I've Been To Over 20 Homeschool Conferences. The Things I've Witnessed At Them Shocked Me.
"I am 20 minutes into the presentation when a woman interrupts me. 'When are you going to talk about God in all of this?' she asks."
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Schooling will never be great everywhere at scale in the united states, no matter how much money you pump into it. Giving good parents the option to teach their kids themselves is a good thing, even if some parents abuse the privilege.
Abuse the privilege? In most states homeschooling allows literal abuse.
Child abuse is illegal. If you have any evidence of it then report it to the authorities. You don't have to make homeschooling, which works very well for a large group of people, including neurodivergent people, illegal just because it's one of many avenues for abuse. I personally believe giving the government the ability to mandate education policy is a path towards authoritarianism.
Just make homeschooling have to register that there's a kid being homeschooled. That's it. Don't strawman your man in the high tower fantasies with a basic social net.
Look at how Chinese are approaching education and you can get an idea on how to do things at scale.
Lol let's not suggest that the Chinese have cornered the market on education.
If you want good education, look at Finland or Germany.
Should wealthy people be allowed to buy education to differentiate themselves from everyone else?
There's a reasonable argument for not allowing a market of education. And apparently that example is creating reasonably good education at scale 5 times bigger than the US.
China is ethnically and culturally homogenous for the most part. That has a large role in the success of running social programs at scale. Also I'm not sure we should look to China for inspiration on social policy, they are notoriously authoritarian.
By whose authority, though?
I mean. There's governments out there committing genocide despite the overwhelming population of the world being against it.
What does authoritarianism even mean, in that world we live in?
That’s a great ideal, but it doesn't seem to work out in reality. Most homeschoolers are ideological to the detriment of the kid, or unrealistic about their qualifications to the detriment of the kid, or want to take back their school taxes to the detriment of all kids.
There certainly are good parents doing effective home schooling for good reasons, but it really seems like a minority. How can we protect the kids when the majority of cases are really not in their best interest? How do we even evaluate hat fairly without putting ourselves into the situation of judging personal beliefs?
The most fair solution is kids must goto an accredited school of some sort, whether public, parochial, or charter, and meet a standard of education. Parents should feel free to educate on their belief system at home or on weekends. People here love to blame religion, but most religion is perfectly fine. Certainly where I live, parochial schools teach proper science and exceed public school standards, in addition to teaching Ethics, Theology, and encouraging Community Service. Or public schools are pretty good and religions/ethnicities/cultures run “Sunday School”. It’s a good model.
Of course a huge part of the problem is places that don’t value education for their kids. This is truly horrible and as a parent I just can’t understand what sort of narcissistic monster would be like this. But they voted for how they want their tax dollars used, so what can I say except not live there? I’m willing to send aid, especially to help lift their kids out of the dismal future they’re locked into
Most people on this site want charter/private schools illegal as well so I don't trust that crowd not to target those next until we only have government run schools.
As a parent who sent my kids to parochial school, I never expected it to be paid for. Send your kids wherever you want, but that shouldn’t change that your taxes go toward public school, whether you use it or not.
The problem is when public school money is diverted to something that can’t benefit all kids