Homeschooling does it need more regulation?

a reply to: Edumakated

Public schools provide the online schooling. The parents do not have to be teachers.

a reply to: Vivyinsect

They offer online public school now.

a reply to: ManFromEurope

True enough, they do.

But, how much of that vaunted university education is of any real use in teaching children??

I don't have a university degree, close, but not quite...yet, I used to, and probably will again at some point, teach people to read. Both adults and children. I can teach basic math, too. History? Check. I can also teach basic life skills, too. Balancing a check book. Cooking. etc...

One doesn't need a university degree to be able to teach.

Now, having said that...

Home schooled children should have to meet the same low standards that public school children are, supposedly, required to meet. A yearly test, or something of the sort would be easily arranged.

Deregulate all schools as well as home-schooling and put all 18-year-olds through a competitive "Hunger Games" style meat-grinder upon graduation. The PPV revenue would be phenomenal and we could award survivors with 100K in student loan rebates or $12,500 in cash. Survival of the educational fittest.

a reply to: dawnstar

Then you have plenty of those wonderful public educational professionals who somehow manage graduate entire classes of kids who are 50% or so functionally illiterate and those who do go on to university spend too much time taking remedial courses so they can potentially manage the actual curriculum instead of catching up on things they didn't get taught by their educational professionals (who might even have been taught by the same institution of higher learning they now attend) using government approved curriculum standards as guidance.

So it seems to me that a kid faces an educational crapshoot no matter where he or she is educated: home, public or private.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: burdman30ott6

I had amazing teachers.
One who was so strict she made you keep two notebooks. One taken in class written in pencil and the other where the days lesson was transcribed in blue ink with red underlines. No cross outs. That was part of the homework every day as well as other lessons on the covered material.
Another who built the literature lessons around rock and roll songs.
They were inspiring and supportive.

I agree, it seems like the quality of school teachers have really, really slipped when compared to the teachers my grandparents speak of having. Hell, they've slipped over the past 25 years. Teachers of today? Not cut from quality cloth.

a reply to: Sillyolme

That kind of defeats the purpose of home schooling, doesn't it??

Most parents/guardians pull their kids from public schools because of the teachers, along with the curriculum. To allow the problem to continue to teach 'em doesn't strike me as constructive.

a reply to: seagull

It is also sort of the whole point to homeschooling... Homeschool parents love their own kids and actively want to be their teachers, are eager to spend time with them in a home classroom environment. IMO public schooling is viewed as free day care by an awfully large percentage of modern parents.

In my personal life the pendulum has completely swung in the opposite direction.

Before this weekend, all the children I know that are school age, were about half public school, half private and home schooled.

After meeting with a group of friends, this number has shifted to almost all private or home schooled with about 1/3 in public school, and several of those children are in magnet schools.

Public schools with bad reputations were the theme of movies going back to before "To Sir With Love". I never thought I would see the day that it would the norm.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

That, too.

a reply to: burdman30ott6
Burdman, I am not sure what parents think their duties and responsibilities are towards their children today. I can't tell you how many times I have spoken to parents that think their role is to be their child's best friend.

The number of times where the child was actually more mature than the parents, and the number of times the parents have no knowledge and therefore no control, over where their children are or what they are doing.

You can't blame the children. Parenting has gone to hell in a hand basket because too many parents are getting their parenting cues from social media, movies and TV shows.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

We've homeschooled our youngest son.

We've taught him to be kind and compassionate and also to throat-punch and to celebrate battles by drinking from the skulls of his enemies.

While the rest of his age group is being "woke" and gendery, our son will be a leader and crush those beneath him with a casual ruthlessness bordering on controlled madness.

a reply to: DBCowboy
You must have gone to the same parenting school as my Dad.

My mother went to the Walk Softly but Carry a Big Stick school of parenting, so we had our edges smoothed a little.

They both tried to make sure we didn't spend much time with my Uncle that went to the Shoot First and Ask Questions Later school.

As one of the parent's that pulled their kids from awful public schools to home-school - no, govt regulation is a waste. My only concern with home schooling is with the extremely rare cases where children are neglected or abused in the home and never let out.

a reply to: JAGStorm

a little off topic, but in Europe the problem is with children who are taken out of school under the prestense of being home schooled but are really sent overseas for arranged marriages. You see it in mostly minority communities from places like India and Pakistan, as well as Arab states.

The lack of regulation means that there are very few checks to see if the child really is being home schooled.

a reply to: jjkenobi

When I relocated back to Michigan, I had no thoughts of homeschooling my daughters. I immediately enrolled them in the local public school and the first day they came home in shock! Sharing stories on how bad it was. Just drugs, sex, teachers being cussed out by students. Seriously, I thought it was first day in new school jitters.

The next day, I drove them into school and went in to speak with the school counselor. I wanted her to be aware of their nervousness and seek advice.

To my amazement, she was expecting me to contact her! I was not the first nor will be the last, she told me. She said unfortunately the 2 grades my daughters were in had been evolving problems since the 4th grade level. All that my daughters told me was true. I was horrified. She recommended I take my daughters back home that day and put them in a private school or homeschool them.

All the private schools had an one year waiting list for entry! So went to library and read: How to homeschool for Dummies! The author was even from here in my county! It was challenging figuring out the best way, but that book was the biggest help in offering advice and solutions.

My oldest daughter, has just received her Masters and my youngest, received her Bachelors last summer. They always won scholarships with their high above 4.0 grades. I am very proud of them...though they were dedicated learners on their own.

My middle daughter learned differently, I was able to adjust her education to work with her learning style. She hated book learning and was more hands on and tradescraft. Higher Math though was her most difficult subject. She did not go to college, but every employer she has had praises her constantly and continually seek her return when she changed jobs. She is smart, dedicated to tasks, and dependable. She excels in doing more than just required on jobs and the employers sure appreciate it.

Homeschooling gave them that skillset, since at a young age, they all worked daytime service jobs. We had to go to local school show the homeschool journals and the school will sign off on their workers permits. That was the law in Michigan for minors working. Employers needed that for the state.

My grandsons are all in public schools now. The decision on where they live was based on school districting and which school would be best for their educations. My daughters are very involved in volunteering and visiting the schools to ensure all is as it seems.

Michigan certainly seemed to have some regulations set already. I definitely think that homeschoolers should have a record keeping system of proof of education submitted to the local district. To ensure that there is a feedback loop of responsibility. Just keeping those journals kept me on track. They completed 12 th grade too young, so I enrolled them into an online high school course. Journal was no longer needed since the online school had transcripts that were easy to print out as proof of education.

Sorry for rambling on. I believe that homeschooling should have some regulation but more within the local or state...federal regulations may be what screwed up the public school system after all.

Edit add: seeing post below mine...I wanted to add that I was grateful to the local church Awana clubs, sports clubs, choirs. It allowed my homeschoolers a great way to socialize with local public school students in an environment that was not encouraging them to have sex or do drugs.

a reply to: JAGStorm

It does if the parents are thick i suppose.

Or worse, religious nutters or the like.