Posted on 05/23/2007 2:59:55 PM PDT by george76
I didn’t ask your opinion. Until you drop your frantic rhetoric (”institutionalized,” “indoctrination,” comparing public schools to orphanages), do not post to me.
In the case of my daughter the AP classes didn’t make that much of difference. We had strongly encouraged to take the English and History AP class so she could get English out of the way; She passed the class and did well enough on the AP exam to get credit for both English 101 and History 101. But when she took English 102 at the college that fall, she downright struggled along with her other classes. Maybe it was first semester stress, but she came right out and said college wasn’t turning out quite like she had expected it to and wasn’t sure of herself anymore, despite the fact of having a couple of college classes under her belt.
I’m pleased to say she did find her way before it was too late that fall and she just finished her sophmore year getting a 3.7 this last semester. Our oldest son is up and coming and wants to go to college and I’d love for him to go, but our biggest concern is on how well he’ll do as he has Asperger’s so it’s somewhat of a challenge to figure how to make him best prepared but we are confident he can succeed.
It’s amazing to see the looks on my students’ faces when they realize they are dealing with an actual conservative in a college classroom.
She did that, too, by mentioning the success her kids had.
“What I find most funny is how all I hear about these days is how kids are loading up on their AP classes in high school. How ironic!”
The content of those AP classes is probably about as rigorous as the average high school class in the same subject was 50 years ago.
“They would never let these antics go on at a white school.Black kids have to own up to their part in letting this nonsense continue.Yet where are the ADULTS who condone and enable this behavior?Are they THAT lax in doing their jobs?”
I don’t think it’s laxity as much as an acknowledgement that the risk of discrimination based litigation is running matters. For someone to discipline a minority student or staff member is to accept the risk of discrimination complaints and/or litigation. So before taking disciplinary action, the person doing so has to ask themselves the question: is this really worth the potential grief to me? More often than not, the answer is no. So the disciplinary action isn’t taken, the situation gets just a little bit worse, and so it goes.
“Uh..oh...I just criticized the government schools! There will be some nit wit teacher ( or parent who uses the schools) who will then claim that I have **personally** insulted them.”
Ever noticed how the welfare dependent seem to get very defensive when their dependency is pointed out to them?
This just proves that not everyone should go to college. Why everyone makes it the best option is amazing. The baby boomers who destroyed education and everything else in the country at least had one thing right and that is they realized that not everyone needed to go to college to be successful. Now as parents, they are forcing their kids to go to college. What idiots!!!! We Generation X’ers have so much work to do to fix the country!!!
“Oh, please. Homeschooling works well for some kids, poorly for others. The homeschooled kids I knew were not especially well prepared for college either.”
How many students were in your personal sample of home educated students? One?
I don’t see the need to malign other educational options, either. Experience has shown that the government schools do an exceptional job of maligning themselves.
Five or six. About the same as anyone else's anecdotal argument. (Which is why anecdotal arguments are suspect - unfortunately, they are what the HS partisans rely on.)
Experience has shown that the government schools do an exceptional job of maligning themselves.
Baloney. A lot of good kids graduate public school well-prepared for college and make something of themselves. You just don't hear about them, and no one trumpets "ANOTHER REASON TO PUBLIC SCHOOL" whenever something goes right.
Here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834475/posts?page=81#81
As far as teaching, I graduated my oldest from homeschooling and at the same time taught my youngest two at their own grade level; teaching three different grades at one time. She finished high school in three years, including physics and calculus. She 1530 on her SAT test, which so far is better than any high school valedictorian we have yet to meet.
Not to mention going to the National Spelling Bee and participating in the Johns Hopkins Talent Search, for two of my kids. The third qualified but we were in a different school district which didn’t submit her scores.
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And then there’s these statistics:
SAT/ACT homeschoolers:
http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/hslda/200105070.asp
Standardized test scores homeschoolers:
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp
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I’d consider it maligning the schools if so much of what is stated on these threads wasn’t true. Telling the truth isn’t maligning. Should we not talk about the bad things? Pretend they don’t exist to avoid hurting someone’s feelings?
The public schools have become an abysmal failure. Yes, there are some decent ones out there, but they are few and far between. When the schools get back to teaching the basics and really teaching it, not the mandatory AIDS/HIV prevention classes I just found out our school system is having, then there’d be less to criticize. And if colleges did not have to offer remedial math for entering freshmen, which has been going on for over twenty years, then there’d be less to criticize. And if I could see young cashiers in the store who didn’t look at me like I had two heads when I give them enough change to get only quarters back, then there’d be less to criticize.
I have seen people *homeschool* who shouldn’t have tried and who did it for the wrong reasons, but those are the exception.
My anecdotal evidence starts with eight - the first four in my family, and my husband and his siblings - all with achievements like fully-funded graduate school, full tuition scholarships, engineering degrees, veterinary degrees, or being Marine fighter pilots.
Then there are the dozens I grew up with... it was about half and half for college; half either wanted to be homemakers or hairdressers or another trade (I knew at least four young men who joined the Marines), but the other half went to college and kicked the pants off the courses they took. Since colleges are now actively recruiting homeschoolers, I think they’ve seen what homeschooling does for a potential recruit.
Wrong. I belonged to two very large homeschool support groups and that puts my personal sample in just that alone at at least 200 that I was closely connected with for the twelve years that we homeschooled. That doesn't include homeschoolers I've met at different churches, camp, field trips, swim team, swim lessons, etc.
I can think of only one family I know that didn't succeed at homeschooling and that was because there were real (gag) dysfuntional family issues. However, even in that case, the kid wasn't any further behind after a year of homeschooling than he was after several years of public education. Which I suppose goes to show that even bad homeschooling is equivalent to average public schooling.
BTW, we live in a rural, not so very special community. No upscale professionals, lots of money, brainy parents types. Average people doing an exceptional job educating their children, just like Thomas Edison, or people who even taught themselves, like Abraham Lincoln or Nathanial Bowditch.
Most absolutely not true. Urban school districts are certainly struggling, but a lot of suburban school districts provide very good education.
When the schools get back to teaching the basics and really teaching it, not the mandatory AIDS/HIV prevention classes I just found out our school system is having, then there’d be less to criticize.
Alright. As an example, the health class I had to take which included HIV/AIDS prevention was a semester-long course. I used the class to keep up with more difficult coursework. The fluff classes certainly didn't preclude me from entering college with 30 college credits.
And if colleges did not have to offer remedial math for entering freshmen, which has been going on for over twenty years, then there’d be less to criticize.
Not every student requires remedial math. I didn't know a single person in my college career who had to take it.
And if I could see young cashiers in the store who didn’t look at me like I had two heads when I give them enough change to get only quarters back, then there’d be less to criticize.
And you assume they're public-schooled? Or do you know where they were educated? The fact is that a lot of young people are overly-reliant on calculators. That is not a failing unique to public schools, but is also common to private and home-educated students.
I have seen people *homeschool* who shouldn’t have tried and who did it for the wrong reasons, but those are the exception.
That's my point. Homeschooling is an option - and a very good one, if you have a stay-at-home parent willing and able to teach the class material. This is an option only for the middle-class, single-income family. If both parents have to work, or where the parents are of modest academic background, it may not be the best choice.
Similarly, public education is a mixed bag. There are a lot of really bad public schools - but there are a lot of real gems out there. There are a lot of factors that determine their quality - teachers, funding, the attitudes of other students and parents, and the programs offered there. I know for a fact that the scientific education I pursued in high school and college would have been simply unavailable to me in a homeschooled setting.
I have absolutely no objection to homeschooling. It's a very good academic environment, one with some very serious advantages to be considered - but it is not for everybody. My objection is when people start extolling it as the only way - as though all children, families, and schools were uniform.
This whole article just begs the question: should all the students go to college in the first place? My opinion as a high school teacher is that the results demonstrate that 61% of the general high school population should not, and 20% of the “elite” populatioh should not. We are a system stuck on stupid.
It worked great for your family. I have no problem with that. Your parents were apparently well-suited for that role.
The only one I knew that should never have homeschooled - and that includes single parent families, families with serious monetary or health problems, the whole gamet - were my cousins the white trash. But that was because the parents were garbage, not because homeschooling is flawed. Then again, once they got put in school, one cousin became a lesbian and the others we haven’t heard from in years so maybe the homeschooling wasn’t any worse.
It’s not rocket science, people.
My mother was a high school graduate, my parents scrimped and saved to be able to afford her staying home. And we were well off, compared to many families, because my father did have a middle class job. You don’t know what you’re talking about if you think it takes a middle class salary to support a homeschool family. I knew a family of six whose dad repaired appliances for Sears. Families where the breadwinner delivered for UPS. Whatever. I knew an inner-city black single mother of two boys who was homeschooling them and working night shift because her alternative was the public schools.
And my local suburban, wealthy middle class community high school had a horrible rate of team pregnancy, ecstasy use, and three pipe bombs found on campus in one year. Not to mention the fact that the year I took the SAT I was the only student in the entire, rather large district, to make National Merit Semifinalist.
If the parents are motivated, I’d wager any couple can do better with their kids than the local school. That’s a big if but I believe it’s true.
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