Missing in action
The Inverness Courier: Basis for home schooling concerns leading councillor — Home schooling, you watch, is going to be one large political football in the near future. These concerns here are from Scotland. Germany has a huge movement going. It’ all over the place. Most of today’s public schools are broken and the only bypass is private schools or home schooling.
A century ago home schooling was the preserve of the rich but now there are a variety of reasons why youngsters are not involved in mainstream education, ranging from illness to religious belief.
Highland Council reported last week that about 100 children were being taught at home across the region but admitted that the figure could be higher as there was no requirement for the education authority to be informed in every case.
Vice-convener Dr Michael Foxley described the figure as “scary” and claimed that in some cases parents’ reasons for keeping their sons and daughters away from school were “flaky”.
This provoked a strong response from home schooling groups which pointed out that the right to educate children at home is enshrined in law and that the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 demands only that youngsters are provided with “an efficient education suitable to the age, ability and aptitude of the child”.
“I was keen that they should learn German from an early age as the eldest two were born there, but I didn’t find the school system was able to do that at all.”
The children thrived academically but Ms Preuss admitted it made their eventual introduction to formal education particularly difficult.
Her youngest son, who is now at university, was so shocked by the “totalitarian regime” — a phrase most of his classmates had never head before — when he went to school for the first time in second year of high school that he struggled to accept the authority of his teachers and his mother noticed a distinct change in his character.
In the US, a person can choose the doctor they want, the lawyer they want but the person has few choices when it comes to educating his/her children.
I hope this changes soon. Give parents more freedom to choose the quality of education for their children.
WTF happened to good PUBLIC schools?
I guess that people are afraid that their kids are going to meet other, different kids.
Private schools, and home schooling is NOT going to make this country the leader that it once was. We need a good public education system. In some countries, they are willing to fund a person’s education up to the Phd level.
Not here. Education is a part of the economy. Gods forbid it should be a part of our national pride, and something that we GIVE to kids, so that they will be better off in the future.
Most home schooling parents keep their children out of public schools to indoctrinate them with a private brand of religion. It’s not a horror of public schools so much as a horror of exposing their kids to people who don’t believe the seas will turn to blood in their lifetimes, etc. Not pulling this out of my keister, saw the surveys.
And publicly funded education made us a world power. It was intended so. And it has been defunded, and most importantly depopulated, by what is essentially classism and racism. All else is jibber-jabber.
I was educated through the public school system in a nice suburb, but know quite a few adults and families that either were home schooled and turned out just fine or are currently home schooling some extraordinary kids who are FAR ahead of their public school counterparts…
I would love to have been home schooled had it not been some form of social suicide, seems like a great way to learn though.
We educated our daughter at home and were very pleased with the results. While it’s true that some of the public school curriculum conflicted with our religious beliefs, the major factor in our decision to home-school was that our daughter wasn’t challenged enough in public school. There were the constant interruptions of disciplinary problems and class clowns etc. With few exceptions, the teachers seemed unconcerned. My daughter scored very high on her SA T’s and attends a major university in Pennsylvania on an academic scholarship. She plays volleyball and basketball, works on the school newspaper, and has many wonderful friends. Is home-schooling for everyone? Probably not. It’s a LOT of work for the parents. But it can be very satisfying. Do a little research…find out how many presidents were taught at home. Notice that many of the Natl. Spelling Bee Contest winners over the past 20 years have been home-schooled.
Be warned: Home schooling is certainly not for the lazy. If you like to come home from work and vegetate in front of the television every night, do yourself a favor and let the government teach your kids.
John, you’re right about this becoming a political football. The other bypasses–vouchers and charter schools–will make the problem far worse than it is today. These “solutions” mean only the wealthy or connected get the good stuff, and the dregs are left to the publics. How does that help?
A lot of privates are as good as they are because they can choose their raw material suppliers, unlike publics. Imagine a business where you couldn’t choose your vendors, but had to take whatever junk showed up on the dock…that’s what today’s publics have to deal with. Add NCLB, and they’re doomed.
Far too many parents are losers, and they expect the schools to do all the ‘learnin’ while they: A) do drugs and drink, or B) work in two jobs and live in McMansions while driving Hummers that never leave pavement. Etc.
Home schooling is a good option for “kids who don’t fit in” or those at the IQ extremes. However IME it’s more for parents who can’t get along with others’ ideas, whether those are religious, academic, or social. The results are a mixed bag. You’ll never hear about the kids who fall through the home school cracks.
Andrew…there are plenty of folks who have done as you have, with excellent results. Smart/sucessful parents make smart/successful kids. I know some people who shouldn’t be home schooling.
I live in the South, in a relatively small town without a lot of options as far as private schools. The local Catholic school has recently closed and it never went past the 8th grade.
The black:white ratio is about 60:40.
So as you can imagine there are several people that either home school or have moved to a small school district nearby that is mostly white.
Well they are feeling really screwed now. An oil company that is based here just put up $50,000,000 to pay for the college education of every graduate of El Dorado High School.
http://www.eldoradopromise.com
I can related to this in a way. An ex-neighbor of mine had four children, three were being home schooled while the oldest had just entered the 10th grade due to wanting to play sport. The first time I meet their two youngest I swear I thought they were retarded. They acted like they were scared of everything outside and seemed to stare and grunt a lot. Later I learned the mother was home schooling and knowing her I wondered just how bad the kids would end up. While other kids played outside these kids stared from behind windows or bushes. The second one began interfacing with me in odd ways. Treated me like an idiot and was rather insulted when I’d put him in his place. His father finally explained to me how his son, 15 expected more respect from me, especially since I was not a memeber of their church. Well thank goodness they moved. It took me a year of disrespecting their cult like living, but it worked.
lar
Ladies and gentleman the net will make us free.Free from all of the greedy administraters,bad teachers and flakey political reasoning of our politicians.Teach a child to read and let them find their muse on the internet.Check out the book “Freakanomics”for an interesting view of this question.The unions politicians and educational establishment have already lost the hearts and minds of middle america.It is simply to expensive to warehouse children to teach them how to interact socially.
I have several friends that home school their kids and they are all normal, well-adjusted kids. Would my wife and I ever homeschool our kids? No way… we don’t have the temperament for it! I do believe that it is the parent’s responsibility to decide how their children are educated. We send our kids to a private Christian school for a number of reasons:
1. They are receiving a rigorous education in smaller classroom environment.
2. What they are being taught at school reinforces what we teach them at home.
3. I work in the educational publishing industry and I see the dumbing down and political correctness of textbooks first hand — I don’t want my kids using those textbooks.
We aren’t rich or well-connected, so we make a lot of financial sacrifices to send our children to private school. It’s important to us, so we happily and willingly make that choice.
I always thought home schooling was a way for over-protective parents to isolate their kids from society. It ends up doing more harm than good because even though schools don’t have the greatest curriculum, what they are good at teaching is human interaction. It’s really the social context of schools that ends up being the best education for children being prepared for the adult world. Its social skills that lead to success, not book smarts.
Public schools were created to break down the old master/apprentice form of education, and prepare kids for life in a “modern” industrial workforce, where unquestioning acceptance of authority and the belief in the absolute superiority of our political/economic system were key. Now we are living in a post-industrial society, where if you don’t want to be a burger flipper, you better learn how to think and reason, not just memorize. Public schools have not changed their focus to match this new reality. If you want your kids to be independent thinkers (and most parents don’t, really), you definitely don’t want to send them to pris-, er, public school.
I had to go to college for four years, take numerous tests, and get a license just to teach one subject. But if parents think they can teach their kids every subject better, then more power to them.
I no longer teach high school because I got sick of kicking kids out of class, having the police come to my class room to arrest one of my students, and hearing about how a student was absent the day before because he was home with his dad smoking pot before his dad had to go back to jail. But I’m sure all those were the fault of teachers…
I work in the educational publishing industry and I see the dumbing down and political correctness of textbooks first hand — I don’t want my kids using those textbooks.
So far I’ve read a lot of bull crap here but this one just burnt my butt. Dumb down? WTF ???
I have a seven yr old in gr 1. She brought home a science book that I have to read to her as it is too hard. She understands the concepts after they are explained, but no way in hell could she ever comprehend a book like this without help.
Then I’ve seen gr. 4 students needing help understanding osmosis, their science books explained it at a gr. 7 level. Or a gr. 9 student whose chemistry book glossed over sublimation. The problem??? The No Child Left Behind Act has forced students to learn things at a much lower grade level then before. The books are still old and aimed at the higher level.
No there isn’t a dumbing down of the books. It is a making the books apply to the grade level they are being used at.
#18 Pedro, The US is a very big place. If I said it ranged from $100/mo to $50,000/yr I wouldn’t be all that wrong.
Well, people are always saying that the solution for public education is to spend more money. So it makes sense that giving out vouchers or having kids leave public schools make the public schools better since you now have more money per student.
Typically, private schools cost anywhere from 3k-5k a year. There are usually multi-child discounts. It’s money well spent. In my local PS district, there are scandals galore about misappropriation of funds, lavish trips, and outright thievery. If I sent my kids to school, I’d rather spend my 3-5k a year at a private school. When has ANYTHING ever gotten better by letting the govt. take over?
I have 5 children and homeschool the oldest 2. I want them to receive a quality Catholic education so we use a accredited program that is academically rigorous. (I have a Masters degree in Education and knew I didn’t want my children in public school way back then)
My children are lovely- well behaved, socially adjusted, innocent for their age, and polite.
It is a lifestyle choice- my mornings are taken up with teaching, my afternoons with cleaning and laundry. It is not a choice for the lazy or the faint of heart. Most homeschooling mothers spend lots of time researching and reading about how to teach, what to teach, and why they are teaching- far more than average parents.
I was an exchange student in south part of the US about 14 years ago and I was pretty shocked of the low level of the school system. I was not old enough for it but I had to be placed to the senior class of the high school because the classes for my age were so boring and on topics that I had covered a long time ago in my home country. I attended a private school for the simple reason that the public school was not safe and its level was even lower. The US has excellent universities but its basic school system stinks big time.
#15,
Your experience is the best reason why Home Schooling will not work for most people. Yes those with education can teach lower grades, but certainly not all grades or all subjects. Very few people have the aptitude, knowledge, or skill to teach.
#21,
Where the heck do you come up with those numbers. Private education costs a minimum of $10,000 per student. The parents may not be charged full tuition if the school can find funding somewhere. A local private school costs $25,000 for day students or $35,000 for live in students, gr 5 to 8. It is more expensive for higher grades.
Since this is about three times what is spent on public schools and failing students are politely asked to leave, their achievement rate is tremendous. Graduate from there and take your pick, Notre Dame, Harvard, Yale, Duke, MIT, Stanford; the doors of each are open.
>Private education costs a minimum of $10,000 per student.
Not even close.
Those books you talk about were typical when I was in school too. The books and curriculum were also better a hundred years ago, albeit with different emphasis. The big problem is that teachers are less likely to understand these books today, even from when I was in high school. Look up the results of Massachusetts’ statewide teachers’ tests, or even the teacher tests from Bill Clinton’s time as governor, when this was a breakthrough reform that he got passed over the objections of those pesky unions.
Another problem is new teaching trends that just fail. I find it surprising that John Dvorak would endorse such ‘innovations’ after seeing first-hand the negative results.
You can count on the same basic comments every time home schooling is a topic here.
Some are just born of ignorance of the subject, others based on the ideological viewpoint of the commenter.
#3…catballer…your wrong. 32% of home schooled kids are home schooled for religious reasons. 68% for reasons other than religious. Ranging from isolated areas to a lack of quality education in the loacl schools.
#7…olo baggins….kids fall through the cracks in all kinds of education….usually home schooled at a far lower percentage than public schools.
Also, kids who are home schooled are no more likely to be the ones who **don’t fit in** than any given public school student. Like you said…it’s a mixed bag.
#10….Larry of Elk Grove….bullcrap. Even if the story is true, it’s not even close to representing the average home schooled kids or their parents.
#13….JT…..home schooled kids may not be educated with other kids, but unless you live in a completely isolated spot, they still play with the kids in their neighborhood. They aren’t locked in the basement after meals and lessons. The reason a lot of home schooling parents home school is BECAUSE there is to much socialization and not enough education in public schools.
#15….jccalhoun…..the reason’s you gave for no longer teaching is exactly why so many parents decide to home school their kids. If you find it hard to teach in that atmosphere, what makes you think the kids who want an education can learn in it????
My Mother isn’t a teacher, she does have a Masters degree, and she has taught my 3 older brothers and me at home. She did a fairly good job of it. One of us went on to Harvard, another to Stanford, another to University of Arizona and Texas A&M and one to ASU and then Oxford University. We all graduated at the top of our classes or in the top 5.
317…Mr. Fusion….I’m calling bull crap. Whats a 7 y/o doing in the first grade??? And when did they start teaching Science in the 1st. grade??? Since the vast majority of 1st. graders either can’t read or barely read prior to entering school, I find it hard to believe that they are given Science text books in grade 1 to study.
You mention that she was given a Science book to advanced for her, and then mention that a grade 4 student was given a grade 7 level book, then you say that a grade 9 student was given a book that wasn’t advanced enough….which is it????? To advanced or not advanced enough?????
No child left behind has little or nothing to do with which grade level book the kids get, Bush has nothing to do with it either….but your local school district has everything to do with it. Your left wing politics is showing Fusion.
#23….Nekkes…..one of the big problems with public schools is that they must teach to the common denominator. In this way, almost everyone will learn something before they graduate. The bad part is this bores and leaves unchallenged average and above average students alike, turning them off to learning.
#24….Mr. Fusion….I call bullcrap again. A recent paper by the Department of Education has shown that it now costs twice as much to educate a public school kid than a private school kid, sometimes even more than that in some states.
Milton Friedman has said that the reason this has come to pass, is that public schools are not held accountable for their budgets. That inefficiencies and waste is rampant. In a private school, every penny is utilized to the utmost, keeping costs lower.
Sadly, most good Day Care’s cost more than private schools these days.
Those figures you gave for the local private school are just unreal. Harvard only costs 40,000.00 a year. I’ll ask you for what you always like to ask those of us who you disagree with. Whats your source???
#27…Mike Novick….I think John home schools his kids.
Getting a teachers degree is a joke. A degree in Education is considered one of the weakest degrees on just about any campus in the country.
>Whats a 7 y/o doing in the first grade??? And when did they start >teaching Science in the 1st. grade???
Almost every first grader is 7 years old by the end of the school year. And almost all schools have science in first grade, even though they can’t read. I’m wondering what school you went to.
Yes John Dvorak has said he home-schooled for awhile because he was upset with what they were teaching in school(just like those religious folks he complains about…). But his education posts tend to endorse new teaching methods that lower quality.
#13. “…even though schools don’t have the greatest curriculum, what they are good at teaching is human interaction. It’s really the social context of schools that ends up being the best education for children being prepared for the adult world.”.
Yes, public school is just an exact mirror of my social interactions and workplace – where I only interact with people of my same age, must stop what I’m working on every 45 minutes to the sound of a Pavlovian bell and march to my next completely separate subject of study, then sit in complete silence while someone sits in front of me and lectures (regurgitates) facts to me for memorization on a SINGLE TOPIC – oh, and I have to ask permission to even go to the bathroom? Talk about control. Yeah, just the totalitarian environment to raise great independent, liberty-minded, free-thinkers to protect freedom, democracy and solve our problems of tomorrow! 🙂 Public schooling was setup in the early 1900’s by the rich power-brokers and industry owners to 1. keep the youth out of the workforce and 2. control the curriculum – specifically to train future “factory workers”. Like every other service you pay for, the more local control, the better – how can you argue against the choice to educate YOUR child as you see fit – is one of the most fundamental rights you have as a parent!
17. “I have a seven yr old in gr 1. She brought home a science book that I have to read to her as it is too hard. She understands the concepts after they are explained, but no way in hell could she ever comprehend a book like this without help.”
You bring up a good point, do children at that age really need to understand 90% of the memorized topics/curriculum they study today? To me it seems like a lot of wasted time memorizing facts, date, concepts, that 95% of them will never use in real life. My wife made it through the public school system and 4 yrs of college and still can’t balance her checkbook or setup our VCR and she’s supposed to remember or apply her Jr. High chemistry?! 🙂 Yet, she’s lead a very successful adult career …
The “Uncle Eric” book series (http://www.chaostan.com/ericA.html) gave me more insight into money, history, law and how the world really works than 12 years of pulic school. Those core concepts should be the foundation of education for our “free” society – not memorizing the date the Mayflower landed or the names of Columbus’s three ships!
“No Child Left Behind” = “No Child Gets Ahead”