Home Schooling

[Kalbear]

That said I don't believe putting your child in private or homeschool, in and of itself, harms the public school system so long as the public schools still receive support from those parents via their tax dollars. Galactus asserts that private and home schools, by their very existence, harm public schools. I'm exploring how far he wants to take that line of logic.

No, you're not. You're just not listening to him in a meaningful way or proposing anything special. You're driving the conversation into nitpickery and douchebaggery for the sake of your own personal edification, and it should stop - because I think this could be a useful conversation in its own right were it not for fuckwitticisms.

If you don't believe that private education and/or home schooling is specifically harmful to the general level of education, say why. If you do, say why. For instance, I think that private schooling is in general very harmful in that it removes higher-level teachers from the public environment and encourages the best of them to seek private employment to earn more, thus reducing the overall level of education in the system and concentrating it for those who have the most money. I don't see harm in home schooling to the overall system, but I think it's largely detrimental to the people who take it; as long as they get their GED, though, I can't really fault it.

[Cantabile]

For instance, I think that private schooling is in general very harmful in that it removes higher-level teachers from the public environment and encourages the best of them to seek private employment to earn more, thus reducing the overall level of education in the system and concentrating it for those who have the most money.

Do you mean this simply for elementary/middle/high school, or do you oppose private universities on this principle as well? I'm not asking to argue, just to be clearer.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

El ah - you probably wouldn't call them "smallfolk", for a start.

[Kalbear]

Do you mean this simply for elementary/middle/high school, or do you oppose private universities on this principle as well? I'm not asking to argue, just to be clearer.

Primary schooling only. Universities are fine as private institutions, as there is no mandatory requirement for anyone to go to university. (if there were, I'd support no private schools there, as well).

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Kalbear,

Yes, I was. Whether you want to believe me or not.

Regarding your point about private schools snatching the good teachers I was under the impression that public school teachers, on average, were better paid than private school teachers. That said I suppose getting to accept or reject the students who apply does allow private schools to reject students with histories of behavior problems.

[Kalbear]

While private schools might pay their teachers less overall, they pay more for less tenure. If you're an up and coming teacher it's much more lucrative to go into private schooling.

Furthermore, there are fewer students per teacher (one of the standard metrics for measuring class success rates) in private schools by usually a factor of two. Again, this is money and teachers that could be improving the public school system directly. The solution to having bad schools in your district shouldn't be 'pay for private schooling'. It should be to engage that community. That we can't is a problem.

And I can't say what your intent was, Scot - but I can certainly say what you were actually achieving. Knock it off and try conversing with people instead of interrogating them!

[Liadin]

I certainly don't think parents have an obligation to support the public school system by sending them there. Parents (and everyone else) have an obligation to support the public school system by paying taxes. As far as where the kid should be.... that should be determined by the needs of their own child, not some marginal benefit to other people's kids.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Kalbear,

I'm not clamoring for vouchers. I believe we all have an obligation to support public schools. That said I don't believe the government needs to prevent people from attending private schools if that is their wish.

[Kalbear]

I used to think that way too, koolkat, before I started having kids in the system. Now I really think that schooling is much more than simply supporting it via taxes and letting it go. There's too much to do, too little money, and far too much involvement outside of just the base studies. Volunteering, fundraisers, trips, special programs, speakers...these things all come from an engaged community, and the more easy it is to get the people who care about the kid's educations to actually disengage, the more likely it is the whole community suffers.

[Cantabile]

Primary schooling only. Universities are fine as private institutions, as there is no mandatory requirement for anyone to go to university. (if there were, I'd support no private schools there, as well).

I think that if you're going to argue that private institutions take away high-quality teachers from public accessibility, then it makes more sense to me to be upset with the situation at the undergrad and graduate levels, more than for primary schooling. Primary education is simply the basic introductory levels of subjects, and does not require high-end specialists as undergrad, and especially graduate levels, do. Do teachers make a difference in how well their students learn? Certainly. But great teachers who make an impact on their students are found in in the public school systems as well, not just private institutions. When the knowledge being taught is just introductory level, what's more important is how adept the teacher is at making his students care about the subjects, and truly learning it, rather than where the teacher got their doctorate.

Doesn't matter if Billy Bob got a Ph.D. in French from Harvard, and is one of the world's leading expert on French literature, if all he's teaching is French 1.

This is just my personal anecdote, and can be dismissed as any other, but I was taught at a variety of "high-end" private schools for primary school, due to the wishes of my parents, before finally being allowed to enroll in public school. My level of education was far higher at the public school, as a few of my teachers were able to truly interest and make me fall in love with the subjects. They weren't as prestigious as the other teachers at the private schools, but that wasn't necessary.

In my opinion, what's far more important than teaching children a subject, is teaching them how to teach themselves. Too much of our population requires to be spoonfed things; we require tutors, teachers, and specialists to make us feel comfortable learning things, despite the reality that all the resources are more than available to us, if we only had the discipline to use them and learn ourselves. What I cherished about my daughter's homeschooling experience, was that she got to master the skill of being her own teacher.

[Kalbear]

Cant, I don't disagree - but private schools aren't hiring people with great degrees or anything. A lot of times they'll actually hire folks who don't have degrees in teaching but are able teachers. I apologize if I implied that they were hiring more qualified teachers away.

I was saying that they were hiring BETTER teachers away from public schools - teachers who can engage their students more regularly.

Now part of it is that if you're going to a private school chances are you have a family that is invested in your education, and that feeds on school success. But part of it is that that family is now no longer caring about the overall success of the school system, and as a result the other schools suffer.

[Shryke]

I used to think that way too, koolkat, before I started having kids in the system. Now I really think that schooling is much more than simply supporting it via taxes and letting it go. There's too much to do, too little money, and far too much involvement outside of just the base studies. Volunteering, fundraisers, trips, special programs, speakers...these things all come from an engaged community, and the more easy it is to get the people who care about the kid's educations to actually disengage, the more likely it is the whole community suffers.

Exactly. School isn't just about tax money coming in. It's about good staff, it's about parental involvement with children's education, it's about everything outside of just the base of what's being taught in class, etc.

[TerraPrime]

Think of homeschooling as the white flight from urban center. I think the scenarios are similar, i.e. folks who can afford it will evacuate from a problem spot, be it urban decay or failing public schools, and what will result is the ghettoizing of what remains, be it urban inner cities or public schools. So yes, each family should look out for themselves, I guess. In the case of urban decay, we have a multiple wastelands of high-crime, intractable poverty rate, and wasted human potentials, so.... :dunno:

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TP,

Aren't people moving back to inner cities and aren't people in those areas now complaining about how gentrification is raising property values and pushing out the poor as a result? My point is that these things happen in swings. Given enough time people will move away from home school and back to public schools too.

[Kat]

I agree with Kalbear, and it's true what he said about how private schools can typically pay more for starting teachers. It's actually kind of ridiculous. I have a friend who taught high school physics on a one-year temporary position at a private school here, straight out of college, and he made $70k/year. The maximum salary for a tenured teacher in the same district is $75k/year (with the equivalent of 2 masters' worth of post-bac units and/or development and 15+ years of experience), and first-year credentialed teachers start at $45k if they just have a B.A. (Keep in mind that this is in a high cost-of-living area, etc.) Still though. I'm looking to be a teacher, and if I didn't have a lot of philosophical issues with private schooling, you'd bet that I'd be taking that private school job right now.

(I had a private education through 8th grade, and while it was nice, I don't think there was any value added for me even in the mediocre district that I was in. But more importantly, the private/public school thing here? It's ridiculously segregated as to who goes to private school. Absurdly so. Maybe it's less apparent in other districts, but I refuse to take part in a system in my home town that seems to be a refuge for a bunch of white kids. Their parents are involved, yes, but can't they be involved with the general population?)

ETA: San Francisco public high schools: <10% white students

San Franciso general population: 50% white.

[Cantabile]

Cant, I don't disagree - but private schools aren't hiring people with great degrees or anything. A lot of times they'll actually hire folks who don't have degrees in teaching but are able teachers. I apologize if I implied that they were hiring more qualified teachers away.

I was saying that they were hiring BETTER teachers away from public schools - teachers who can engage their students more regularly.

Now part of it is that if you're going to a private school chances are you have a family that is invested in your education, and that feeds on school success. But part of it is that that family is now no longer caring about the overall success of the school system, and as a result the other schools suffer.

My fault, I misinterpreted.

Could you clarify more on how you think that private schools take away from the quality of public institutions? I'm not really sure I understand. Parental involvement is important in education, I agree, but for volunteering, fundraising, etc. do you truly believe that if parents couldn't send their kids to private schools, they'd participate in those activities for public institutions, rather than spending their money elsewhere? As is, the majority of parents with kids in public schools don't really contribute except with tax dollars, so it seems that simply having a kid enrolled isn't motivation enough. And it's not just because of the income brackets of the families; many upper-middle class and upper class parents have their childen enrolled in public schools.

In my view, private schools actually relieve funding issues. Since regardless of having kids in a private school the parents are contributing tax dollars to public education, not only are they paying for the education of other kids, but are paying for their own children on top of that, allowing for more teachers to be employed, and for smaller class sizes, etc. I mean, honestly I don't believe that if private schools were eliminated parents would use the money they would've otherwise spent on private school to give to public education. Perhaps I am just being overly cynical, but I think the parents would just use that money to benefit their own children in other ways.

[Nas!]

In theory, a multiplicity of educational options is good for society. I have worked in both public and private schools, and I have seen pupils who thrive in both environments. I don't know anyone who has been home-schooled, but I can see how it might work for some children (assuming a competent and committed administrator). The biggest problem might be, should all options be open to all students, how best to go about determining what is the optimal learning environment for a particular child (and, more importantly, how to monitor success in each system and determine when and whether a change in the learning environment might be best).

If I leave my utopian socialist crack-pipe alone for a while, however, the undeniable reality of the situation is this--as long as there are exclusive educational options available, public school systems will never be all they can (and should) be, and the best educations will go to the richest children.

[kairparavel]

I don't have kids to home school and I wasn't home schooled.

This blog details why this family home schools. It's not for religious reasons. It's not because they think they know better. It's not because they're whackjobs (though as it's been pointed out, I can't possibly know that for sure. But anyways.) It's basic time of transportation issues.

I think the plan is to send them to public high school. Anyways, it's an interesting read.

ETA Fixed link. The domestic back and forth MC and I were having on this topic caused me to lose track of what I was doing.

[Andriy Czarchenko]

I don't have kids to home school and I wasn't home schooled.

This blog details why this family home schools. It's not for religious reasons. It's not because they think they know better. It's not because they're whackjobs (though as it's been pointed out, I can't possibly know that for sure. But anyways.) It's basic time of transportation issues.

I think the plan is to send them to public high school. Anyways, it's an interesting read.

You accidentally linked to this thread.

[Watcher]

I think homeschooling works better on paper then in real life. It’s biggest problem is the lack of oversight. In 10 States has no requirements for homeschoolers. The parents don’t even have to notify their school distract that they are pulling their child from school. In another 14 States that is the only requirement. There is no way an outside agency can check if the parents are educating their children or if the kid is learning. Seventeen states require some type of check. Ranging from self tests to an outside check of performance. No state requires holds homeschool children to the same standards as kids that are taught in public school. No State requires a homeschooled kid to take the same standardized test the kids in public school do.

I got those facts from this pro-homeschooling site.

I know that several members of this board were homeschooled and speak positively about it. I’m glad it worked for them. It doesn’t work for everyone that is homeschooled. I worked with several homeschooled kids that were trying to get their GED. I had 5 kids self-identify as being homeschooled. There could’ve been more but I didn’t inquire into any of my students background. Of those 5, two just need a bit of help and go over a some of subjects that they didn’t learn. The other 3 had almost no math education. When I asked what the learned all three of them told me that their family pulled them out of school to work instead. One girl started to work when she was 9. One boys only education was 10 hours on Sunday at his “church.” Which was mostly made up of his family members.

Families that homeschool their children should be held to more rigorous oversight then they are being held to now.