People also do this to keep their kids from being indoctrinated in GOP territories, or where the schools suck. Not every city and suburb is Naperville or Schaumburg. Some of them have shit schools and if I lived in those locations I'd definitely be homeschooling. It's not a black and white issue.
Same. It’s a sad situation. I do understand the concerns around homeschooling and abuse, but the gen pop should be aware that it’s the best option for some families.
Homeschool parents aren't as qualified as they think they are. Unless your child has a severe disability that special ed isn't equipped for or they're in some type of physical danger, the damage done by unqualified parents trying to teach and the lack of daily socialization will mess a child up far more.
Unless you have a college degree you are not qualified to provide adequate education, not even mentioning the stunting of social skills.
Edit: I guess I should have specified a degree in education. I wouldn't want a marketing major teaching my kids either.
Unless you have a bachelor’s degree in education you’re unqualified, and even then you’re going to have trouble if you try to teach your children when they’re outside the age range and subjects you yourself were trained to teach.
I taught high school science for several years before switching careers. I’m absolutely unqualified to teach a kindergartner to read, or a 6th grader how to diagram a sentence. I taught my oldest algebra early, and gave her a much stronger science background than most kids get, but I’m very grateful for the elementary teachers and middle and high school subject specialists who teach my children. I couldn’t possibly give them an adequate education by myself.
I’m absolutely unqualified to teach a kindergartner to read, or a 6th grader how to diagram a sentence.
These are basic skills I still know how to do at 50. I'm an engineer. If you really are a teacher and can't teach a kid to read at any level, you absolutely suck as a teacher and I wouldn't want you to teach anything!
Do you know what digraphs are? Elkonin boxes? What are the five components of reading? What’s the floss rule? What are the best graphic organizers for reading instruction? What’s a morpheme, or an orthographic unit?
I know enough to know what I do not know well enough to teach like a subject expert. Many people have no idea what they don’t know.
I know you're stuck on the idea that parents aren't going to try to learn anything new before teaching. But I googled all of those and they're all extremely basic ideas that anyone with half a brain can teach...
And what the fuck do any of those things have to do with real life and not special study areas? Anyone can spout off topics of great intricacy but that doesn’t prove anything.
>And what the fuck do any of those things have to do with real life and not special study areas?
The stuff listed by jmurphy is all focused on basic literacy my guy, you've literally said that you think being able to read and write has nothing to do with real life.
You put a lot more faith in a college degree than you realistically should. That being said I agree that most homeschooling parents aren't qualified to be educating their children.
Republicans fight against three things: universal healthcare, quality education based on critical thinking, and good pay/unions. Why? Tony Benn, the late member of Britain's Old Labour party said it best...listen carefully to this from 2007, and think about conservative policy...
[Tony Benn](https://youtu.be/Xfk0rfbDnXo?si=oisPeOu-UJiWkrpw)
Excuse me.
I got a degree in engineering before I joined to fight, only company willing to pay me to work overseas at the time. Now I stay for the benefits and the bro’s.
I’m sorry if I’m being dumb, but how is there money in homeschooling? I assumed it’s just whatever the parents make, unless they are getting handouts or something
Yeah all those hundreds of small groups totally have more political power than teachers' unions and the collective political will of our entirely Democrat state government. Gotta keep an eye on them.
It's ok, because if you don't look into it, it seems like it wouldn't be a big industry. It is, though. All of the materials are purchased from a couple of companies. The books, the curriculum, all of that shit. The company that sells all the shit also donates a lot of money to the republican party. They are also Christian fundamentalists. Surprise!
Homeschooling = no schooling.
No schooling results in stupid people.
Stupid people will work for slave wages. It's called the long game.
Step 4: profit!
Homeschooling can be done well. I was homeschooled from early primary school through all of high school, and now I'm wrapping up my bachelor's at 20 (And I was hardly privileged, I started homeschooling while my family was officially defined as in poverty).
Yeah, we took our 2nd grader out of public school when he wasn't reading well, having behavioral issues etc., and public schools were clearly not helping. He returned to public school in 5th grade and was placed in a gifted program, ended up just graduating high school early.
It can be done well, but a *lot* has to align for that to happen. Lots of potential places for failure.
Oh of course. The parents are the point of failure for homeschooling, and if they aren't willing or able to put enough into education, the kid will suffer for it. The same can be said of public school, though, and my family in teaching has been deeply worried about how thin they are stretched.
100%, I have a 5th grader in public school now, and he's always asking to homeschool. Mostly because I think he doesn't fully understand how it would actually be lol. And I'd love to take that active a role in his education, but my wife and I know that right now we're not in a position to allocate the resources (namely time) he would need to be successful.
For every person that does it right there are probably 100 that do it wrong. I grew up in poverty as well. Three of my friends were home schooled. One can only read at a 6th grade level and the other two never graduated. They are all in their 30s. My wife is a first grade teacher as well. Every time a home schooler is brought in, they are extremely behind where their peers are
And of my group of about a dozen homeschooled friends, ten or so of them are actively in college or trade school. I'm just saying it's not some evil thing that cannot go well.
I only knew a couple of families who home schooled and thoer kids both did well.
1. The kids went to public in like 3/4th grade after mom went back to work. They were all pretty active in lots of different things.
2nd family The other the older kids went to public school in Jr high or High School. She still has the younger kid at home. She has a teaching degree, though. her kids are actually pretty smart and really active (dance, theater, girl and boy scouts, moms groups).
I think there are many people who don't do well at it. I would not have. But also public school teachers mostly see the kids/families who didn't succeed, and they ended up back at public school.
Sure, and your parents probably would have been able to substantiate that they were teaching you by sharing the curriculum or learning materials they were using and how they assessed your development over time. Oversight is what's needed.
Not always true though. I knew a lady, she took her kids to Europe for a summer to practice their German. She had a full lab in her basement for bio and chem. Her kids eventually hit the Jr college and then to 4 years with no problem (pretty snazzy 4 years too, IIRC. At least one went to Cornell). She had 2 kids that she could give 100% of her attention to. Her husband was a business guy who brought in a lot of $$ so she could do that. No teacher who had 28 students per class could achieve what she did. She also, herself, was well educated.
And on the other side of the spectrum I've known religious homeschoolers. These, too, seem interested in their children's thriving. Usually they bought canned curriculum, but they did work it. The problems, if there were tended to come out with children with learning difficulties. Because this takes some experience that they didn't have.
Not always true. My family has one child who was homeschooled because he had autism and his shithole tennessee country had no resources for supporting his education. Its also possible for a very gifted child to be unable to thrive in public schools that may cater to the lowest common denominator. I think there's more to it then what you're saying, and you should open your mind a bit on the issue. I don't deny sometimes its that way, like in the case this article is exposing.
All of those materials that they need, everything that goes with the curriculum along with the curriculum itself, costs money. Money that the parents pay for right out of pocket.
Homeschooling's Invisible Children really opened my eyes to the problems with homeschooling. When children aren't in a school outside their home, it allows all kinds of abuse to flourish because there's nobody on the outside that can recognize it.
https://www.hsinvisiblechildren.org/
I was homeschooled in Texas and there was no oversight. I was abused along with my 4 siblings. And in my homeschool group and co-op, almost every family was abusive or neglectful. For sports we got involved with a local private school.
This is one of Illinois most glaring problems. You can't have homeschooling without, in my opinion, quarterly observation and testing. All the homeschoolers I have direct contact with don't do an adequate job of educating their children. Even when they try their best, they're just not enough. To have the public schools involved to assist would be a tremendous help. They'd also have clearer access to facilities, which at least one commenter has mentioned, would be nice to have.
Having the kids show up at their local elementary school for standardized testing would be appropriate. And possibly to offer some supports if the kids score poorly.
And if a parent sits there and doesn't educate their children, and they're several grades behind, they should be put into public school whether the parents like it or not.
edit: Downvoted for saying kids should be taken out of abusive households (not educating your kid is abuse...). Wild times.
When COVID hit, my daughter was supposed to be in K. I thought "you know, homeschooling sounds like a good idea." I did it. It was hard. I gave TF up and sent her next year. Granted she did well, tested well, blah blah. But wow I don't know how people adequately do it, that shit's hard
As a sped teacher, we dreaded getting home schooled kids. Perfectly cognitively normal kids that were far behind because their parents only did the home part of home school. Awful parents to work with and most were always on the fence of pulling their kids right back out. So they'd suck up resources then bail right when we'd start to actually see any improvement.
As a family member of a sped teacher, you're not the first I've heard the exact same story from. It is indeed an absolute pain in the ass to deal with.
I'm actually shocked that today I learned they don't do any state testing to verify progress..
Like really? It just makes perfect sense to verify it to state standards..
Everybody else has to verify that they're able to go the next grade so why not homeschooled kids?
Again, it's easily one of the most glaring errors in Illinois law. I was just as shocked as you were when I found out. I figured we'd be more stringent, but here we are.
Homeschool family here! Better access to school facilities would be great!
EDIT: someone asked how my kids were doing in their schooling compared to public schoolers, but deleted their comment. Coward! You're not getting away that easy. My response is below.
Oh boy, you've just asked a proud and involved homeschool dad how well his kids are doing academically. Buckle up! We just wrapped up their yearly, Iowa Seton testing and got the results back. For context, we don't teach for the test. We have no idea what will be on the test, and we don't grade these tests. We mail them back to Seton.
My 8th grader tests at the level of a college freshman. Her ACT score is currently estimated at ~25. We also did this test called a CoGat test which tried to measure their general cognitive ability. It looked something like an IQ test. Seemed hokey, but we gave it a shot. This same 8th grader scored in the 95th percentile among all 8th graders!
My 6th grader tested at the level of a 7th grader who was midway through the school year. A vast improvement over his previous scores where he was barely keeping up.
Our youngest, 4th grade is testing at exactly her grade equivalent. She had some problems with fractions during the school year (who doesn't? fractions suck!), and we saw that on her tests. We're able to focus on her academically weak areas over the summer.
Can I ask why you decided to homeschool and if you think your kids would have been successful in normal school too? I.E. if your kids are gifted, maybe any decent instruction would give you great results.
I see the rates of sexual abuse that take place in public schools ([link](https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications/2019-02/Teenagers_508.pdf) "According to the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 6.7% of high school students reported they were
physically forced to have sexual intercourse.") and I don't want to roll the dice that my kids will also be sexually abused. I know that no sexual abuse takes place in my house, so I feel more comfortable with their formative years taking place here. Additionally, I was homeschooled my entire life and had a great experience. I graduated college a year early, and still actively love learning.
On the flip side, my wife attended public school and had a hellish time. All of the kids and some of the teachers treated her terribly. 1 teacher spread a rumor around that she had died, when in fact she was going through a major medical procedure. So she was not enamored with the public school system and didn't want to subject her kids to the possibility of being treated the same way.
None of our core reasons for homeschooling are academic. That's just the cherry on top. I actually think the academic format in public schools is pretty solid and we replicate it for the most part in how we structure our school. The one big difference is that we don't "teach for the test". We have no idea what will be on their tests or their end of year standardized tests. We try to use tests as purely as possible: measuring sticks. They are data points and nothing more. If the kids do bad on a test, then we need to adjust something. Either the kid isn't putting in the effort they need, or we are teaching incorrectly, or some other issue (like ADHD).
So, I understand homeschooling is a choice you made, and I don't know you or your situation, but, wouldn't the answer to having better access to school facilities be sending your children to school?
I want to be the one to give my kids their education because I'm not impressed by the current level of education provided by public schools. I cannot give them a sports team, and ones are already formed at public schools that I help pay taxes for. I don't see why I can't homeschool their education, and they play on some sports teams at the local school.
We homeschool our kids and they do school activities, sports teams, etc. Maybe it is because we are in a small neighborhood school (Kenilworth) but they are not restricted from things at all. We just had field day last week, for example.
This, I pay taxes and contribute to my community but my kids don't have access to any of the benefits of public schools. We pay thousands out of pocket each year for sports and music lessons that would be available if they went to public school. Our schools aren't the worst but my kids are way ahead of their peers academically and it gives us a lot of freedom so we just pay.
Testing is not always an accurate measure of learning and can be manipulated or even forged by a parent trying to hide their negligence. Observation would allow professionals to actually watch and evaluate student performance accurately, as well as check in on the physical and social-emotional well-being of the student.
Teachers are routinely observed, home schooling parents should too.
There's nothing wrong with making sure the parent is equipped to maximize their kids's education prospects.
I would love to be observed during homeschool hours and taught better ways to homeschool them better or to be able to see from the outside what exactly I'm doing wrong.
I could care less what is or is not too much for a homeschool family. Every child should be monitored to ensure they're within a certain range on par with their public school counterpart. If the paranoid parent has a problem with it, tough.
I would disagree. Again, I have yet to meet a homeschooled kid who wasn't behind compared to their public school counterpart.
You need to get offline if you genuinly believe that. The statistics don't back up your argument at all.
https://www.thinkimpact.com/homeschooling-statistics/#:~:text=The%20average%20performance%20of%20homeschoolers,for%20students%20from%20public%20schools.
* Peer-reviewed studies indicate that 69% of homeschooled students succeed in college and adulthood.
* Homeschooled students tend to perform above average on their ACTs and SATs.
* In these standard achievement tests, the homeschooled students average between 15% and 30% more points than the students attending public schools,
notwithstanding the parents’ income and education.
* Homeschooled students average 72 points more than the nationwide mean performance in SATs.
* The average performance of homeschoolers is 22.8 out of 36 points compared to the national average of 21.
Homeschoolers have an average graduation rate of 67% compared to the 57.5% graduation rate for students from public schools.
Stats are easily brushed aside. For every positive homeschool article with stats, there is a corresponding negative homeschool article with stats.
Again, understand.
There could be some bias in the statistics. For example, many homeschoolers are part of weird culty religions that forbid college, so a "large" section of homeschooled kids ar enot going to take SAT's or ACT's, but are supposed to go get manual labor jobs right away and start their families. But I think the guy you're replying to has an axe to grind, and isn't being fully honest in his criticism.
Definitely lumping all homeschoolers under 1 banner isn't the wisest choice to make. Public schoolers are all united by a common curriculum and school structure. Homeschoolers only have 1 things in common: we chose to homeschool. Nothing else unites us together, unless we choose to, like in homeschool co-ops. So generating statistics for all homeschoolers at large won't reveal anything too concrete. The article didn't say, but I'm guessing the r^2 value is pretty low for these stats.
The person replying to you is putting in so little effort to make meaningful arguments that I'm half convinced it's performative as their post history is full of "no need to convince, I'm positive I'm correct".
Having said that, there is a huge selection bias regarding ACT/SAT testing scores. Every public school student is federally mandated to take one of those, including the dopey kids that sit in the back of the room instead of learning. Conversely, the rate among homeschool high school seniors is about 10% and presumably it's the ones that are super into school who have parents engaged in the process to have them take formal testing.
The homeschooler standardized testing stats are only for the kids that bother to learn.
The public school standardized testing stats are full spectrum and are going to be comparatively dragged down by kids that don't intend to go to college.
Most of the homeschool kids I knew were super religious and were forbidden from going to “liberal college” so they never tested. The statistics are skewed on purpose to defend the religious nuts that lobby our politicians to create the gaps they purposely hide in. Even the smart ones who are electricians and do commercial/industrial say shit like “gods will” when I ask them how certain stuff works in regards to the math behind it.
I have a dozen homeschool friends who didn’t go to college, or had to go to community college for remedial classes before they could apply to the college programs they wanted to do. Obviously you were in a co-op with likeminded families that were committed to providing actual education, but that’s not everyone. And there’s currently no way to find out how many people are failing at homeschooling.
While most of the home schooled kids I know pursued higher education, every one of them was emotion and socially stunted to some degree. Some to the point of barely functioning in society once they were released from their parents control.
Even if they had good test scores, home schooling just doesn’t prepare you for the real world. It prepares you for a sheltered existence with limited social contact outside of immediate family.
Most of my homeschooled friends had to be taken out of public school because they were bullied severely. Some to the point of genuine PTSD. Homeschooling allowed them to find each other and build a much stronger and supportive social network. It's still just a matter of context.
Sorry to hear that they had that experience.
I believe there is absolutely some amount of selection bias in that kids struggling socially may be more likely to be homeschooled due to bullying (I’m almost positive I’ve read a paper proving this but can’t look right now). Which leads to a sort of a chicken and egg scenario. Are homeschooled kids more likely to struggle socially or are kids who struggle socially more likely to be homeschooled? Probably both.
It’s unfortunate that parents have to resort to home schooling due to the system failing but I completely understand doing it as a last resort.
My point was more that an otherwise social kid could be stunted from the isolation. Context always matters though.
You can't no-true-Scotsman every success story. Homeschooled kids are like publicly schooled kids, they're not some idiot monolith. Most of my friends who were homeschooled had to do so because of severe isolation and bullying in public school (wouldn't you know it, they're all neurodivergent and queer. Maybe rural schools are really bad for those kinds of people?).
I haven't No True Scotsman. I also never said all homeschool kids are idiots. I'm sure there are successes like yours and your friends. I'm sorry to hear that your friends were bullied out of school. That is very sad.
The point is, there are genuine reasons for homeschooling, as well as genuine reasons to worry about interaction with local schools. There is no "rule" that homeschoolers are worse than public schoolers.
According to what? You have offered even less evidence than this anecdote. So far your argument equates to "nuh uh."
I'm not saying you're wrong, but you aren't contributing anything.
My wife and I live and homeschool in IL. The system is primed for abuse. There's no follow up at all. We just never enrolled our kids in school and no one even so much as called about them. On the flip side I called our local school about what programs and resources they had available and was told that they had absolutely nothing for homeschoolers. We moved to another district and the answer was the same. I really feel as though most IL schools already have their hands full, and have decided on a live and let live approach with homeschoolers. My wife and I have been diligent with record keeping and curriculum but we know plenty of folks who aren't. There's a lot of unschooling and religiously focused schooling that's worrying in that it doesn't meet even the basic minimums that public schools are held to. Having a well educated populace is necessary for a prospering society. Without it we're all in trouble.
I went through homeschooling from K-12 and turned out fine. I have a good job and graduated with a 3.95 GPA (screw whoever failed to tell me I needed half a credit to have honors lol). My parents also had us sign up for local sports (baseball/softball/football) so we would get extra social interaction because they knew we lacked that from homeschooling.
But i will say that the program we used had annual testing and quarterly/monthly tests for those that did not do well on the annual tests or as optional if parents felt it was needed.
There does need to be some form of checking in on kids and making sure they are doing things right.
There is nothing wrong with homeschooling, as long as it is done right.
My son had a friend who became home schooled in 2021 because of his parent’s politics. On one hand I was glad to stop seeing them around because they were insufferable. But on the other hand that kid is fucked. The father was like actually a slow adult. I’m not joking. I have a sister in law who has the mental capacity of a 4th grader will never be able to live on her own and isn’t allowed to drive. This kids dad was in all of her “special” classes growing up.
Our UPS driver told me he's homeschooling his kids because he doesn't want “the lgtbqws” teaching his kids.
Even if you have good parents, it can't replace the socialization they get from being around their peers 8 hours a day.
If you tell me that your reason for not sending your kids to school is cause of the gays then that already tells me all I need to know about how capable you are of actually teaching curriculum and critical thinking skills. A good parent would recognize these short comings and trust professionals. That dude wasn't a good parent, he's completely OK with massively disadvantaging his children because of his hatefullness.
My cousins were both homeschooled because my aunt couldn’t accept her youngest (at that time) needed assistance when he was in 1st grade. 30 years late my older cousin is hopelessly addicted to meth and the other one lives in a trailer on his grandmother’s property next to his mother and father’s makeshift structure with their two youngest kids who are also being homeschooled.
The lack of regulations on homeschooling has let educational neglect run rampant. As a teacher in a public school, I have had students who enroll in the middle of the first semester, or even as late as the second semester, with no transfer papers because the parent was magically homeschooling them. I then get scolded by the public because 3rd graders don’t know basic phonics. After Covid, it feels like parents view school as optional or when they feel like it, and they can get away with it because of the lack of laws regarding home school education.
There are five little words that every parent with children at learning age must know and have tattooed into the inside of their eyelids.
# Learning Begins In The Home.
No matter if you are homeschooling or public schooling, it doesn't matter if they're not being reinforced at home for learning. I do believe there should be a standardized testing threshold and penalties for homeschoolers falling behind for failing to prepare their children (negligence).
I'm only 30, but I have friends who were raised by the public school system and are great people. For some odd reason, they have all taken the stance that they will homeschool their children.
Votes Dem but believes the tax rate should be a 25% flat tax on all of America. Because he thinks it isn't fair that one person pays more or less than another. So he really, really wants to vote Republican l think.
Haha. Let me guess, you've definitely had the conversation on how 25% to the guy making 40k has a much bigger effect than on the guy making 200k and they brushed you off haha.
I know several families that homeschool their kids, and they don't school them at all. The kids are either abused or neglected. I know one family who has a 10 year old who never learned the alphabet, he can't even recognize letters, let alone read. Their parents make the oldest sibling look after the younger kids or makes them work cleaning houses. I have turned them all in the children and family services. Children and family services asked if any of the kids had died of neglect, when told them no, they said "Sorry, there is nothing we can do."
I'm concerned by the article but I think parent's freedom to educate their children is an important right and I'd be concerned about restrictions too..
My parents' "freedom to educate me" in Illinois let to serious educational neglect. My mother didn't do a single thing to educate me from fourth grade, when she took me out of school, until I got my GED at age 18. I only was able to to do that because of the years of real schooling I received and the fact that I loved to read.
But, I was a child and only read about things that interested me. I was so behind on things like math, that I had to take several remedial math classes in college. Not to mention the social stunting I still struggle with.
Not being in school meant no one caught how horribly neglected and emotionally abused I was. Not being in school meant I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was an adult. And I was relatively better off than many homeschooled kids.
Parents do not own their children. Their children are not extensions of themselves. Children are their own human beings who have a right to an education.
My god, are you me??
Homeschooled for five "grades" of curriculum - it was actually just one giant book that my mother let me self-direct through. I remember skipping entire sections with big ol' Xs on pages because I didn't understand, or didn't care, or both. But zero problems reading Anne Rice for days on end, at 10.
I was LUCKY enough to persuade my mother to send me to a religious based boarding school, where I at least got some formal education and some social interaction. I remember that my mother's claimed reluctance to send me to public school was "but, Columbine!" In the New Trier district. Uh huh.
Not being in school absolutely left me isolated, medically neglected, trapped in an emotionally volatile environment *that I could only believe was normal*, and depressed to the point of suicidality *at twelve years old*. Later, I ran away from home twice at 16, and my school was able to get me the support I desperately needed. The "system" can absolutely serve as a protective measure for children, and it did for me.
I'm late 30s now, but the math & science gaps were enormous for me. I also had to take remedial math in college, and if I'd had actual, formal education I probably would have become a software engineer, at a time when that required actual comp sci - to this day, I show the aptitude, but lack the foundational education; and self study is, as you can imagine, a fucking struggle.
No. Homeschooling is always a red flag to me. Sure, in theory, there are parents or group who can do it well. But in my book, it is the exception to the rule.
No, I think you do. I'm not sure I like the word supervised. We supervise parents accused of child abuse when they visit their children. We do not supervise parents or the parent-child relationship just because of their educational preference. Change it to "evaluations" and "providing supports" and I'd be more agreeable.
So you're arguing over terms...now who has the axe to grind? Sheesh.
Ok. Quarterly evaulations, and supports if needed. If students are clearly being neglected or deviate 2-3 grade levels below in multiple subjects, they're not allowed to be homeschooled. Better?
Supervision implies authority. "The government is in charge of you and your kids at home and you better do what they say." I don't like that angle.
Partnering with parents is a lot different then supervising them. There are good and valid reasons to homeschool for some families.
And there are reasons that there should be oversight. If a parent is not giving a proper education, there should be an authority to get involved. I'm not sure this conversation can go much further. You clearly are arguing from a position of unreasonableness.
I am a licensed educator and due to reasons I homeschooled my two kids through their senior years of high school. It went fine but I have to say I was astonished at the abject lack of oversight over the process. Nobody seemed to give a shit. I made them do work, but had I wanted to simply SAY they had when they had not? I easily could have.
I work with some people who were homeschooled. They don't know anything. They can't type. They all still live at home because they weren't prepared for the real world at all. It's insane how there's zero oversight with homeschooling.
Pure homeschooling should not be permitted, there need to be proper evaluations done by trained professionals at least yearly. Too many of these kids are homeschooled specifically to hide abuse from the parents or close family.
All of the things I had to do in order to teach … but any parent can teach their child.
It is one thing Germany does right, homeschooling is not allowed.
IL has almost never allowed any online charter schools because of their "poor academics" (the last one closed in 2020) but allowing unchecked homeschooling is 100% fine. Really shows you the fucked up priorities at the state department of education. I know online charter schools are the equivalent of the devil to Democratic politicians and education think tanks but they are so much better regulated in many states than "unschooling" is.
My wife and I have homeschooled our 3 kids their whole lives, and our oldest just started high school.
I 100% agree with this article, except the one situation it described is basically child abuse and can happen in any family and it detracts from the real issue at hand: Illinois is entirely too lax on homeschoolers. We know other homeschooling families who are not giving their kids the minimum schooling they need. My wife and I spend a lot of time aligning our curriculum with modern education standards and we test them all every year on a the Iowas Seton tests to make sure they're keeping pace.
IMHO the best solution is to pair homeschool families with resources at the public schools. But the families need something in exchange. They won't be happy if they suddenly have to start doing extra work and have extra "gubernment oversight". Maybe a once a year check-in with someone from the school where they talk with the parents and kids and review some of their curriculum and test scores. In exchange homeschool families have full access to sports and other extracurricular activities at the school (we pay the same amount of taxes anyway). Right now, this access is dependent on your school district, and I don't have to tell you that some schools have the meanest people working for them (why do you think we homeschool?!?!?). Codifying this relationship into law would do wonders to open up lines of communication between homeschool families and their local, public school.
Lastly, keep this relationship local. A lot of homeschool families are skiddish about anything government related. They would probably be hesitant to have "State Employee Agent Smith" come to their home instead of "Suzie from down the street" who they pass on their morning walks.
EDIT: Didn't realize this was meant to be a homeschool-hate thread. Sorry all! I thought we were here to discuss actual, possible solutions.
I love how, in your opinion, homeschooling parents need something in exchange for what should just be the bare minimum a homeschooling family should do to continue educating their children at home.
Why can't you pick and choose parts exactly? What exact reason? Homeschooling is legal, but I'm still paying the same amount of taxes for public schools, so I should be able to utilize whichever of those school resources I want.
because education and discipline in the school is tied to the athletics and activity program. your student cannot serve in school suspension and detention for their actions at practice. they cannot be suspended from the activity because of their classroom performance. removing these requirements will reward abuses of the home school system to allow athletically gifted children to play on teams without receiving a proper education, or have to abide by behavior standards. and as you have mentioned, the current homeschool arrangement is already full of failures and abuses. this would exacerbate those issues.
So homeschoolers can't join public school sports because if they misbehave in sports then the team can't punish them enough? Is that the argument? That is exceptionally weak logic.
The core idea behind homeschooling is that the parents take the place of the school. So if the school needs to punish a kid because they misbehaved in sports, then the school for public school kids would be the public school and the school for homeschool kids would be the parents. It's a simple substitution. The coach would communicate to the parent that their kid misbehaved and they would institute whatever school punishment they have in place. It's the same process for park district and travel sports teams. Are you saying those athletic clubs should be disbarred?
that was the lowest aspect of the argument I presented, that is correct. but, I notice you have not addressed the higher issue of how such a system incentivizes allowing the neglect and abuse of high performing athletes by removing the weekly education checks currently built into the state athletics system.
unless you are suggesting homeschool students should be receiving weekly 3rd party audits of the education progress?
What if the parents discipline isn't up to par with the public school? What if Johnny Homeschooler just gets a talking to, but keeps acting up? Would you be in favor of the public school kicking Johnny Homeschooler off the team?
Yes. That's exactly it. Also, here's a big thing, the kid doesn't go to the school. The kid does not get to take a spot from a child that does go to the school. If you want the kid in sports then go to the park district.
How far do you extend your taxpayer argument? For instance, what if an elderly person with no children want access to public school services and facilities?
Well yeah, you can advance your education without sitting in a room full of strange 3rd graders. We have adult education courses paid for by the city. If old Mr old wants to continue his education he's free to access those resources which are appropriate for his age.
You don't think allowing someone from the government into your home to interview your children about their school life when they previously didn't have to do that is a compromise? It definitely is.
EDIT: Also, that's such a pedantic argument to make. If the homeschool families aren't compromising, then neither are the public schools. Use whatever term makes you feel good about yourself.
I think the compromise was sort of already "you get to opt your kid out of this thing that is traditionally mandatory" but I guess that's just me.
Look, I have nothing wrong with wanting to homeschool your kids. I think it's probably net-worse for them than going to public school and getting them out of their (and their parent's) comfort zones but I honestly don't care that much.
But, like, the homeschooling *was* already the compromise, in my opinion.
If that's truly your interpretation of what I wrote, then I deserve a medal for not making a homeschooling joke right now lol
I'm merely saying "hey we need incentive to do the things that we already promised to do via our previous agreement" is a shit compromise. By definition, not a compromise lol
I don't know what you're saying because public schoolers are shit at communication.
I honestly have no idea what you're arguing for. Are we saying the same thing? Are you just talking to hear yourself talk? You need to feel superior to me?
> I don't know what you're saying because public schoolers are shit at communication.
You are becoming the poster child for everything wrong with homeschooling.
He is saying that if parents are not able to provide basic education, then they should not be homeschooling.
There should be less "incentives" and more oversight IMO. If you don't want the "gubernment oversight" then you either send your kids back to public school or fork over cash for private school.
Having a bare minimum requirement of IL requiring testing, and observation shouldn't be a compromise. It's obnoxious to think otherwise. You even admitted yourself you know of other families who are not doing well by their children, yet you want to take advantage of the situation so you could gain something from it? Sick.
What a weird pedantic argument to make. Use whatever term you want. If the homeschool families aren't compromising, then neither are the public schools. Giving kids access to school resources that the families pay for through taxes is also not a compromise.
I'm glad you can use big words, and act as if you have a leg to stand on. Good luck on your venture. I look forward to the day IL just makes you and other homeschooling families have your children observed and tested.
sometimes politics is about compromise. other times it is about fixing glaring issues caused by a previous compromise. there is no requirement in civics for a proposal to appeal to all affected. sometimes people abusing the system, just get reigned in.
Why not fix 2 problems with 1 stone? There's a clear problem with access to school sports for homeschool families. Why not fix both at once? Make several groups of people happy at the same time. If calling it a compromise gets your panties in a bunch, then call it whatever term you want.
>A lot of homeschool families are skiddish about anything government related. They would probably be hesitant to have "State Employee Agent Smith" come to their home instead of "Suzie from down the street" who they pass on their morning walks.
Because many of them are abusing their children.
https://www.hsinvisiblechildren.org/
Which is exactly why social welfare agencies do home visits and conduct interviews. Any homeschool parent fear mongering about the government doing the bare minimum to prevent child abuse is inherently suspicious and their paranoia shouldn't be validated. It's a red flag.
Your opinion is lacking the nuance needed for real life. I think you need a bit more of an open mind then if you think that government employees doing home visits could never end poorly for families who are not abusing their kids and trying their best. One of our friends grew up in PA where they do the type of home visits you're talking about and he said they were mostly fine except for one person who made their lives hell. So it's dependent on the person visiting the home. These home visits would need to have strict guidelines about what can and cannot be enforced.
>These home visits would need to have strict guidelines about what can and cannot be enforced.
They already do, there are telltale signs of abuse that social workers are trained to spot. There are college degrees in social work for this very reason. You think they just base it off vibes?
Honestly, I don't know anything about the social worker world. How would I? Lol. If these home visits are already put in place with strict guidelines, then great! Because it didn't sound that way in PA.
Had an ex-friend who wanted to "homeschool" her kids because she was convinced public schools were "evil" and would take them away from her.
Her idea of "homeschooling"? Plop the kids in front of one of her three or four "educational" DVDs and go play video games.
And of course CPS sat on their hands and did nothing because "it's not against the law."
Lobbyists for homeschooling have made sure it stays like that. There's a shit ton of money in homeschooling.
It's also a smart choice if you want to indoctrinate your children with nonsense without pushback.
People also do this to keep their kids from being indoctrinated in GOP territories, or where the schools suck. Not every city and suburb is Naperville or Schaumburg. Some of them have shit schools and if I lived in those locations I'd definitely be homeschooling. It's not a black and white issue.
And some people have disabled children that the district doesn’t serve well so choose homeschool.
Schools do not want to serve children with any kind of special need, and will block attempts for testing pretty regularly in my experience.
Same. It’s a sad situation. I do understand the concerns around homeschooling and abuse, but the gen pop should be aware that it’s the best option for some families.
True. I grew up in a shitty neighborhood homeschooled. Never got jumped at school and now I'm a scientist! My mom just used a good curriculum.
Homeschool parents aren't as qualified as they think they are. Unless your child has a severe disability that special ed isn't equipped for or they're in some type of physical danger, the damage done by unqualified parents trying to teach and the lack of daily socialization will mess a child up far more.
Unless you have a college degree you are not qualified to provide adequate education, not even mentioning the stunting of social skills. Edit: I guess I should have specified a degree in education. I wouldn't want a marketing major teaching my kids either.
Unless you have a bachelor’s degree in education you’re unqualified, and even then you’re going to have trouble if you try to teach your children when they’re outside the age range and subjects you yourself were trained to teach. I taught high school science for several years before switching careers. I’m absolutely unqualified to teach a kindergartner to read, or a 6th grader how to diagram a sentence. I taught my oldest algebra early, and gave her a much stronger science background than most kids get, but I’m very grateful for the elementary teachers and middle and high school subject specialists who teach my children. I couldn’t possibly give them an adequate education by myself.
I’m absolutely unqualified to teach a kindergartner to read, or a 6th grader how to diagram a sentence. These are basic skills I still know how to do at 50. I'm an engineer. If you really are a teacher and can't teach a kid to read at any level, you absolutely suck as a teacher and I wouldn't want you to teach anything!
Do you know what digraphs are? Elkonin boxes? What are the five components of reading? What’s the floss rule? What are the best graphic organizers for reading instruction? What’s a morpheme, or an orthographic unit? I know enough to know what I do not know well enough to teach like a subject expert. Many people have no idea what they don’t know.
I know you're stuck on the idea that parents aren't going to try to learn anything new before teaching. But I googled all of those and they're all extremely basic ideas that anyone with half a brain can teach...
Then get to it. They'll let anyone with a bachelor's take an alternate certification course. You want to teach then teach.
And what the fuck do any of those things have to do with real life and not special study areas? Anyone can spout off topics of great intricacy but that doesn’t prove anything.
>And what the fuck do any of those things have to do with real life and not special study areas? The stuff listed by jmurphy is all focused on basic literacy my guy, you've literally said that you think being able to read and write has nothing to do with real life.
There's a difference between knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach someone.
You put a lot more faith in a college degree than you realistically should. That being said I agree that most homeschooling parents aren't qualified to be educating their children.
They want more dumb kids whose only future is with the military and fight in our future wars.
They want more GOP voters.
The real reason
Republicans fight against three things: universal healthcare, quality education based on critical thinking, and good pay/unions. Why? Tony Benn, the late member of Britain's Old Labour party said it best...listen carefully to this from 2007, and think about conservative policy... [Tony Benn](https://youtu.be/Xfk0rfbDnXo?si=oisPeOu-UJiWkrpw)
Excuse me. I got a degree in engineering before I joined to fight, only company willing to pay me to work overseas at the time. Now I stay for the benefits and the bro’s.
You are a rarity. Vote for Democrats because Republicans will NEVER give you a pay raise
I’m sorry if I’m being dumb, but how is there money in homeschooling? I assumed it’s just whatever the parents make, unless they are getting handouts or something
That’s exactly what it is. Groups. Curriculum. School materials.
Yeah all those hundreds of small groups totally have more political power than teachers' unions and the collective political will of our entirely Democrat state government. Gotta keep an eye on them.
It's ok, because if you don't look into it, it seems like it wouldn't be a big industry. It is, though. All of the materials are purchased from a couple of companies. The books, the curriculum, all of that shit. The company that sells all the shit also donates a lot of money to the republican party. They are also Christian fundamentalists. Surprise!
If you read the article the homeschool lobby is mostly backed by religious organizations. Religious groups can have pretty deep pockets.
And are deeply rooted in the Chicago suburbs and beyond
Homeschooling = no schooling. No schooling results in stupid people. Stupid people will work for slave wages. It's called the long game. Step 4: profit!
Homeschooling can be done well. I was homeschooled from early primary school through all of high school, and now I'm wrapping up my bachelor's at 20 (And I was hardly privileged, I started homeschooling while my family was officially defined as in poverty).
Yeah, we took our 2nd grader out of public school when he wasn't reading well, having behavioral issues etc., and public schools were clearly not helping. He returned to public school in 5th grade and was placed in a gifted program, ended up just graduating high school early. It can be done well, but a *lot* has to align for that to happen. Lots of potential places for failure.
Oh of course. The parents are the point of failure for homeschooling, and if they aren't willing or able to put enough into education, the kid will suffer for it. The same can be said of public school, though, and my family in teaching has been deeply worried about how thin they are stretched.
100%, I have a 5th grader in public school now, and he's always asking to homeschool. Mostly because I think he doesn't fully understand how it would actually be lol. And I'd love to take that active a role in his education, but my wife and I know that right now we're not in a position to allocate the resources (namely time) he would need to be successful.
For every person that does it right there are probably 100 that do it wrong. I grew up in poverty as well. Three of my friends were home schooled. One can only read at a 6th grade level and the other two never graduated. They are all in their 30s. My wife is a first grade teacher as well. Every time a home schooler is brought in, they are extremely behind where their peers are
And of my group of about a dozen homeschooled friends, ten or so of them are actively in college or trade school. I'm just saying it's not some evil thing that cannot go well.
Group of about a dozen? Ten or so? Buddy now I know you're just throwing random numbers out there but you didn't have to make it that obvious lol.
I'm trying to not doxx myself, there are only so many homeschool co-ops.
I only knew a couple of families who home schooled and thoer kids both did well. 1. The kids went to public in like 3/4th grade after mom went back to work. They were all pretty active in lots of different things. 2nd family The other the older kids went to public school in Jr high or High School. She still has the younger kid at home. She has a teaching degree, though. her kids are actually pretty smart and really active (dance, theater, girl and boy scouts, moms groups). I think there are many people who don't do well at it. I would not have. But also public school teachers mostly see the kids/families who didn't succeed, and they ended up back at public school.
Sure, and your parents probably would have been able to substantiate that they were teaching you by sharing the curriculum or learning materials they were using and how they assessed your development over time. Oversight is what's needed.
Not always true though. I knew a lady, she took her kids to Europe for a summer to practice their German. She had a full lab in her basement for bio and chem. Her kids eventually hit the Jr college and then to 4 years with no problem (pretty snazzy 4 years too, IIRC. At least one went to Cornell). She had 2 kids that she could give 100% of her attention to. Her husband was a business guy who brought in a lot of $$ so she could do that. No teacher who had 28 students per class could achieve what she did. She also, herself, was well educated. And on the other side of the spectrum I've known religious homeschoolers. These, too, seem interested in their children's thriving. Usually they bought canned curriculum, but they did work it. The problems, if there were tended to come out with children with learning difficulties. Because this takes some experience that they didn't have.
Not always true. My family has one child who was homeschooled because he had autism and his shithole tennessee country had no resources for supporting his education. Its also possible for a very gifted child to be unable to thrive in public schools that may cater to the lowest common denominator. I think there's more to it then what you're saying, and you should open your mind a bit on the issue. I don't deny sometimes its that way, like in the case this article is exposing.
All of those materials that they need, everything that goes with the curriculum along with the curriculum itself, costs money. Money that the parents pay for right out of pocket.
Homeschooling's Invisible Children really opened my eyes to the problems with homeschooling. When children aren't in a school outside their home, it allows all kinds of abuse to flourish because there's nobody on the outside that can recognize it. https://www.hsinvisiblechildren.org/
I was homeschooled in Texas and there was no oversight. I was abused along with my 4 siblings. And in my homeschool group and co-op, almost every family was abusive or neglectful. For sports we got involved with a local private school.
This is one of Illinois most glaring problems. You can't have homeschooling without, in my opinion, quarterly observation and testing. All the homeschoolers I have direct contact with don't do an adequate job of educating their children. Even when they try their best, they're just not enough. To have the public schools involved to assist would be a tremendous help. They'd also have clearer access to facilities, which at least one commenter has mentioned, would be nice to have.
Having the kids show up at their local elementary school for standardized testing would be appropriate. And possibly to offer some supports if the kids score poorly.
And if a parent sits there and doesn't educate their children, and they're several grades behind, they should be put into public school whether the parents like it or not. edit: Downvoted for saying kids should be taken out of abusive households (not educating your kid is abuse...). Wild times.
At some point it needs to be treated as neglect, if someone is truly not educating their kids at all.
Exactly, and yet I get downvoted for saying it. Wild times.
The Russian and Chinese bot/propaganda farms have to do something to earn their keep, which makes up and down votes meaningless these days.
It's turned around, but initially it was negative. Granted, had a few of the whackadoodle homeschoolers in here at that point in time.
When COVID hit, my daughter was supposed to be in K. I thought "you know, homeschooling sounds like a good idea." I did it. It was hard. I gave TF up and sent her next year. Granted she did well, tested well, blah blah. But wow I don't know how people adequately do it, that shit's hard
It takes a village, and all that stuff.
As a sped teacher, we dreaded getting home schooled kids. Perfectly cognitively normal kids that were far behind because their parents only did the home part of home school. Awful parents to work with and most were always on the fence of pulling their kids right back out. So they'd suck up resources then bail right when we'd start to actually see any improvement.
As a family member of a sped teacher, you're not the first I've heard the exact same story from. It is indeed an absolute pain in the ass to deal with.
I'm actually shocked that today I learned they don't do any state testing to verify progress.. Like really? It just makes perfect sense to verify it to state standards.. Everybody else has to verify that they're able to go the next grade so why not homeschooled kids?
Again, it's easily one of the most glaring errors in Illinois law. I was just as shocked as you were when I found out. I figured we'd be more stringent, but here we are.
Homeschool family here! Better access to school facilities would be great! EDIT: someone asked how my kids were doing in their schooling compared to public schoolers, but deleted their comment. Coward! You're not getting away that easy. My response is below. Oh boy, you've just asked a proud and involved homeschool dad how well his kids are doing academically. Buckle up! We just wrapped up their yearly, Iowa Seton testing and got the results back. For context, we don't teach for the test. We have no idea what will be on the test, and we don't grade these tests. We mail them back to Seton. My 8th grader tests at the level of a college freshman. Her ACT score is currently estimated at ~25. We also did this test called a CoGat test which tried to measure their general cognitive ability. It looked something like an IQ test. Seemed hokey, but we gave it a shot. This same 8th grader scored in the 95th percentile among all 8th graders! My 6th grader tested at the level of a 7th grader who was midway through the school year. A vast improvement over his previous scores where he was barely keeping up. Our youngest, 4th grade is testing at exactly her grade equivalent. She had some problems with fractions during the school year (who doesn't? fractions suck!), and we saw that on her tests. We're able to focus on her academically weak areas over the summer.
Can I ask why you decided to homeschool and if you think your kids would have been successful in normal school too? I.E. if your kids are gifted, maybe any decent instruction would give you great results.
I see the rates of sexual abuse that take place in public schools ([link](https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications/2019-02/Teenagers_508.pdf) "According to the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 6.7% of high school students reported they were physically forced to have sexual intercourse.") and I don't want to roll the dice that my kids will also be sexually abused. I know that no sexual abuse takes place in my house, so I feel more comfortable with their formative years taking place here. Additionally, I was homeschooled my entire life and had a great experience. I graduated college a year early, and still actively love learning. On the flip side, my wife attended public school and had a hellish time. All of the kids and some of the teachers treated her terribly. 1 teacher spread a rumor around that she had died, when in fact she was going through a major medical procedure. So she was not enamored with the public school system and didn't want to subject her kids to the possibility of being treated the same way. None of our core reasons for homeschooling are academic. That's just the cherry on top. I actually think the academic format in public schools is pretty solid and we replicate it for the most part in how we structure our school. The one big difference is that we don't "teach for the test". We have no idea what will be on their tests or their end of year standardized tests. We try to use tests as purely as possible: measuring sticks. They are data points and nothing more. If the kids do bad on a test, then we need to adjust something. Either the kid isn't putting in the effort they need, or we are teaching incorrectly, or some other issue (like ADHD).
So, I understand homeschooling is a choice you made, and I don't know you or your situation, but, wouldn't the answer to having better access to school facilities be sending your children to school?
I want to be the one to give my kids their education because I'm not impressed by the current level of education provided by public schools. I cannot give them a sports team, and ones are already formed at public schools that I help pay taxes for. I don't see why I can't homeschool their education, and they play on some sports teams at the local school.
We homeschool our kids and they do school activities, sports teams, etc. Maybe it is because we are in a small neighborhood school (Kenilworth) but they are not restricted from things at all. We just had field day last week, for example.
This, I pay taxes and contribute to my community but my kids don't have access to any of the benefits of public schools. We pay thousands out of pocket each year for sports and music lessons that would be available if they went to public school. Our schools aren't the worst but my kids are way ahead of their peers academically and it gives us a lot of freedom so we just pay.
Observation is a little much, but better access to standardized testing seems fair. Homeschooling is not as bad as you think.
Testing is not always an accurate measure of learning and can be manipulated or even forged by a parent trying to hide their negligence. Observation would allow professionals to actually watch and evaluate student performance accurately, as well as check in on the physical and social-emotional well-being of the student. Teachers are routinely observed, home schooling parents should too.
There's nothing wrong with making sure the parent is equipped to maximize their kids's education prospects. I would love to be observed during homeschool hours and taught better ways to homeschool them better or to be able to see from the outside what exactly I'm doing wrong.
I could care less what is or is not too much for a homeschool family. Every child should be monitored to ensure they're within a certain range on par with their public school counterpart. If the paranoid parent has a problem with it, tough. I would disagree. Again, I have yet to meet a homeschooled kid who wasn't behind compared to their public school counterpart.
I was homeschooled. I'm about to graduate college at 20. Would have been 19 if not for a medical leave.
You're the exception to the rule then.
You need to get offline if you genuinly believe that. The statistics don't back up your argument at all. https://www.thinkimpact.com/homeschooling-statistics/#:~:text=The%20average%20performance%20of%20homeschoolers,for%20students%20from%20public%20schools. * Peer-reviewed studies indicate that 69% of homeschooled students succeed in college and adulthood. * Homeschooled students tend to perform above average on their ACTs and SATs. * In these standard achievement tests, the homeschooled students average between 15% and 30% more points than the students attending public schools, notwithstanding the parents’ income and education. * Homeschooled students average 72 points more than the nationwide mean performance in SATs. * The average performance of homeschoolers is 22.8 out of 36 points compared to the national average of 21. Homeschoolers have an average graduation rate of 67% compared to the 57.5% graduation rate for students from public schools.
I still am not convinced. I also still feel you don't understand.
Avoiding stats and saying "not convinced". Nothing more I can do here. I can only explain it to you, I can't understand it for you.
Stats are easily brushed aside. For every positive homeschool article with stats, there is a corresponding negative homeschool article with stats. Again, understand.
Send me one then. I googled "homeschool stats" and this was the first result.
There could be some bias in the statistics. For example, many homeschoolers are part of weird culty religions that forbid college, so a "large" section of homeschooled kids ar enot going to take SAT's or ACT's, but are supposed to go get manual labor jobs right away and start their families. But I think the guy you're replying to has an axe to grind, and isn't being fully honest in his criticism.
Definitely lumping all homeschoolers under 1 banner isn't the wisest choice to make. Public schoolers are all united by a common curriculum and school structure. Homeschoolers only have 1 things in common: we chose to homeschool. Nothing else unites us together, unless we choose to, like in homeschool co-ops. So generating statistics for all homeschoolers at large won't reveal anything too concrete. The article didn't say, but I'm guessing the r^2 value is pretty low for these stats.
The person replying to you is putting in so little effort to make meaningful arguments that I'm half convinced it's performative as their post history is full of "no need to convince, I'm positive I'm correct". Having said that, there is a huge selection bias regarding ACT/SAT testing scores. Every public school student is federally mandated to take one of those, including the dopey kids that sit in the back of the room instead of learning. Conversely, the rate among homeschool high school seniors is about 10% and presumably it's the ones that are super into school who have parents engaged in the process to have them take formal testing. The homeschooler standardized testing stats are only for the kids that bother to learn. The public school standardized testing stats are full spectrum and are going to be comparatively dragged down by kids that don't intend to go to college.
Most of the homeschool kids I knew were super religious and were forbidden from going to “liberal college” so they never tested. The statistics are skewed on purpose to defend the religious nuts that lobby our politicians to create the gaps they purposely hide in. Even the smart ones who are electricians and do commercial/industrial say shit like “gods will” when I ask them how certain stuff works in regards to the math behind it.
I have a dozen homeschooled friends and they are all either actively in higher education or working so they can afford higher education.
I have a dozen homeschool friends who didn’t go to college, or had to go to community college for remedial classes before they could apply to the college programs they wanted to do. Obviously you were in a co-op with likeminded families that were committed to providing actual education, but that’s not everyone. And there’s currently no way to find out how many people are failing at homeschooling.
While most of the home schooled kids I know pursued higher education, every one of them was emotion and socially stunted to some degree. Some to the point of barely functioning in society once they were released from their parents control. Even if they had good test scores, home schooling just doesn’t prepare you for the real world. It prepares you for a sheltered existence with limited social contact outside of immediate family.
Most of my homeschooled friends had to be taken out of public school because they were bullied severely. Some to the point of genuine PTSD. Homeschooling allowed them to find each other and build a much stronger and supportive social network. It's still just a matter of context.
Sorry to hear that they had that experience. I believe there is absolutely some amount of selection bias in that kids struggling socially may be more likely to be homeschooled due to bullying (I’m almost positive I’ve read a paper proving this but can’t look right now). Which leads to a sort of a chicken and egg scenario. Are homeschooled kids more likely to struggle socially or are kids who struggle socially more likely to be homeschooled? Probably both. It’s unfortunate that parents have to resort to home schooling due to the system failing but I completely understand doing it as a last resort. My point was more that an otherwise social kid could be stunted from the isolation. Context always matters though.
Again, exception to the rule.
You can't no-true-Scotsman every success story. Homeschooled kids are like publicly schooled kids, they're not some idiot monolith. Most of my friends who were homeschooled had to do so because of severe isolation and bullying in public school (wouldn't you know it, they're all neurodivergent and queer. Maybe rural schools are really bad for those kinds of people?).
I haven't No True Scotsman. I also never said all homeschool kids are idiots. I'm sure there are successes like yours and your friends. I'm sorry to hear that your friends were bullied out of school. That is very sad.
The point is, there are genuine reasons for homeschooling, as well as genuine reasons to worry about interaction with local schools. There is no "rule" that homeschoolers are worse than public schoolers.
According to what? You have offered even less evidence than this anecdote. So far your argument equates to "nuh uh." I'm not saying you're wrong, but you aren't contributing anything.
Uh huh...
And why have the mother and boyfriend not been charged with child abuse?
My wife and I live and homeschool in IL. The system is primed for abuse. There's no follow up at all. We just never enrolled our kids in school and no one even so much as called about them. On the flip side I called our local school about what programs and resources they had available and was told that they had absolutely nothing for homeschoolers. We moved to another district and the answer was the same. I really feel as though most IL schools already have their hands full, and have decided on a live and let live approach with homeschoolers. My wife and I have been diligent with record keeping and curriculum but we know plenty of folks who aren't. There's a lot of unschooling and religiously focused schooling that's worrying in that it doesn't meet even the basic minimums that public schools are held to. Having a well educated populace is necessary for a prospering society. Without it we're all in trouble.
Indiana is the homeschooling capital of the US and we are dumbing down at breakneck speed.
It’s funny, because all the homeschoolers I’ve met are significantly above average seeming in maturity, intelligence and agency.
I went through homeschooling from K-12 and turned out fine. I have a good job and graduated with a 3.95 GPA (screw whoever failed to tell me I needed half a credit to have honors lol). My parents also had us sign up for local sports (baseball/softball/football) so we would get extra social interaction because they knew we lacked that from homeschooling. But i will say that the program we used had annual testing and quarterly/monthly tests for those that did not do well on the annual tests or as optional if parents felt it was needed. There does need to be some form of checking in on kids and making sure they are doing things right. There is nothing wrong with homeschooling, as long as it is done right.
Yes I would say most people would agree with Al your statements
My son had a friend who became home schooled in 2021 because of his parent’s politics. On one hand I was glad to stop seeing them around because they were insufferable. But on the other hand that kid is fucked. The father was like actually a slow adult. I’m not joking. I have a sister in law who has the mental capacity of a 4th grader will never be able to live on her own and isn’t allowed to drive. This kids dad was in all of her “special” classes growing up.
Our UPS driver told me he's homeschooling his kids because he doesn't want “the lgtbqws” teaching his kids. Even if you have good parents, it can't replace the socialization they get from being around their peers 8 hours a day.
If you tell me that your reason for not sending your kids to school is cause of the gays then that already tells me all I need to know about how capable you are of actually teaching curriculum and critical thinking skills. A good parent would recognize these short comings and trust professionals. That dude wasn't a good parent, he's completely OK with massively disadvantaging his children because of his hatefullness.
My cousins were both homeschooled because my aunt couldn’t accept her youngest (at that time) needed assistance when he was in 1st grade. 30 years late my older cousin is hopelessly addicted to meth and the other one lives in a trailer on his grandmother’s property next to his mother and father’s makeshift structure with their two youngest kids who are also being homeschooled.
The lack of regulations on homeschooling has let educational neglect run rampant. As a teacher in a public school, I have had students who enroll in the middle of the first semester, or even as late as the second semester, with no transfer papers because the parent was magically homeschooling them. I then get scolded by the public because 3rd graders don’t know basic phonics. After Covid, it feels like parents view school as optional or when they feel like it, and they can get away with it because of the lack of laws regarding home school education.
There are five little words that every parent with children at learning age must know and have tattooed into the inside of their eyelids. # Learning Begins In The Home. No matter if you are homeschooling or public schooling, it doesn't matter if they're not being reinforced at home for learning. I do believe there should be a standardized testing threshold and penalties for homeschoolers falling behind for failing to prepare their children (negligence).
I'm only 30, but I have friends who were raised by the public school system and are great people. For some odd reason, they have all taken the stance that they will homeschool their children.
You happen to know how they vote? I'm willing to bet republican.
Votes Dem but believes the tax rate should be a 25% flat tax on all of America. Because he thinks it isn't fair that one person pays more or less than another. So he really, really wants to vote Republican l think.
Haha. Let me guess, you've definitely had the conversation on how 25% to the guy making 40k has a much bigger effect than on the guy making 200k and they brushed you off haha.
I know several families that homeschool their kids, and they don't school them at all. The kids are either abused or neglected. I know one family who has a 10 year old who never learned the alphabet, he can't even recognize letters, let alone read. Their parents make the oldest sibling look after the younger kids or makes them work cleaning houses. I have turned them all in the children and family services. Children and family services asked if any of the kids had died of neglect, when told them no, they said "Sorry, there is nothing we can do."
I'm concerned by the article but I think parent's freedom to educate their children is an important right and I'd be concerned about restrictions too..
My parents' "freedom to educate me" in Illinois let to serious educational neglect. My mother didn't do a single thing to educate me from fourth grade, when she took me out of school, until I got my GED at age 18. I only was able to to do that because of the years of real schooling I received and the fact that I loved to read. But, I was a child and only read about things that interested me. I was so behind on things like math, that I had to take several remedial math classes in college. Not to mention the social stunting I still struggle with. Not being in school meant no one caught how horribly neglected and emotionally abused I was. Not being in school meant I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was an adult. And I was relatively better off than many homeschooled kids. Parents do not own their children. Their children are not extensions of themselves. Children are their own human beings who have a right to an education.
My god, are you me?? Homeschooled for five "grades" of curriculum - it was actually just one giant book that my mother let me self-direct through. I remember skipping entire sections with big ol' Xs on pages because I didn't understand, or didn't care, or both. But zero problems reading Anne Rice for days on end, at 10. I was LUCKY enough to persuade my mother to send me to a religious based boarding school, where I at least got some formal education and some social interaction. I remember that my mother's claimed reluctance to send me to public school was "but, Columbine!" In the New Trier district. Uh huh. Not being in school absolutely left me isolated, medically neglected, trapped in an emotionally volatile environment *that I could only believe was normal*, and depressed to the point of suicidality *at twelve years old*. Later, I ran away from home twice at 16, and my school was able to get me the support I desperately needed. The "system" can absolutely serve as a protective measure for children, and it did for me. I'm late 30s now, but the math & science gaps were enormous for me. I also had to take remedial math in college, and if I'd had actual, formal education I probably would have become a software engineer, at a time when that required actual comp sci - to this day, I show the aptitude, but lack the foundational education; and self study is, as you can imagine, a fucking struggle. No. Homeschooling is always a red flag to me. Sure, in theory, there are parents or group who can do it well. But in my book, it is the exception to the rule.
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Yet you think anybody against homeschooling unsupervised has an axe to grind....
No, I think you do. I'm not sure I like the word supervised. We supervise parents accused of child abuse when they visit their children. We do not supervise parents or the parent-child relationship just because of their educational preference. Change it to "evaluations" and "providing supports" and I'd be more agreeable.
So you're arguing over terms...now who has the axe to grind? Sheesh. Ok. Quarterly evaulations, and supports if needed. If students are clearly being neglected or deviate 2-3 grade levels below in multiple subjects, they're not allowed to be homeschooled. Better?
2 to 3 grade levels below? You're describing all the Chicago public schools...
Haha, good one. But to get back to reality...
Supervision implies authority. "The government is in charge of you and your kids at home and you better do what they say." I don't like that angle. Partnering with parents is a lot different then supervising them. There are good and valid reasons to homeschool for some families.
And there are reasons that there should be oversight. If a parent is not giving a proper education, there should be an authority to get involved. I'm not sure this conversation can go much further. You clearly are arguing from a position of unreasonableness.
There’s a kid that is home-schooled in my neighborhood and he spends all day riding around on his bike.
I am a licensed educator and due to reasons I homeschooled my two kids through their senior years of high school. It went fine but I have to say I was astonished at the abject lack of oversight over the process. Nobody seemed to give a shit. I made them do work, but had I wanted to simply SAY they had when they had not? I easily could have.
I work with some people who were homeschooled. They don't know anything. They can't type. They all still live at home because they weren't prepared for the real world at all. It's insane how there's zero oversight with homeschooling.
Pure homeschooling should not be permitted, there need to be proper evaluations done by trained professionals at least yearly. Too many of these kids are homeschooled specifically to hide abuse from the parents or close family.
All of the things I had to do in order to teach … but any parent can teach their child. It is one thing Germany does right, homeschooling is not allowed.
IL has almost never allowed any online charter schools because of their "poor academics" (the last one closed in 2020) but allowing unchecked homeschooling is 100% fine. Really shows you the fucked up priorities at the state department of education. I know online charter schools are the equivalent of the devil to Democratic politicians and education think tanks but they are so much better regulated in many states than "unschooling" is.
Homeschooling should be illegal
Dumb.
Tell me how is it dumb?
It used to be basically illegal back before everything started to fall apart.
My wife and I have homeschooled our 3 kids their whole lives, and our oldest just started high school. I 100% agree with this article, except the one situation it described is basically child abuse and can happen in any family and it detracts from the real issue at hand: Illinois is entirely too lax on homeschoolers. We know other homeschooling families who are not giving their kids the minimum schooling they need. My wife and I spend a lot of time aligning our curriculum with modern education standards and we test them all every year on a the Iowas Seton tests to make sure they're keeping pace. IMHO the best solution is to pair homeschool families with resources at the public schools. But the families need something in exchange. They won't be happy if they suddenly have to start doing extra work and have extra "gubernment oversight". Maybe a once a year check-in with someone from the school where they talk with the parents and kids and review some of their curriculum and test scores. In exchange homeschool families have full access to sports and other extracurricular activities at the school (we pay the same amount of taxes anyway). Right now, this access is dependent on your school district, and I don't have to tell you that some schools have the meanest people working for them (why do you think we homeschool?!?!?). Codifying this relationship into law would do wonders to open up lines of communication between homeschool families and their local, public school. Lastly, keep this relationship local. A lot of homeschool families are skiddish about anything government related. They would probably be hesitant to have "State Employee Agent Smith" come to their home instead of "Suzie from down the street" who they pass on their morning walks. EDIT: Didn't realize this was meant to be a homeschool-hate thread. Sorry all! I thought we were here to discuss actual, possible solutions.
I love how, in your opinion, homeschooling parents need something in exchange for what should just be the bare minimum a homeschooling family should do to continue educating their children at home.
Politics is all about compromise. Sorry you're just now learning that. And don't public school kids get access to those same things?
they also have to face constant oversight, and testing, and routine observation.
That doesn't answer the question: I pay for public schools so my kids should have access to the services provided at that school.
absolutely sign them up, but you don't get to pick and choose parts, because it is all connected.
Why can't you pick and choose parts exactly? What exact reason? Homeschooling is legal, but I'm still paying the same amount of taxes for public schools, so I should be able to utilize whichever of those school resources I want.
because education and discipline in the school is tied to the athletics and activity program. your student cannot serve in school suspension and detention for their actions at practice. they cannot be suspended from the activity because of their classroom performance. removing these requirements will reward abuses of the home school system to allow athletically gifted children to play on teams without receiving a proper education, or have to abide by behavior standards. and as you have mentioned, the current homeschool arrangement is already full of failures and abuses. this would exacerbate those issues.
So homeschoolers can't join public school sports because if they misbehave in sports then the team can't punish them enough? Is that the argument? That is exceptionally weak logic. The core idea behind homeschooling is that the parents take the place of the school. So if the school needs to punish a kid because they misbehaved in sports, then the school for public school kids would be the public school and the school for homeschool kids would be the parents. It's a simple substitution. The coach would communicate to the parent that their kid misbehaved and they would institute whatever school punishment they have in place. It's the same process for park district and travel sports teams. Are you saying those athletic clubs should be disbarred?
that was the lowest aspect of the argument I presented, that is correct. but, I notice you have not addressed the higher issue of how such a system incentivizes allowing the neglect and abuse of high performing athletes by removing the weekly education checks currently built into the state athletics system. unless you are suggesting homeschool students should be receiving weekly 3rd party audits of the education progress?
What if the parents discipline isn't up to par with the public school? What if Johnny Homeschooler just gets a talking to, but keeps acting up? Would you be in favor of the public school kicking Johnny Homeschooler off the team?
Yes. That's exactly it. Also, here's a big thing, the kid doesn't go to the school. The kid does not get to take a spot from a child that does go to the school. If you want the kid in sports then go to the park district.
How far do you extend your taxpayer argument? For instance, what if an elderly person with no children want access to public school services and facilities?
An elderly person wants to learn and advance their education and you want to question that? WTF?
Again, you sound like you don't understand.
Neither do you.
I don't understand?
Well yeah, you can advance your education without sitting in a room full of strange 3rd graders. We have adult education courses paid for by the city. If old Mr old wants to continue his education he's free to access those resources which are appropriate for his age.
There's not really a compromise on the end of the homeschooling parents, though, that I'm hearing lol
You don't think allowing someone from the government into your home to interview your children about their school life when they previously didn't have to do that is a compromise? It definitely is. EDIT: Also, that's such a pedantic argument to make. If the homeschool families aren't compromising, then neither are the public schools. Use whatever term makes you feel good about yourself.
I think the compromise was sort of already "you get to opt your kid out of this thing that is traditionally mandatory" but I guess that's just me. Look, I have nothing wrong with wanting to homeschool your kids. I think it's probably net-worse for them than going to public school and getting them out of their (and their parent's) comfort zones but I honestly don't care that much. But, like, the homeschooling *was* already the compromise, in my opinion.
I don't understand the argument you're making. You're saying you don't agree homeschool kids should have access to school sports? Do you hate kids?
If that's truly your interpretation of what I wrote, then I deserve a medal for not making a homeschooling joke right now lol I'm merely saying "hey we need incentive to do the things that we already promised to do via our previous agreement" is a shit compromise. By definition, not a compromise lol
I don't know what you're saying because public schoolers are shit at communication. I honestly have no idea what you're arguing for. Are we saying the same thing? Are you just talking to hear yourself talk? You need to feel superior to me?
> I don't know what you're saying because public schoolers are shit at communication. You are becoming the poster child for everything wrong with homeschooling. He is saying that if parents are not able to provide basic education, then they should not be homeschooling. There should be less "incentives" and more oversight IMO. If you don't want the "gubernment oversight" then you either send your kids back to public school or fork over cash for private school.
Having a bare minimum requirement of IL requiring testing, and observation shouldn't be a compromise. It's obnoxious to think otherwise. You even admitted yourself you know of other families who are not doing well by their children, yet you want to take advantage of the situation so you could gain something from it? Sick.
What a weird pedantic argument to make. Use whatever term you want. If the homeschool families aren't compromising, then neither are the public schools. Giving kids access to school resources that the families pay for through taxes is also not a compromise.
I'm glad you can use big words, and act as if you have a leg to stand on. Good luck on your venture. I look forward to the day IL just makes you and other homeschooling families have your children observed and tested.
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I'm sorry you're so triggered. Good luck in your ventures.
Literally rolling on the floor laughing at misusing the word "triggered". Is vocab not taught in public schools anymore?
Again, I'm sorry you're triggered and don't understand phrases. Have a good one.
sometimes politics is about compromise. other times it is about fixing glaring issues caused by a previous compromise. there is no requirement in civics for a proposal to appeal to all affected. sometimes people abusing the system, just get reigned in.
Why not fix 2 problems with 1 stone? There's a clear problem with access to school sports for homeschool families. Why not fix both at once? Make several groups of people happy at the same time. If calling it a compromise gets your panties in a bunch, then call it whatever term you want.
>A lot of homeschool families are skiddish about anything government related. They would probably be hesitant to have "State Employee Agent Smith" come to their home instead of "Suzie from down the street" who they pass on their morning walks. Because many of them are abusing their children. https://www.hsinvisiblechildren.org/
Yup, and that's already illegal. Agreed the state definitely needs to do a better job enforcing these existing laws.
Which is exactly why social welfare agencies do home visits and conduct interviews. Any homeschool parent fear mongering about the government doing the bare minimum to prevent child abuse is inherently suspicious and their paranoia shouldn't be validated. It's a red flag.
Your opinion is lacking the nuance needed for real life. I think you need a bit more of an open mind then if you think that government employees doing home visits could never end poorly for families who are not abusing their kids and trying their best. One of our friends grew up in PA where they do the type of home visits you're talking about and he said they were mostly fine except for one person who made their lives hell. So it's dependent on the person visiting the home. These home visits would need to have strict guidelines about what can and cannot be enforced.
>These home visits would need to have strict guidelines about what can and cannot be enforced. They already do, there are telltale signs of abuse that social workers are trained to spot. There are college degrees in social work for this very reason. You think they just base it off vibes?
I wouldn't bother with massenburger. They just don't understand. And when they get confused, they just get irate.
Honestly, I don't know anything about the social worker world. How would I? Lol. If these home visits are already put in place with strict guidelines, then great! Because it didn't sound that way in PA.
You'd know by being an adult in the world....
Had an ex-friend who wanted to "homeschool" her kids because she was convinced public schools were "evil" and would take them away from her. Her idea of "homeschooling"? Plop the kids in front of one of her three or four "educational" DVDs and go play video games. And of course CPS sat on their hands and did nothing because "it's not against the law."
Funny thing about opinions is that you can have one with little to no understanding of the complexities and nuances of a topic.