There are a couple of people I know at work, different in philosophies, politics, religious outlooks. They each home-school their children. As different as those two people are, if their children were in the same classroom, they'd have different reasons for questioning the curriculum and how it would affect their children. As it is, they each know exactly what's important to teach their children, so it's easy for them to set a course of study and measure whether goals are being met.
Put that together with the stories this week about the state's assessment of school systems, and the outcome for Allen County:
A report the Indiana State Board of Education released today puts schools and districts in one of five categories, from best to worst: “exemplary,” “commendable,” “academic progress,” “academic watch” and “academic probation.”
East Allen County Schools and Fort Wayne Community Schools, the county's two largest districts, were placed on academic watch. Northwest Allen County Schools and Southwest Allen County Schools, the two smallest, received exemplary status.
A home-schooling unit is the least diverse educational environment you can imagine: one set of parents who are in agreement over what they want their children to have in order to cope with the world as they see it. Move up a couple of notches, and the main value of a small private school becomes apparent. The school has an explicit agenda and attracts parents who subscribe to it, and outside forces are not a factor.
So it should be no great shock that the county's two biggest school systems did the worst on statewide assessments and the two smallest did the best. The bigger a school system, the more diverse it is and the more constituencies to answer to: taxpayers and citizens and competing parent groups and teachers and administrators and minority interest groups, all before it even begins to juggle state and federal demands. The smaller school district has a much better handle on what it wants to do for its more homogeneous student body and thus is better able to handle outside influences.
The home-schoolers know, above all other educators, what they want to teach and why they want to teach it. There used to be a consensus on what public education was supposed to teach and why. But are we even having that conversation these days? Is the purpose of public schooling to teach basic skills? To enable students to think clearly? To inculcate them in the culture they are a part of? To make them become efficient economic units who can compete in a world economy? To understand their parents' histories or to overcome their parents' prejudices?
Convince me that the state and federal governments have even asked those questions, and I'll take their efforts to monitor students' "progress" more seriously. Progress toward what, exactly?
Comments
Schools are not what they used to be, as I remember them (and, as I'm sure you remember them), but neither are parents. And, it is true that as schools get smaller, they tend to get better. However, as they get "way" small, as in a home school environment, they do not necessarily get better. Trust me, all parents aren't teachers - some can barely be trusted as parents, ...
Homeschool is the fastest growing educational choice in the country. If, as the first commentor noted, parents can barely be trusted as parents, who is to blame for that. Is it not the former generation that did not teach THEIR children how to parent.
But I see the other side of the coin. Traveling the United States to talk with young adults who are investigating the educational choices for their children, these parents are wanting desperately to learn how to teach their children. One husband said that *I had to raise my brothers because my mom was at work, I want my wife at home with the kids". And he said this in a loving way because he wants his children to have a real home.
Beyond that, many young people do not want their children in the public schools because they just came out of them 5-10 years ago and they KNOW how bad they are and what a waste of time they are for children. If you want free babysitting, fine, put your kids in public school. If you want educated children, then take charge of your child's education. A concept totally missing in public schools: parents in charge of their children's education.
Have a great day.
Blessings,
Jube
Larry,
If the fact that there are a few bad homeschooling parents means no one should homeschool, then doesn't it follow that the fact that there are some bad public school parents mean that no one attend public school?
I am a former teacher who currently homeschools. I homeschool--at least partly--because I am a former teacher. I have thought about the questions Leo Morris raises only as a homeschool parent. The questions weren't raised in Ed. school or on the job. Isn't that sad?
Larry,
I'm not sure how much research you have done before posting your comments. We made the decision to homeschool our two youngest for high school after sending two students all the way through public school, and two through junior high. We researched for a year and a half before making the decision, and we have no doubts that we made the right one.
Our oldest daughter did fine in public school. She graduated third in her class, scored high on the SAT, and is now pursuing a Masters in Education at Austin College, one of the leading private colleges in the country. I have no doubt that she would have done great in homeschool as well. But get this: she did a research project on homeschooling in one of her lower level education classes, and though she is going to be a public school teacher herself, she made the decision from her research that homeschooling is the best option. She intends to home educate her children. Her research included statistics and observation of parents who have college degrees, and those who have no education beyond high school. The outcome is the same for the students. Most recently, a group in one of her Masters level classes did a research project on homeschooling. The young adults in this group started out with the same attitude toward homeschooling you seem to have. By the time the project was complete, the future teachers in this group had also decided that homeschooling is the way to go.
Larry et al, please research and I'm sure you will find that the education students receive at home, both academic and every other aspect, is overall much better than one they receive in a classroom with twenty to thirty other students.
Thank you,
Sandi
Sandi - that's the nice thing about these blogs (and, indeed, this country), not only is everyone entitled to their own opinion, but simply having an opinion doesn
Larry et al,
Your quote: "Trust me, all parents aren't teachers - some can barely be trusted as parents, ..."
Some thoughts on that and your general attitude in the two posts that you've made to this article as I write this:
1) The barely trustable parents you mention isn't the set of parents that would bother asking the questions posed by the article!
2) Parents who can't be trusted generally wouldn't choose to homeschool as they most likely don't care much about their kids.
3) Many public school teachers are ill qualified as well and the teachers unions continue to fight all efforts to make the teachers accountable for their results. For example: Here in Texas they've fought having to show that they can pass the same test high school seniors have to pass to graduate.
4) Who decides which parents are worthy? You? Some government sponsored group like Child Protective Services? The legislature?
5) The statitics about H.S. dropouts are questionable at the low rates they say, but the schools and government reports have been shown to have been falsefied. The states and schools typically report 10% or less dropout rates and with No Child Left Behind it's been going lower as funding is tied to it. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0303/p01s02-legn.html and http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0621/p03s02-ussc.html (Note: No one has even a 90% graduation rate)
6) Homeschooling parents have a much higher vested interest in the success of their children than anyone! No teacher, no government offical, no neighbor etc. has a higher vested interest!
7) Homeschoolers take on the responsibility for there kids success and still pay school taxes, etc.
8) Homeschoolers in most states still have to submit records for schooldistrict officals to monitor childrens progress
9) Homeschoolers in most states are required to show a education representative the curriculum
10) Saying that the parents aren't what they used to be is a fallacy. Parents are no worse than those 60's-70's parents whose kids where partaking of free-love and drugs.
11) Would you rather the government take care of all kids? Should the government be in full control of all off-spring and control each person?
12) Parents who homeschool now are doing nothing more than our forefathers and the founders of our country. They knew it was there responsibility to educate their kids. Not only that, the public education system wasn't set up to take away power or responsibility from parents, but to provide a better set of possibilites to all kids, to maximise the education oppertunities and to provide at least a minimal set of education to all kids.
13) Public school attendance wasn't mandatory in Texas till 1916 and even then private schools were allowed. Homeschoolers are private schools. It was much the same in other states as well. http://www.carwrecks.com/homeschool.html It wasn't until the 80's in Texas that the state education agency decided they knew better than the courts and parents who had choosen to home-school. Thankfully, the courts have sided not only with history but with the facts concerning home-schooling results.
Finally, as to having opinions and being "right". So far you don't give any facts to support your statements, just opinions. You mention not all parents are good, well neither are all kids nor are all people period. Should we as a society set up some group of people who say who is worthy? Or is that the Federal and State Education agency? Or maybe we just decide which people aren't worthy, smart enough, finacially prepared, well enough educated, etc., to have kids! Is it going to be Ivy League people who decide that, or maybe someone from the UN since they already propose crap like that? Larry et al., don't even take the time to educate themselves, may not even have kids and yet they feel like they can talk about something with which they know nothing. Just go on "feeling". To that point, "feelings" are not facts, and they lead to the old "If it feels good do it" attitude. And yet he feels compelled to tell those of us who've had our kids in public schools, and now educate them at home anything. He only shows ignorance to the facts, but also no interest in finding out the true, just the laxidazical attitude to write it off with edge-cases of "bad parents" and ill educated opinion. Truely ignorant of the facts of what home-schooling is.
Again from Larry: "having an opinion doesn
Geez, ... sorry folks, my OPINION still stands - the only facts I need to support it is too many parents (I'VE PERSONALLY MET over the years) who are home schooling who are not, by any stretch of the imagination, teachers. Teaching is a profession that we should strive to make better, better teachers, better tools, better schools - parents should be parents.
Larry Morris, I really wonder if you are a parent.
As a parent I can tell you that I taught my children all day, every day, long before they ever reached "school age". I taught my child to talk, walk, eat, drink from an open cup as well as a straw. I taught them to write, read, and draw, as well as their colors, numbers and shapes. I taught them please, thank you and sign language. When they were attending public school they learned about "sexy", and cussing as well as many other attitudes they did not get at home.
As far as making the schools a better place, that sounds nice but my children are school age NOW. How long should I let them be in a situation where they are getting poor information as well as misinformation before I bring them home to educate them?
Also, back to the same question posted earlier... "Should we as a society set up some group of people who say who is worthy? Or is that the Federal and State Education agency? Or maybe we just decide which people aren't worthy, smart enough, finacially prepared, well enough educated, etc., to have kids! Is it going to be Ivy League people who decide that?"
Again, I'll use my favorite expression of "wow, you can't really believe that, can you" - Geez. Not that it matters, but, yes, I am a parent. And, yes, we taught our children all the things you taught yours - and I'm amazed you can't make the connection that that's not what we're talking about here. I was in a situation where I knew I could teach my children what they would learn in school - my wife thought she could - and it was, in my opinion, a disaster. And, no, being a man and swallowing my pride and helping her wasn't the answer - the answer was not to do something we weren't good at in the first place. And, yes, the schools of today aren't what they should be, but just throwing them out completely isn't the answer either.
As I said, ... Geez, ...
should be "where I knew I couldn't teach my children", ...
should be "where I knew I couldn't teach my children", ...
Larry,
It seems pretty clear that you were against your wife's efforts from the beginning and probably didn't support her in it at all. You probably reluctantly agreed to it because your wife felt so strongly about it. Secretly you were just waiting for her to fail so you could say "I told you so." But, maybe if you actually supported your wife in homeschooling (and maybe even assisted), then it wouldn't have been a disaster.
Homeschooling isn't easy. It takes time and a lot of work to really figure out what you're doing. During the beginning, it's very common to question yourself, your motives, your effectiveness and if you can really do it, but if you work at it and stick with it, then you can get through that early tough period. However, it's extremely difficult for a mother on her own, without the support of her husband, to get through this early time.
I think you should "swallow your pride" now and apologise to your wife for your failure as a husband.
Well, Leo McCoy (God forbid that I confuse with the real Leo, ...) thanks for the advice, but you're about 30 years too late, and I might add, about a few sentences too "oh, my God, how could I have done that - let's see now, who should I apologize to" This is one of those posts that makes me glad we're no longer married, my kids are both pretty normal, and I don't live close to you, ... if anyone needs to apologize, it
Maybe he's from the UK?
They have a way with coloUrful language...
I know Jane Austen used that spelling.
((no apology required here...lol))
;)
B.G.