Why you should take your children out of public schooling RIGHT NOW

My son just finished up 1st grade and we have tried both public school and private school/homeschooling.

He began kindergarten at our local public school. I was mortified when I found out there were well over 30 kids in his class and at least 5 of those kids couldn't speak any english. It was obvious from day one that the teacher simply was overwhelmed and couldn't keep up with anything properly. After the first 2 weeks, I began searching online for an alternative.

To my great surprise and relief, I discovered that someone in our town had started up a private school. I called immediately and made an appointment with the lady running the place. I met with her at the house they had purchased to house this school and visited with her for about an hour and paid up his first month's tuition. I was so freaking happy to find a place with smaller classes and individual attention...and I thought there was no way it could be worse than the public schools. I was very wrong.

Basically, this "private school" was one classroom with a dozen kids ranging in age from 5 to 16 years crammed into it with this one lady trying to homeschool them all. She had a BA in foreign language (same degree that I have) and a masters in nursing. She had homeschooled all of her own children and they had all went on to great success (I think she had a total of 5 kids of her own, all grown now). Also, when I had first met her, she told me that she was a Mormon and that while they would be getting some bible stories and whatnot along with their lessons, it would all be non-denominational, basic moral right and wrong bible-story type stuff. I had no problem with any of this.

In the end, she pretty much had a 7 year old girl babysitting my son and he wasn't learning anything. The teacher kept coming to me and complaining and telling me that my son was acting out in ways I had never witnessed and no one had ever complained to me about his behavior like that before. I knew something there was wrong. My kid never behaves badly for anyone except me - lol. So I put a digital recorder in his book bag and sent him to class. When he got home, I took the recorder out and listened. It was 4 hours of the 16 year old in the class dominating every discussion and being really mean to the smaller kids. It was also obvious that the children in the school who were also Mormon and attended the same church as the teacher were running the place and picking on the non-mormon kids (of which there were 2 out of the entire student body of 12).

Needless to say, my child went right back into the public school and I called every office and department in the state trying to get something done about the "private school" but to no avail. Apparently, any kook who feels like it, qualified or not, can cram a bunch of kids into a room, call it a private school and teach (or not) whatever the hell they like in the state of Oklahoma. I mean, what her establishment truly was, was a homeschool with other peoples' kids in it instead of her own.

I do feel qualified to homeschool my son (I only lack student teaching in order to be a teacher myself), but I have to work to support us, since I'm a single mom. And I suppose I could try to homeschool him in the evenings and on the weekends, but then what do I do with him during the day when I'm at work? Just leave him in daycare somewhere where it's just him and the 3 and under crowd? I worry that being stuck with a bunch of toddlers and babies all day could do it's own damage psychologically to him. So, our solution has been for him to go to a regular public school and then I work extra with him so that I know he is getting everything he needs. For example, they have absolutely no science content in the 1st grade, so we do science experiments at home on the weekends. He also already has a major fixation with history, so I try to give him all the history he can stand. He loves anything to do with the Revolutionary war and/or WWII, so we watch movies and documentaries and I have bought him several books about both and we read them in the evenings.

So yeah, public schools are definitely shorting our children. Homeschooling is great, but beware of people offering to educate your children whether they call themselves a "private school" or a "homeschool." And for single parents who, like me, feel homeschooling is simply not an option due to time constraints, try blending public schooling and homeschooling in your own way so that your child gets a more thorough and rounded education.

ETA: Star and Flag for you, OP. Our children's education is important stuff!

Do you think ALL public schools around the country are bad (i know many states where it is a problem) or just certain areas of Michigan ? Just curious.

reply to post by hp1229


Sadly, The states agree to federal mandates to get the money. Then the states offer up that money locally with the same strings attached (federal mandates) in order to receive the funding. So whoever is accepting this money must follow the mandates, this includes any private or chartered schools that take the government funding.
I understand this has been a global initiative. If a mandate says the schools are to teach every child is to worship and serve the state without question, they will teach that to the children and have police, social services, health department etc. at their disposal to ensure compliance. (This is all written in the legislation implemented back in the early 90's, some schools started implementing it before the actual legislation passed ).

reply to post by cetaphobic


Yes I believe in homeschooling so children aren't brainwashed by the doctrine of evolution.

reply to post by cetaphobic


What an interesting topic and compilation of information. I for one feel as though if I have some sort of credible opinion on this subject because not only was I homeschooled, but I also spent time in public and private schooling during my high-school years. I now go to a private college, I was homeschooled all the way up until my sophomore year of high-school.

I will tell you one thing: the homeschool world is GIGANTIC. I made many many life-long friends through homeschool group functions, we are like one big close family. There is a derivative of homeschooling called "homeschool school" where children go to school once a week run by parents with accredited teaching licenses and are given work to do every single day until the next weeks class. I made friends at homeschool school, learned how to section my time for work, and motivate myself.

The classic homeschool track is to finish schooling by sophomore year of high-school (yes, it is a faster track) then spend the remaining 2 years of schooling taking college classes at the local county college in order to transfer to a larger college. It's almost as if community college is your last 2 years of high-school. Many of my friends took this track and made very well for themselves at colleges such as NYU and MIT.

Here is the catch with homeschooling: It is all, and I mean ALL in your parents hands. Luckily mine handled the task very well, I played in our towns sports programs and was able to mesh into the "regular world" quite well. Some people I knew had parents that sheltered them to much and were barely ever to see the light of day outside of church or homeschool functions.

I guess the point i'm trying to make is that people in the US do NOT understand homeschooling AT ALL, it is so much more then everyone is led to believe.

The time I spent at a private school was great as well, lots of individualized attention from teachers and great friends. I got into a great college.

When I was in public school I felt like I was being brainwashed, told not to think freely, and moved around like cattle between classes. When I have children someday I will never, and I mean NEVER send them to public school.

reply to post by RevelationGeneration


you would rather brainwash them with other information amirite?
you understand your child still has to meet basic learning standards whether or not you believe math and science are tools of the devil..... right?

this is why homeschooling isnt the answer but rather reforming public schools from day prisons into education centers and mandating higher standards for the teachers AND students
with higher standards of learning and allowing for the firing of bad teachers and the failing of bad students the problem will be resolved for the most part

With health insurance costs do high, and in order to afford college and retirement, my wife and I both work. But we put out son in the private system at 2 years old. My daughter will also start at 2 years old. The schools in my zone are decent but I feel like there is too much risk sending them there. Not risk in safety, but in quality learning.

A note must be made that much of the child's learning happens at home as well. Can't blame or give all credit to the school teachers.

School is simply a relatively safe place to stick kids while we are away at work - to teach them how to be social, learn the basics, some history, and find out where their interests may rest so they can plan their future. A few will excel, and a few will use it as a place to be a degenerate. i.e. pretty much another social lesson. I don't know what you think you are going to teach your child at home they won't learn at school, but I guarantee they will learn things at school you can't teach them - yes, many of them are good things.

I've tried to stop posting and just lurk here, to avoid taking the bait on a number of topics that people seem to enjoy trolling with. However, this isn't a troll, and it's an area of personal expertise, so I have to jump in.

Background: 5 years teaching experience (5th grade) in a couple of different districts, now an administrator in a suburban K-5 school with approx. 650 students. M.A in Elementary Education, M.Ed. in Educational Leadership, currently working on my Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction. I am, by no means, an expert on the home school debate. However, there are some fundamental issues regarding your stance on this that require correcting...which I feel qualified to discuss.

First and foremost, please drop the "proof" argument. There is as much or as little "proof" in terms of opinions, scholarly articles, and half-assed literature reviews to satisfy any stance on education you would like to take. Educational research is, largely, a complete joke due to the ethical constraints placed upon actual scientific experimental research with children. As a result of this, most information you will find are studies commissioned by textbook companies (I'm looking at you, Pearson) to support a product. This product will likely change in 4 years, and a new, contrary study will be commissioned. This is not to say that you are incorrect in any of your statements, just watch your rebuttals. Proof is, sadly, either abundant or completely lacking (depending on your standards) for every stance possible.

Second, teachers are underpaid in some locales, completely overpaid in others. Teaching can be a vow of poverty, or a 100k per 9 month job, depending on where you teach and how long you've done it. You are right that quite a few teachers are unqualified, in that the 100k folks are usually the most out of touch, since their real study of the profession was done decades ago and it's been a crazy 20 years for educational theory. Salaries are a problem, to be sure, but not always in the way you spotlighted.

Third, you do not have to go to college to learn to teach, true, but that teaching will be the exact same uninspired, inept teaching you criticize from the "underpaid, overworked" teacher. Real teachers study their craft every day, and collaborate with colleagues to improve their practice as part of their routine. It is embedded in everything that they do. This cannot happen with home schooling. Yes, there are certainly benefits to home schooling, in terms of tailoring instruction, content selection, and pacing. There is also complete trust on the part of the student. However, excellent pedagogy is not the best benefit to lead, 'cause that's completely untrue.

Most home schooling resources are the packaged models for instruction that weren't good enough to be sold to the districts. Furthermore, most non-educational professionals have no idea the nuance in teaching a student, particularly a young student. Do you know how kids learn to construct meaning from text? Would you know what to do other than tell them to practice more, or practice with them? By the way, that's the type of instruction that you criticize in your original post...telling a student to just work harder, right?

Math knowledge. Most kids do not have a basic understanding of math when they graduate. That's not because we don't teach it. It's because the actual good ways of teaching it are often criticized and beaten into the ground because it does not resemble the methods used in the past. Here's the punch line: Most of the Baby Boomers don't have basic math either. I can hear the counter argument now..."but, but, stupid teenagers can't even make change!" You only learned to make change 'cause it was an integral part of your life, not because of effective math curriculum. Interestingly enough, a colleague of mine was part of a group that sold a specific curriculum to Finland, an example of how TO run public education by the way, and it's one that is criticized here. However, many people actually think that the same people who don't recognize real answers when they see them are the best people to choose curriculum for their kids.

There are a great many indictments on public education that ring true. Indoctrination, mass production instructional model, social decay, wasteful spending, and all that. Numbers tend to back a lot of that up, depending on what you're looking at. I'm certainly no public education shill. I got out of marketing and into this to help, not because I thought it was perfect by any stretch. Also, homeschooling might very well be a viable, effective choice for a lot of families. However...

1. Proof simply does not exist in the form that you state for anything in this field.
2. Parents are not, by default, effective teachers. Objectivity and training are issues here.
3. Learning is a social activity. Homeschooling has to address that to work well.

Originally posted by sirhumperdink
reply to post by RevelationGeneration

 

...mandating higher standards for the teachers AND students
with higher standards of learning and allowing for the firing of bad teachers and the failing of bad students the problem will be resolved for the most part

edit on 26-6-2012 by sirhumperdink because: (no reason given)

There is an inherent issue in this statement that needs to be addressed. When you fail a kid, you immediately put them at high risk for public support program drain as a permanent lifestyle. High school flunk outs do not often find work.

Please do not be cavalier about that...a student fails for many reasons, some of which have nothing to do with aptitude and can clear up unexpectedly. It is important, from both a moral and practical standpoint, to ensure that you do not treat the case of a failing student lightly.

That is, unless you're prepared to sink billions more into social supports for the new class of high school flunk outs that you just created with your raised standards.

reply to post by LiberLegit


Very interesting perspective! I mentioned that home schooling must take the social aspect into consideration to be effective from an educational standpoint, and it seems as if yours did exactly that.

Motivated parents can certainly create an environment that is best for their kids. I'm glad yours did I just get scared when people think that this will magically happen, simply because it's "mom" doing it. It takes a ton of work and knowledge to do it right.

It truly is a labor of love.

Originally posted by Infi8nity

My modern public school experience.

My mom would not put me on Ritalin when they asked. So what did they do? They put me in a special ed class, I got A's on every thing. When they started talking about pulling me out of those classes I started making bad grades (and bad english). Special ed was funner (did you mean more fun?) then regular classes. In special ed, you get allot of treats, pizza party's, down time and easy work. When I got to middle school and high school they just put me in classes witch wear (Wow, which were) filled with "dumb kids". They had a room for special ed kids to go get extra help on their work, you could go to this room at any time and "get help". We wear (Wow again, were)really just chillin with the coach, playing games, having fun while the coach basically did our work for us (Yeah, it shows). In middle school I started to realize that they could not afford to let one kid fail so I started slacking even more then i was before, knowing that I would pass because the school could not afford to give me a F. When I became a senior in high school the mentality was "they are seniors, they hold allot (a lot)of stress, lets make it impossible for them not to pass". I believe that they faked grades on the state test. The school depends on the kids passing state test to stay open. So I tested my theory and guessed on one of the test and some how passed it with a 75. When I walked on stage to receive my diploma I felt I did not deserve it because I had not learned much. I regret taking the path I took, its all most as if the school guided me on to it. I wish I would have payed more attention but then again I might not know what I know today if I did.

No, there's no question about it, you should've paid more attention.

Sorry about all the corrections above, but this is exactly why public education is horrible. I wouldn't normally make all of the corrections above, but since this thread and your post is about public education, I had to. There is no reason for the department of education to exist, it is a state's decision alone and the Federal government has no business doing anything in education. They have hijacked our state's education through enticing the states with money.

It's pathetic how much the Federal govt. has usurped authority that 'We the People' have not given them.

DO NOT fall under the auspices of the idiotic idea that they are the government, there's nothing we can do. All governments derive their powers from the consent of the people. Stand up and take back what you have never given them. The fact that we haven't given them the powers that they have taken illustrates that this is an usurpation of authority and it is up to us to say "ENOUGH"...

If that means pulling every kid out of school, so be it. If it means more than that, so be it. Stop being slave people.

Jaden

Originally posted by ScatterBrain

But it saddens me that so many people automatically assume that homeschooling ruins a childs social skills.

reply to post by ladybug121

 

I would wager these people have little knowledge of the activities available and utilized by the home-schooled or they work for the public education system and will say anything to justify their existence.

Honestly, I think it comes from the small subsection of home school choosers who made that decision based solely on their need to shelter their child. They seem to be the home school situations that most people remember, even though they do make up a small percentage.

For every person who keeps their kid out of school so they don't "catch the ghey" there are probably dozens who make the decision for sound reasons, and utilize the groups available to great results. Similarly, for every group of kids on a bus who brings a monitor to tears, and every school that is an actual "hellhole" as you put it, there are probably dozens of groups of kids and buildings that are great.

Originally posted by ScatterBrain

Do you think ALL public schools around the country are bad (i know many states where it is a problem) or just certain areas of Michigan ? Just curious.

reply to post by hp1229

 

Sadly, The states agree to federal mandates to get the money. Then the states offer up that money locally with the same strings attached (federal mandates) in order to receive the funding. So whoever is accepting this money must follow the mandates, this includes any private or chartered schools that take the government funding.

I agree but my wife isn't. Our township doesn't receive a big chunk of the money from the state through federal mandates. They realy on levy's that are up for voting every year and sadly the voters aern't crazy about rasing their taxes every year. So the township now has cut back on several good programs. I think I might opt for additional tutoring at home in addition to the public schooling system in my township which is rated pretty high and I have met plenty of students from there. It is not as bad as some of the other schools that I have seen but I think I'll opt for additional tutoring in the house as well just so to cover additional curriculum(s) that might not be covered in-depth by the schooling system in addition to techniques.

reply to post by Jiggyfly


I'm not sure how you can say there's no proof that homeschooling is better when even when forced to test the same way public schools do, homeschooled children test higher on average:

In 1997, a study of 5,402 homeschool students from 1,657 families was released. It was entitled, "Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America." The study demonstrated that homeschoolers, on the average, out-performed their counterparts in the public schools by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects. A significant finding when analyzing the data for 8th graders was the evidence that homeschoolers who are homeschooled two or more years score substantially higher than students who have been homeschooled one year or less. The new homeschoolers were scoring on the average in the 59th percentile compared to students homeschooled the last two or more years who scored between 86th and 92nd percentile.

...

Another important finding of Strengths of Their Own was that the race of the student does not make any difference. There was no significant difference between minority and white homeschooled students. For example, in grades K-12, both white and minority students scored, on the average, in the 87th percentile. In math, whites scored in the 82nd percentile while minorities scored in the 77th percentile. In the public schools, however, there is a sharp contrast. White public school eighth grade students, nationally scored the 58th percentile in math and the 57th percentile in reading. Black eighth grade students, on the other hand, scored on the average at the 24th percentile in math and the 28th percentile in reading. Hispanics scored at the 29th percentile in math and the 28th percentile in reading.

The most comprehensive academic homeschool study ever completed -- the Progress Report of 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics released by the National Home Education Research Institute -- concluded that homeschooled students score an average of 34 to 39 percentile points higher than their peers on standardized achievement tests. Unlike the Canadian study, the researchers for the NHERI study included more than 11,000 students from all 50 states, and included three well-known tests-- California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford Achievement Test.

Numerous studies have found that homeschooled students on average outperform their peers on standardized tests.[22] Homeschooling Achievement, a study conducted by National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), a homeschooling advocacy group, supported the academic integrity of homeschooling. Among the homeschooled students who took the tests, the average homeschooled student outperformed his public school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects. The study also indicates that public school performance gaps between minorities and genders were virtually non-existent among the homeschooled students who took the tests.[23]

In the 1970s Raymond S. and Dorothy N. Moore conducted four federally funded analyses of more than 8,000 early childhood studies, from which they published their original findings in Better Late Than Early, 1975. This was followed by School Can Wait, a repackaging of these same findings designed specifically for educational professionals.[24] They concluded that, "where possible, children should be withheld from formal schooling until at least ages eight to ten."

Here is an excerpt from a recent study of homeschoolers: "According to a report published by the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) and funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, homeschool student achievement test scores were exceptionally high. The median scores for every subtest at every grade were well above those of public and Catholic/private-school students. On average, homeschool students in grades one to four performed one grade level above their age-level public/private school peers on achievement tests. Students who had been homeschooled their entire academic life had higher scholastic achievement test scores than students who had also attended other educational programs."

One interesting facet of the study noted that academic achievement was equally high regardless of whether the student was enrolled in a full-service curriculum, or whether the parent had a state-issued teaching certificate.

The study states, "Even with a conservative analysis of the data, the achievement levels of the homeschool students in the study were exceptional. Within each grade level and each skill area, the median scores for homeschool students fell between the 70th and 80th percentile of students nationwide and between the 60th and 70th percentile of Catholic/Private school students. For younger students, this is a one year lead. By the time homeschool students are in 8th grade, they are four years ahead of their public/private school counterparts."

For example, home-schoolers whose parents do not have college degrees still tested in the 83rd percentile.

Compare these results with math scores released recently showing that Detroit students performed slightly better than if they had simply guessed, or with the fact that Michigan's cut scores for standardized tests are among the weakest in the nation, and it becomes a safe bet that the vast majority of home-schoolers in Michigan are outperforming their peers in conventional schools.

Homeschool students with college educated parents tend to score about 8 percentage points higher than homeschool students with parents who have less than a high school education. Not a significant difference when you consider that public school students with college educated parents score 27 (writing) to 35 (math) percentage points higher than those public school students whose parents have less than a high school education.

Research has shown that homeschoolers on average do better than the national average on standardized achievement tests for the elementary and secondary grade levels. Statistics demonstrate that homeschoolers tend to score above the national average on both their SAT and ACT scores.

For example, the 2219 students reporting their homeschool status on the SAT in 1999 scored an average of 1083 (verbal 548, math 535), 67 points above the national average of 1016. In 2004 the 7858 homeschool students taking the ACT scored an average of 22.6, compared to the national average of 20.9.

According to the 1998 ACT High School Profile Report, 2610 graduating homeschoolers took the ACT and scored an average of 22.8 out of a possible 36 points. This score is slightly higher that the 1997 report released on the results of 1926 homeschool graduates and founding homeschoolers maintained the average of 22.5. This is higher than the national average, which was 21.0 in both 1997 and 1998.

The 1996 ACT results showed that in English, homeschoolers scored 22.5 compared to the national average of 20.3. In math, homeschoolers scored 19.2 compared to the national average of 20.2. In reading, homeschoolers outshone their public school counterparts 24.1 to 21.3. In science, homeschoolers scored 21.9 compared to 21.1.

Iowa State University's admissions department data shows that homeschoolers had a 26.1 mean ACT composite score as compared to a 24.6 mean score for all entering freshmen beginning fall 2003. The University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) have also seen higher ACT and SAT averages from homeschoolers in comparison to the total school population. The cumulative admissions data from UNI reveals that the average ACT score for homeschoolers was 2 points higher than that of regular freshmen: 25 versus 23.5

At Bob Jones University in South Carolina, Drs. Paulo de Oliveira, Timothy Watson, and Joe Sutton studied 789 students who graduated from public, private, and homeschools. They concluded that overall, homeschoolers perform "as well as, if not better than, their conventionally educated counterparts."

In particular, these researchers discovered that college freshmen who had completed their entire high school education in a homeschool had a “slightly higher overall . . . critical thinking score” than students educated in public or private schools. This offers a strong validation that home education is a viable and effective educational alternative.

www.hslda.org...
parentables.howstuffworks.com...
en.wikipedia.org...
school.familyeducation.com...
www.mackinac.org...
healthland.time.com...
www.wnd.com...
mommylife.net...
epaa.asu.edu...
www.washingtontimes.com...
www.homeschool-by-design.com...
boiseviola8.blogspot.com...
www.odonnellweb.com...
www.hslda.org...

reply to post by Jiggyfly


wrong
there will be more jobs for failed students if the standards are no longer a highschool deploma or bachelors degree for digging ditches and flipping burgers
the only reason this is the standard is because there are so many people with diplomas or degrees that mean nothing because they pass them out to anybody who shows up for class
passing students who dont understand material gets you where were at now with incompetency and lack of critical thinking skills being the norm
i said nothing about kicking them out of school if you fail you repeat it until you understand the material or are old enough to decide its just not for you

that said there does need to be a focus on teaching the material based on how students learn rather than just teaching for testing

Thank you for the reasons why I shouldn't go to college and why my children shouldn't go to public or even private school.

Thanks for the post.

you would rather brainwash them with other information amirite? you understand your child still has to meet basic learning standards whether or not you believe math and science are tools of the devil..... right?

reply to post by sirhumperdink


Sweety, you just invalidated everything you said by spewing your pathetic propaganda about families that home school. By chance have you been offended for some reason that you felt the need to offend a whole section of society with your ignorance, or is this how you learned to have a discussion, by insulting the opposing view and offering nothing of value?

reply to post by cetaphobic


You've really just proven my statement about educational research.

One point from that wall of research was that kids who are home schooled longer tend to increase their achievement with respect to their peers over time. The obvious cause of this is accelerated pacing, which is an obvious benefit of home schooling. I never meant to insinuate that there isn't an upside to homeschooling; in fact, I think I did a pretty good job of stating that there were definitely benefits, when done right.

Also, most of the comparisons cited between home schooled kids and public school kids would not meet methodology guidelines for validity by groups like the APA, simply because they are comparing apples to oranges demographically speaking. Home schooled kids come from homes that, wait for it, HAVE THE RESOURCES TO HOME SCHOOL. When you compare that subsection to the national population, you cannot draw any reasonable causality from that. You can certainly say that home schooling is viable. I never said that it wasn't. You cannot say that is superior from those studies you cited, simply because you are comparing two unrelated pools of children.

Until they do a twin study with one home schooled and one in a public school, then repeat that 500 times, we're really not going to know. That's my point about proof, and why your response to any discussion on the topic with 57 citations is doing little except distracting people from the valid points that you do indeed make, and hindering future dialogue on the subject.

If that's what you're going for, though, you're doing a great job of that.