.

No doubt, if schools are in piss-poor shape, everyone's going to suffer. All the more reason to improve the system and not just drop it for your own good. If people can take their kids out of public schools, they become less inclined to pay for them - understandably so, since they are of no use to them anymore. That's the way shit's been going on over here since private schools are popping up everywhere. Upper class says goodbye while the rest remains in now underfinanced schools.

The overview in the initial post speaks of "(money) the American taxpayers do not have to spend". Fuck that, I gladly pay for public schools and I'd be more than glad to fork over another 5% simply for the socializing and integrative effect properly working schools have.

I'm all for homeschooling as an addition to normal school education. But as a replacement? Nope, doesn't work with my understanding of a working society. Unfortunatly, they've been reluctant to fix our damaged school system for quite a while now. As a result, I have to teach math to my youngest sister and her friends as well as my godchild and her friends on weekends. I love to, but I shouldn't have to.

There you have it, lots of exaggeration, lots of socialist bias - just like I promised.

@dag

But isn't that a better reflection of general working life and outside-school society in general? Unless you are able to get a job where you are wholly or mostly self-sufficient, you'll have to face this reality eventually.

@xxovercastxx

Aren't religious schools more likely to be snobbish/elitist private schools than are public schools of meeting those standards? That's certainly the case here and might help explain those numbers.

What annoys me about school in general, especially in the early years 1 to 7 here in Australia, is the sheer amount of time wasted learning and repeating basic concepts at a turtle's pace. Finally when it half-kicks into gear by year 8, again in year 11 to 12, and then for real in university you realise just how much time you've wasted doing nothing productive.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

If my job entailed sitting in a room with 35 other 41 year olds, while being lectured by someone much older- for most of the day, I would probably slit my wrists. I don't see how the artificial, forced school environment prepares people for anything but a life a drudgery.
>> ^RedSky:

@dag
But isn't that a better reflection of general working life and outside-school society in general? Unless you are able to get a job where you are wholly or mostly self-sufficient, you'll have to face this reality eventually.
@xxovercastxx
Aren't religious schools more likely to be snobbish/elitist private schools than are public schools of meeting those standards? That's certainly the case here and might help explain those numbers.
What annoys me about school in general, especially in the early years 1 to 7 here in Australia, is the sheer amount of time wasted learning and repeating basic concepts at a turtle's pace. Finally when it half-kicks into gear by year 8, again in year 11 to 12, and then for real in university you realise just how much time you've wasted doing nothing productive.

I mean more the sense of character it develops, ie resolving conflict, standing your own ground, working in teams, basically the kind of attitude that allows you to survive in a dog eat dog world. You could say that being home schooled still allows you to socialise and develop these same skills, but compared to the kids who spend 6 and a half hours, 5 days a week doing it at the least, they'll still be at a disadvantage.>> ^dag:

If my job entailed sitting in a room with 35 other 41 year olds, while being lectured by someone much older- for most of the day, I would probably slit my wrists. I don't see how the artificial, forced school environment prepares people for anything but a life a drudgery.
>> ^RedSky:
But isn't that a better reflection of general working life and outside-school society in general? Unless you are able to get a job where you are wholly or mostly self-sufficient, you'll have to face this reality eventually.

Am guessing this applies only for the United States?

Not in the US, at least in my experience. Religious schools here tend to want to cherrypick education so as not to conflict with the Bible. Remember, here the "elites" are portrayed as arrogant and un-American by the religious right. "Real Americans" have mediocre educations, love God and work a blue-collar job.

>> ^RedSky:

Aren't religious schools more likely to be snobbish/elitist private schools than are public schools of meeting those standards? That's certainly the case here and might help explain those numbers.

And might I add the cost per student is roughly $15,000 to $25,000 a year when you add up all sources of funding from Kindergarten to 12th Grade including teacher's retirement and divide it by the number of students. It's grossly more than the $8000 to $12000 government typically cites.

If there's 30 children in a single classroom, do the math. An expensive two bedroom apartment in a nice neighborhood in LA costs as much for an entire 12 month year as a single student's yearly cost of $20000++ for a complete school year minus the summer vacation.

Homeschooling is cheaper. And who cares more for their children's education than the parents? Also consider private schools as they are today, which are expensive, are cheaper than public schools and arguably better in most cases. Bring on the nay sayers.

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"It builds character" has been used by the conservative old-guard to apologize for everything from work houses for the poor to pedophiliac altar boy duty. You know what builds character? The gladiator ring. >> ^RedSky:

I mean more the sense of character it develops, ie resolving conflict, standing your own ground, working in teams, basically the kind of attitude that allows you to survive in a dog eat dog world. You could say that being home schooled still allows you to socialise and develop these same skills, but compared to the kids who spend 6 and a half hours, 5 days a week doing it at the least, they'll still be at a disadvantage.>> ^dag:
If my job entailed sitting in a room with 35 other 41 year olds, while being lectured by someone much older- for most of the day, I would probably slit my wrists. I don't see how the artificial, forced school environment prepares people for anything but a life a drudgery.
>> ^RedSky:
But isn't that a better reflection of general working life and outside-school society in general? Unless you are able to get a job where you are wholly or mostly self-sufficient, you'll have to face this reality eventually.

My brother was taken out of public schools in junior high. He was frequently harassed and got in fights all the time so his social life was kind of hell. My grandpa took him out and prepared him for the GED which he got when he was 16. As a teenager he had A LOT of friends and since then has always been a pretty popular guy to be around. Bypassing high school did not hurt his social life as an adult.

Have you been to or around any public schools lately?

Mainstream urban US public education is more the antithesis of what you describe. Antisocial behavior is rampant. Team building and problem solving...for some, for the most part,... walk and look around the cities,...workplaces for that matter. Incapability and disfunction are too well represented. Public schools are, too often, holding pens and clearing houses. I know and have talked to a number of educators. I have known a number of others, even a few that were functionally illiterate in highly rated schools.

Unbelievable horror stories. The seventh largest school district in the US and high school classrooms with 35 to 40 seats and 70-80 students sharing 30 odd books. That qualifies as teamwork and problem solving. I have known university graduates that could not spell much less write a sentence or a paragraph. Functionally illiterate from a major university with BBA's and such.

Is it proposed that exposure to every manner of behavioral expression, to put it euphemistically, is necessary to prepare one for the personal and interpersonal demands of life? Is it a given that those homeschooled live in a vacuum? Who should be the arbiter(s) of one's progeny's social, ideological, etc., etc., exposure and orientation? Personally, I would welcome that there were viable, wholesome, comprehensive, competent....

As to the characterizations that religious zealots comprises the preponderance of homeschool parents, it is over done. People that have the means, fiscally and personally, to devote their lives for the duration of a child's education period to provide the best, most solid and grounded framework for their progeny's foundation of knowledge in this difficult life are to be respected...revered. It is a remarkable and largely selfless sacrifice.
>> ^RedSky:

I mean more the sense of character it develops, ie resolving conflict, standing your own ground, working in teams, basically the kind of attitude that allows you to survive in a dog eat dog world. You could say that being home schooled still allows you to socialise and develop these same skills, but compared to the kids who spend 6 and a half hours, 5 days a week doing it at the least, they'll still be at a disadvantage.

Public schools in the States can force your kids to take behavioral drugs you may disagree with. So there's also that.

Whenever I think of a reason for not liking public school, first and foremost is being paddled in fourth grade for grabbing my book back from a teacher and cussing at her for wrestling it away from me again. It was a Stephen King book and I can't recall if it was The Stand or It.. "They" decided that it was too adult of a book for me, even though my dad had given it to me to read. Corporal punishment for having a college reading level is how I've always taken that..

While I don't think public is better than homeschooling, this is lying with numbers, it's comparing apples to oranges.

Good school/test performance correlates very highly with high socio-economic status. If homeschooling is also an indicator of socio-economic status, as this data on parent education suggests, then you have a poor argument for a causative link here between the schooling situation and the outcome.

I would want to see the data broken down by household income, or even by households that have a stay at home parent vs not. I would be inclined to wager that in either case the disparity would dwindle to statistically insignificant.

I mostly went to private schools, and while the educational options were fewer, the classes were smaller, and that made a significant difference in the level of general disorder and thuggery. My parents were also well off and well educated, I test very well, and did so even when I was in public school.

I'm with Kurt Vonnegut on public school, just limit class sizes to 12, that would take care of the lord of the flies factor, and it would work out just fine.

Currently in the US we underfund the schools, and keep classes as large as we can while keeping classroom bloodbaths "rare". By doing this we get very little out of the institution of public education, and this neglect harms those from less educated and affluent families disproportionately, as they don't practicably have access to the other options, and don't have the osmotic education that takes place in affluent homes.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

Not in the US, at least in my experience. Religious schools here tend to want to cherrypick education so as not to conflict with the Bible. Remember, here the "elites" are portrayed as arrogant and un-American by the religious right. "Real Americans" have mediocre educations, love God and work a blue-collar job.
>> ^RedSky:
Aren't religious schools more likely to be snobbish/elitist private schools than are public schools of meeting those standards? That's certainly the case here and might help explain those numbers.


I don't know what religious schools you're talking about, but that is absolutely the opposite of how Catholic schools tend to be run.

>> ^direpickle:

>> ^xxovercastxx:
Not in the US, at least in my experience. Religious schools here tend to want to cherrypick education so as not to conflict with the Bible. Remember, here the "elites" are portrayed as arrogant and un-American by the religious right. "Real Americans" have mediocre educations, love God and work a blue-collar job.
>> ^RedSky:
Aren't religious schools more likely to be snobbish/elitist private schools than are public schools of meeting those standards? That's certainly the case here and might help explain those numbers.

I don't know what religious schools you're talking about, but that is absolutely the opposite of how Catholic schools tend to be run.


That's exactly how my step-sister's Catholic school was run. That's also one of the reasons she was pulled out and sent to public school

I second what radx is saying. Homeschooling is the ultimate way of abandoning the system entirely. I understand that often kids will receive a better (or phenomenally better) education if they leave the public schools, but this is an completely unsustainable societal trend. There really will be a permanent underclass. Even the charts at the top are really just a way of saying "Our kids are better than yours."

It puzzles me somewhat when liberals in favor of egalitarianism and public education simultaneously feel that their kids shouldn't even be in the public school system. Even if there really is an oppressive atmosphere and general failure, our goals should be to fix the system, not go Galt and leave the whole thing to collapse.

>> ^Fjnbk:

I second what radx is saying. Homeschooling is the ultimate way of abandoning the system entirely. I understand that often kids will receive a better (or phenomenally better) education if they leave the public schools, but this is an completely unsustainable societal trend. There really will be a permanent underclass. Even the charts at the top are really just a way of saying "Our kids are better than yours."
It puzzles me somewhat when liberals in favor of egalitarianism and public education simultaneously feel that their kids shouldn't even be in the public school system. Even if there really is an oppressive atmosphere and general failure, our goals should be to fix the system, not go Galt and leave the whole thing to collapse.


This is bewildering. So you believe that all children should be forced to put up with the exact same mediocre education until they all can have better education? You're against parents teaching their own kids because they'll be too good at it?

>> ^direpickle:
This is bewildering. So you believe that all children should be forced to put up with the exact same mediocre education until they all can have better education? You're against parents teaching their own kids because they'll be too good at it?


I'm not going to force anyone to do anything, it's a free country. Parents can homeschool their own kids if they want to. But homeschooling without any efforts to improve public education is not the solution for society. It will only lead to privileged kids abandoning failing public schools, while the less fortunate will be trapped in a dismal education system that squashes their best chance at achieving upward social mobility.

Basically, I think that good education is a right, and there's no way for homeschooling to provide that to everyone. It's a temporary solution, at best.

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Maybe Public Education - as we know it - has done its dash. I'd be happier with a new paradigm - more like homeschool, even if it's not the parents doing the schooling.

>> ^Fjnbk:

>> ^direpickle:
This is bewildering. So you believe that all children should be forced to put up with the exact same mediocre education until they all can have better education? You're against parents teaching their own kids because they'll be too good at it?

I'm not going to force anyone to do anything, it's a free country. Parents can homeschool their own kids if they want to. But homeschooling without any efforts to improve public education is not the solution for society. It will only lead to privileged kids abandoning failing public schools, while the less fortunate will be trapped in a dismal education system that squashes their best chance at achieving upward social mobility.
Basically, I think that good education is a right, and there's no way for homeschooling to provide that to everyone. It's a temporary solution, at best.

homeschooling with two working parents sucks

What's lacking is not the information... its the ability to process it at a critical level... which comes mostly from experience and practice.

http://truthy.indiana.edu/

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http://ocw.mit.edu/

http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-open-courseware-projects

http://www.bestonlinehighschools.com/directory/property/online-high-schools/