Posted on 08/10/2009 4:53:45 PM PDT by achilles2000
“The edu-fascists will not like this”
Education is about parental involvement. You would find the same results if you gathered statistics of similar demographic students in other educational environments.
If you excluded urban minorities, for instance, you’d see a similar statistical disparity in achievement.
If you excluded welfare recipients, you’d see a statistical disparity in achievement.
It’s an exercise in self-selecting statistics.
“I wish I had a dime for every “conservative” who decries public education but defends their school because it has a “great reputation.” If you opt out of private education, I don’t believe you can be a conservative.”
Oh really? Do you believe the same for union members?
Even if school districts were the size of a suburban subdivision, the government schools can **never** be religious, culturally, or politically neutral. One neighbor is forced ( by threat of armed police action) to support the religious, political, and cultural worldview of the largest political bully group.
Large district or small, **all** government schools are a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination.
Makes me wonder about their ability to run our health system.
If our atheistic government schools with their godless worldview are moral cesspools, so will our health system. I expect that we will be forced to pay for abortion, ( even late term abortion), forced abortion of babies with defects, and euthanasia of those considered to be useless eaters. It will Terri Schiavo on steroids.
If our government schools attract students with the lowest SAT scores, medicine will soon be the same.
Some things can't be reformed. Government schools were are socialist scheme from their beginning in the mid-19th century, and socialism can't be reformed. From the moment a child takes his first step into kindergarten he learns that the government can force his neighbor to pay for something he and his parents want for free. Do this for 13 or more years and you will have a society of well trained socialists who see no problem with using a voting mob to steal from his neighbor.
The very purpose of government schooling was to turn the citizens into compliant workers for the fascist state.
The typical government school, from their beginnings in the mid-19th century, have used the Prussian model of schooling. In essence, government schools look like prisons and treat the children like prisoners. If the government can crush First Amendment Rights day after day for 13 or more years, the child learns to be a prisoner of the state.
There are plenty of great teachers out there - Christians and conservatives. We need more of them in the schools.
"Great government teacher" or "great Christian teacher" is an oxymoron. It is not "great" to teach children a godless worldview. It is not great to teach them that they can live their lives without god or in a sphere separate and independent of their family's religious religious traditions. It is not great to teach children to compartmentalize their faith. And...Finally it is not great to teach children that they must hide their faith as if it were a bathroom activity.
In particular the students **know** that it is not Christian to teach children how to think godlessly. Any Christian who truly taught as Christ would want them to teach, would have already lost their job long ago, Therefore, children are taught day after day for 13 or more years that Christians will teach godlessness and will sell their principles for a paycheck and pension. This is not "great".
Yes, unfortunately the laws requiring union membership are stronger than those requiring public education;
“Yes, unfortunately the laws requiring union membership are stronger than those requiring public education;”
You don’t see the irony, do you?
A parent sending kids to public school can’t be conservative, according to a union member that makes excuses for himself being in a socialist union that is the antithesis of conservatism.
Amusing.
The gov’t school system is how liberals “procreate”.
There was actually an open statement by a liberal group,
urging libs to become teachers in order to indoctrinate
conservatives’ kids to be liberals. They said this would
relieve liberals from the burden of raising and supporting
children, while at the same time, promoting liberal ideology
to the next generation.
Yes, they HATE homeschoolers. But I don’t care - I hereby give them the rudelly defiant salute of their choosing...
Education is about parental involvement. You would find the same results if you gathered statistics of similar demographic students in other educational environments.“The edu-fascists will not like this”
If you excluded urban minorities, for instance, you’d see a similar statistical disparity in achievement.
If you excluded welfare recipients, you’d see a statistical disparity in achievement.
It’s an exercise in self-selecting statistics.
I agree with that - as far as it goes. But what are the implications? If in fact the kids of involved and well-educated parents do equally well whether homeschooled or institutionalized, exactly what is our return on investment in those institutions? Apparently, pretty small - if not slightly negative.The virtue I see in homeschooling is that it unites responsibility and authority - however much the schools may preen themselves over their concern for the education of your child, their "concern" is a mere passing thought as compared to your own actual concern if you're not sure your kid is learning at the level you would expect. Consequently if you homeschool then the adult who is most concerned with the result is the one who is in control of the process leading to that result. And that adult is under no illusions that the issue "is being handled by experts."
Those "experts" are entirely capable of selling your child's future down the river for their own self interest, while telling you that they are doing the best for him/her. By, for example, using textbooks which are long on Political Correctness and astonishingly short on content. My brother had the experience of volunteering his time to help a boy who was lost in math class. He looked at the math book, and there was no actual mathematics in it - just a bunch of PC.
I recently read a book entitled (approximately) Why Kids hate school. And altho the book contained a few PC allusions of its own about Bush and Cheney (which probably helped with its target audience, teachers), I thought it was a pretty damning critique of schooling. One thing he noted was that "teaching self esteem" (he never used that term) actually makes kids dumb. Point being, that actual education is merely the child actually thinking about the subject matter - and telling a child that he is smart is actually telling him that effort is irrelevant. The implication being that if he has to work to get the subject, that would imply that he is dumb. So the child does not work - and, sure enough, that makes him dumb.
As a brand new homeschooler about to start HSing my 6th grade son in a week I am nervous and excited about it. After his spending 6 years in the public education system I know that he and I together can assure a much better education than he was getting in the public school system but it's really nice to see that the stats back it up.
My homeschooled children started college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. All three finished all college general courses and Calculus III by the age of 15. Two finished B.S. degrees in math at the age of 18.
Believe me you would not have been bored out of your mind if you had been competing against world class competition.
Homeschooling our children is the best education decision my wife and I have ever made.
“I agree with that - as far as it goes.”
The point is not that homeschooling is good or bad, it is that you can’t say it is preferable over another educational option based on the statistics.
It is the parents choice, and should remain so.
A large amount of public schooling - especially for urban school districts is warehousing - and it is not cost effective.
The argument is not about education, it is about yet another aspect of government getting involved and not accomplishing its supposed goal at great cost.
Responsible parents will educate their kids the best way they can.
Homeschooling is simply another option, but it is not the panacea for every child, every situation. Self-selecting statistics simply state that removing lower-performing students from a statistical pool, on average, leads to higher average performance of the remaining pool. It’s nonsense to say it means anything.
It does make homeschooling parents feel better though, and if public school has taught me anything, it’s that self-esteem is important!
I understand exactly. When I was hired by my company, it was an employee owned organization which was the reason I wanted to work for them. Since the employees, mostly unionized, owned the company, being unionized or joining the union did not impact the rights of others. After bankruptcy (primarily because of the union) it is now owned primarily by people other than the employees. By federal law, I am required (against my wishes) to pay union dues. The other option is to quit.
I understand than many parents including conservative parents do not have the option of home schooling or sending their children to private schools. It's the "conservatives" who have the option but defend public education that I question.
Even so, my paycheck comes from customers who VOLUNTARILY fly on our airplanes. Parents who choose public school FORCE citizens to pay for the education of their children.
Forcing other citizens to pay for the education of your child is stealing. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Self-selecting statistics simply state that removing lower-performing students from a statistical pool, on average, leads to higher average performance of the remaining pool. It’s nonsense to say it means anything.
It does make homeschooling parents feel better though, and if public school has taught me anything, it’s that self-esteem is important!
Actually, it's not self esteem per se that's important - it's morale. Which is not quite the same thing. Morale says that the job you're doing has a positive effect, so you try hard - and sure enough, the typical result is that your work does have a positive effect."Self esteem" taught as a subject matter has the opposite effect. If the purpose of schooling is to become smart, but you are told that you already are smart, then you shouldn't have to work at school, and if you do have to work it means that you are not smart. So you don't work. Since only mental effort teaches anything, the consequence is that you fall behind the person who is thinking that their work is effective. So "self esteem" as a subject matter is self-defeating, actually producing the effect it purports to prevent. It is a fraud.
IMHO homeschooling is not a self esteem movement but a morale movement. And, in an education marathon, morale is everything.
Congratulations! I would tell you not to be nervous, but I was nervous when we started too. Still, in retrospect, there really is no reason to be nervous. There will be good days and bad days, but bear in mind that most of our anxieties come from attempting to conform to some unrealistic ideal we have in the backs of our heads. If you haven’t seen it, you might look at my post 54 (I think).
IMHO homeschooling is not a self esteem movement but a morale movement. . . . in an education marathon, morale is everything and self esteem is nothing . . . as the tortoise taught the hare.
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