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Homeschooled: How American Home Schoolers Measure Up

On the contrary, homeschooling has been widely embraced by the fringe religious sects. Raising kids in a bubble in order to better indoctrinate them into religious extremism is their tactic. Few others embrace homeschooling like that. Sure, other people could. But they don't.The results are kids who enter the adult world never having been exposed to secular thinking (the view of most people) and often end up as sexual bigots, against gays and women alike.

You've already made these assertions. And I've already challenged you provide evidence to support it. Do you have any? Just repeating the assertions doesn't make them true.

The same kids are often woefully ignorant of science and medicine.

Again, according to what evidence? Cpwill's link shows that homeschooled kids score significantly better in math and science on average.

But the main thing they do not learn growing up is how to function around people with different opinions. That's what happens when you're raised in a bubble surrounded only by people who all agree with each other.

What evidence do you have that home-schooling parents aren't deliberately exposing their children to a variety of opinions?

All I see here is a lot of assumptions and stereotyping with no hard evidence to support it.
 
I can understand that but why are we wasting the majority of that time by being so inefficient with it? Imagine that during that 8 hours we learned and worked for 8 hours instead of in my experience 1.5 hours.

That's absurd. Sure, there is time wasted in public schools, but there is no way you could pare an 8 hour curriculum down to 1.5 hours and still maintain the breadth and depth.
 
That's absurd. Sure, there is time wasted in public schools, but there is no way you could pare an 8 hour curriculum down to 1.5 hours and still maintain the breadth and depth.

I had no problem learning enough of the material in that amount of time to pass the tests with decent grades. Now that does not mean that I got out of it as much as when the teacher was present but it was good enough to pass their standard of learning.

Also I know that not all schools are created equal but I really think you are over playing the contribution that the teachers bring into the equation at least in my experience. During my education in the public system I did have a handful of very dedicated teachers who gave their all to inspire and teach their students but the majority treated the job as the last place they wanted to be and had very little interaction with the class. It was not uncommon for a teacher to tell the students to read pages X thru X in their text books and then do a quiz or a set of problems. Most teachers would then not even check the work themselves but instead we passed our tests//quizzes/work to the student behind us while the teacher read off the correct answers and our fellow classmates checked the work. They would then mark the correct number of answers atop our page (example 7/12 would be we did 7 of 12 correct) and the class would turn them over to the teachers who marked the grade down. The teacher would then answer any questions students may have and if none were asked we moved on. That was the extent of teacher interaction for the lesson and this was pretty much the norm for most of my classes.

In my experience teacher interaction for a large part of the teachers consisted of a fair amount talking about a wide variety of things not always applying to the subject at hand and a lot of it was personal views and experiences (what they did that weekend, a football game they watched, politics, ect.). Some days students may have zero subject matter discussed and it was basically a gossip session with the teacher.
 
You've already made these assertions. And I've already challenged you provide evidence to support it. Do you have any? Just repeating the assertions doesn't make them true.

Again, according to what evidence? Cpwill's link shows that homeschooled kids score significantly better in math and science on average.

What evidence do you have that home-schooling parents aren't deliberately exposing their children to a variety of opinions?

All I see here is a lot of assumptions and stereotyping with no hard evidence to support it.

It's common knowledge, dude. Cpwill's link is cherry picked and carefully crafted to further a predetermined outcome. Here's a few examples, but there are thousands and thousands more. The strongest criticisms of the religious homeschooling movement (and it is mainly religious) are coming from those who were harmed by it firsthand.

Barely Literate? How Christian Fundamentalist Homeschooling Hurts Kids | Alternet
No Longer Quivering
Born to Breed: An Interview With Quiverfull Walkaway Vyckie Garrison

If nothing else, just examine the times on this very forum when people discuss an intent to homeschool. It's almost always because they can't stand the idea of their kids being exposed to any viewpoints besides their extremist religious ones.

At some point, you have to have a basic working knowledge of the topic to discuss it. Pleading ignorance and making me do your basic research will only get you so far.
 
I think you're making some assumptions here. What exactly do you think home-schooled kids aren't being taught that public-school kids are? To what are home-schooled kids' minds closed? I'm speaking generally - of course there are probably cases of home-schooled kids being brainwashed and kept ignorant of reality. But I find it unlikely that's the rule rather than the exception.

Paschendale said:
On the contrary, homeschooling has been widely embraced by the fringe religious sects. Raising kids in a bubble in order to better indoctrinate them into religious extremism is their tactic. Few others embrace homeschooling like that. Sure, other people could. But they don't. The results are kids who enter the adult world never having been exposed to secular thinking (the view of most people) and often end up as sexual bigots, against gays and women alike. The same kids are often woefully ignorant of science and medicine. But the main thing they do not learn growing up is how to function around people with different opinions. That's what happens when you're raised in a bubble surrounded only by people who all agree with each other.

Understand that Pashendale responds with "religious extremism", to what the rest of us would call "mainstream American religion".

So, for example, a friend of ours who home-schools her girls starts the school day with a bible study period of about 15-30 minutes. She's a 'religious extremist' because she prays with her children and promotes her Christian faith as 'true'. The homeschool program that we have chosen (classical conversations) started teaching geography, sentence structure, latin conjugations, and some basic science and math to my 5 year old (when I was in kindergarden we did the alphabet and coloring), but he's going to be too uninformed about the world because it's also an explicitly Christian program. :roll:

As for the idea that home schooled kids suffer in the sciences... :shrug: feel free to re-reference their test scores and collegiate performance.
 
It's common knowledge, dude. Cpwill's link is cherry picked and carefully crafted to further a predetermined outcome. Here's a few examples, but there are thousands and thousands more. The strongest criticisms of the religious homeschooling movement (and it is mainly religious) are coming from those who were harmed by it firsthand.

Barely Literate? How Christian Fundamentalist Homeschooling Hurts Kids | Alternet
No Longer Quivering
Born to Breed: An Interview With Quiverfull Walkaway Vyckie Garrison

If nothing else, just examine the times on this very forum when people discuss an intent to homeschool. It's almost always because they can't stand the idea of their kids being exposed to any viewpoints besides their extremist religious ones.

At some point, you have to have a basic working knowledge of the topic to discuss it. Pleading ignorance and making me do your basic research will only get you so far.

Without even clicking on the links, I have to laugh at your combined charges that showing average tests scores across home-schoolers is cherry picking, but that to get the real story we need to only focus in on one sub-section of home schoolers :)

Home Schoolers are better educated than the General Pop and their parents are better educated than the General Pop. sorry. :)



....and then reading your links, they appear to be completely anecdotal, with no supporting evidence whatsoever. You appear to have simply typed "quiverfull"+"homeschool" into google and given us whatever links popped up. Even for you this poor attempt to attack people of faith falls short. If you like, however, I would be more than happy to compare the literacy rates of conservative christian homeschoolers against, say, the literacy rates of Chicago public schools.
 
It's common knowledge, dude. Cpwill's link is cherry picked and carefully crafted to further a predetermined outcome. Here's a few examples, but there are thousands and thousands more. The strongest criticisms of the religious homeschooling movement (and it is mainly religious) are coming from those who were harmed by it firsthand.

Barely Literate? How Christian Fundamentalist Homeschooling Hurts Kids | Alternet
No Longer Quivering
Born to Breed: An Interview With Quiverfull Walkaway Vyckie Garrison

If nothing else, just examine the times on this very forum when people discuss an intent to homeschool. It's almost always because they can't stand the idea of their kids being exposed to any viewpoints besides their extremist religious ones.

At some point, you have to have a basic working knowledge of the topic to discuss it. Pleading ignorance and making me do your basic research will only get you so far.

I have a "working knowledge" of the subject. And one fact I do know, having examined some of these for myself, is that there are many, many curricula out there, even ones to meet the needs of Wiccan parents as well as secularist parents. Don't assume that simply because someone homeschools, he or she is even "religious."
 
I have a "working knowledge" of the subject. And one fact I do know, having examined some of these for myself, is that there are many, many curricula out there, even ones to meet the needs of Wiccan parents as well as secularist parents. Don't assume that simply because someone homeschools, he or she is even "religious."

If someone home schools you can't assume they are religious but the other way around applies if they are extremely religious I would say there is a very good chance they are homeschooling their children. For example if the parents use this website there is a good chance they are homeschooling because if they went to a school with other children they would see just how stupid their parents are.
 
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And a whole lot of them are brainwashed into fundamentalist religion, harming them for decades. Keeping children out of school and never exposing them to a single dissenting viewpoint from their extreme religious beliefs has been a powerful tool to allow fundamentalists to abuse innocent children's minds.

It's also very funny how often conservatives attempt to discredit standardized testing, except when it suits their purposes. But it's sad how far they'll go to push insulated religious mentalities on children.

Yes but the same criticism applies to religious schools, which is where they'd likely be enrolled if not for homeschooling. Better to gauge it with honest attempts at education. There are many who home school because they or their parents have no faith in K-12, and they have plenty reason to be wary of public ed.
 
Yes but the same criticism applies to religious schools, which is where they'd likely be enrolled if not for homeschooling. Better to gauge it with honest attempts at education. There are many who home school because they or their parents have no faith in K-12, and they have plenty reason to be wary of public ed.

And a lot of religious schools are equally short on education and high on religious indoctrination. It's all about subverting the objective standards that he hold our public education to, so that children can be taught nonsensical lies, bad science, and have antiquated bronze age morality pounded into their heads. Whatever failures our public education has, it's because we have about half as many teachers and classrooms as we need, minimal support for troubled kids or ones with special needs, and an economy where even an excellent student can still end up broke. The principles of public education are sound and noble. The principles of religious education are ridiculous, and serve only to allow future generations of holy charlatans to abuse innocent people.
 
Fascinating, but not terribly surprising.


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Until I started reading your posts on homeschooling, I was nearly 100% against it. Mostly because the only two home schooled kids that I personally have ever known were not actually being "schooled" at home.

It didn't take long before your posts, and a some by a few others, totally changed my mind about it. I'm outright sold on the idea now. I bet I'm one of the very few posters on this forum who has ever changed their mind on anything due to this forum, and you are certainly one of the few posters who ever was able to get someone to change their mind.

Congrats - to both of us!
 
Unsurprising. I'm still wondering how homeschooling compares to non-homeschooling though overall. Homeschooled children tend to have the more aware and demanding parents who drive their children to do well. I wonder how homeschooled children would compare to children whose parents are similarly aware and demanding of their child but sends them to public or private school.

Great question!

There is this theory that college grads don't make more money than the average non-college grad due to college, it's that they are more motivated that most non-college grads, and thus would have ended up making more even if they didn't complete a degree (or never even enrolled in college).

Your pondering is of a similar nature. It has to take a great parent to be willing to spend that much time working with their kids in academic subjects. Those parents would likely be great parents regardless of if they were homeschooling or not.

A few summers ago, my kid was doing this music program thing which was being held at a boarding school. He called me one day and asked me if that was a place that rich parents who didn't like their kids sent them to - all I knew to say was "yup".
 
I have a "working knowledge" of the subject. And one fact I do know, having examined some of these for myself, is that there are many, many curricula out there, even ones to meet the needs of Wiccan parents as well as secularist parents. Don't assume that simply because someone homeschools, he or she is even "religious."

but...but...but.... that would ruin the stereotype!!!

How is he supposed to look down on people if you don't let him use the stereotype?!?




Hey, you know what group of people is also much, much less likely to trust the public school system with their children?

:D Public School Teachers.
 
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but...but...but.... that would ruin the stereotype!!!

How is he supposed to look down on people if you don't let him use the stereotype?!?




Hey, you know what group of people is also much, much less likely to trust the public school system with their children?

:D Public School Teachers.

Of course they are quite capable of teaching. Makes a difference. I think you miss the point in all of this.
 
I can understand that but why are we wasting the majority of that time by being so inefficient with it? Imagine that during that 8 hours we learned and worked for 8 hours instead of in my experience 1.5 hours.

Yeah this was the typical day: 1.5-2 hours on a bus learning nothing, 1hr in study hall where you can't hear yourself think, 1hr lunch, 6 mins between every class x5, once a week: 30 min pep rally....I can't remember the rest. PTSD or something.
 
Yeah this was the typical day: 1.5-2 hours on a bus learning nothing, 1hr in study hall where you can't hear yourself think, 1hr lunch, 6 mins between every class x5, once a week: 30 min pep rally....I can't remember the rest. PTSD or something.

Exactly. As far as learning actual academic subjects, there is probably no more than two hours of learning going on during a school day. With some students, probably far less than that.

Some high schools are now doing "block scheduling", which means that they have fewer classes, but stay in each class longer, so that less time is spent changing classes and taking roll. It attempts to squeeze a year long class into just one semester. It seems to work fairly well for most subjects, but there are some classes, like foreign language and music and PE classes that are better taught with a little each day all year around, than a lot each day, but for only one semester a year.

Ask any high school band director what they think of block scheduling, and they will tell you that they hate it because half the kids don't take any music classes during the second semester, and by the time that band camp rolls around, they are no better musicians than they were a year earlier.

I envision a day when academic subject matter is no longer presented by teachers, it's all computerized, with the teacher acting as a mentor, instead of a lecturer. Schools might end up being full of tiny individual study rooms, where the student reports to home room for roll and administrative issues, then half the student spends the next two hours in their individual study room, working at their own pace and achieving at their own rate while the other half spends that time involved in non-academics (arts, pe, extra-curiculars, drivers ed, counciling, vocational studies, etc), then the students rotate activities. Three hours of intent individual study in a non-distracting environment would likely produce much better academic results than what we have now.
 
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Exactly. As far as learning actual academic subjects, there is probably no more than two hours of learning going on during a school day. With some students, probably far less than that.
I used to really enjoy in-school suspension for that reason. I could knock out my work for the day in a couple of hours, and spend the rest of the day reading.
 
"Homeschooled students score about 72 points higher than the national average on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The average American College Test (ACT) score is 21. The average score for homeschoolers is 22.8 out of a possible 36 points. Homeschoolers are at the 77th percentile on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills."

Do Homeschool Kids Really Rate Better on Standardized Tests?

Man, I can't believe that people have trouble with the ACT. I got a 36 on that thing the first time. It was a baby SAT.
 
How long does it take to get a GED after highs cool, as a full time student? What's the difference between a diploma and the GED.


Answer those two questions, and it will be very clear how much time is wasted in pupblic school.
 
And a lot of religious schools are equally short on education and high on religious indoctrination. It's all about subverting the objective standards that he hold our public education to, so that children can be taught nonsensical lies, bad science, and have antiquated bronze age morality pounded into their heads. Whatever failures our public education has, it's because we have about half as many teachers and classrooms as we need, minimal support for troubled kids or ones with special needs, and an economy where even an excellent student can still end up broke. The principles of public education are sound and noble. The principles of religious education are ridiculous, and serve only to allow future generations of holy charlatans to abuse innocent people.

I agree with all of that, but noble doesn't make it worthwhile. Results matter to (some) parents. If i had kids, i would have them homeschooled.
 
Unsurprising. I'm still wondering how homeschooling compares to non-homeschooling though overall. Homeschooled children tend to have the more aware and demanding parents who drive their children to do well. I wonder how homeschooled children would compare to children whose parents are similarly aware and demanding of their child but sends them to public or private school.

Hard to find I'd imagine as the "more aware and demanding parents" will generally homeschool or send the kids to private school. Otherwise they're not all that much more aware. :mrgreen:
 
Hard to find I'd imagine as the "more aware and demanding parents" will generally homeschool or send the kids to private school. Otherwise they're not all that much more aware. :mrgreen:

True, but I imagine there are some parents like that who can't afford to homeschool or send their child to private school. I'd like to see how their children compare.
 
Man, I can't believe that people have trouble with the ACT. I got a 36 on that thing the first time. It was a baby SAT.

Math and science killed me. Everything else went well! :p
 
I agree with all of that, but noble doesn't make it worthwhile. Results matter to (some) parents. If i had kids, i would have them homeschooled.

Or how about fight to have the public system sufficiently funded so that it can help everybody's kids and stop attempts to sabotage public education?
 
Or how about fight to have the public system sufficiently funded so that it can help everybody's kids and stop attempts to sabotage public education?

I'm all for that, but I'm afraid it will take longer than 18 years. If the local school reached a standard i found acceptable, i could always enroll them later.
 
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