Homeschooling as a right, and a needed practical alternative - <AUTHOR> https://quantblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/homeschooling-as-a-right-and-a-practical-alternative/ <comment><USER4> I know everyone on HN is big into the whole math, stem, good college thing, but out here in Central Time, all you really need to have a nice life is to not be an ass.

Most schools (even some of the good ones) turn kids into asses through the "Lord of the Flies" effect. Think about it: You have inexperienced little people with underdeveloped judgement spending most of their waking hours for most of the year with other little people who are in the same boat.

And people call this socialization! "I do not think that means what you think it means."

If kids had a little more contact with mature, self-actualized people growing up, they wouldn't have as much baggage to work through in adolescent/adult life.

<comment> J-dawg Comments like this are the reason I keep coming back to HN. People here consistently have the ability to either change my opinion, or (as in this case) articulate something I've always felt but not quite been able to explain. Thank you.

Have you ever noticed, whenever a group of adults talks about their school days there are always lots of stories about being bullied and general unpleasant experiences. At first it seems statistically improbable - <USER2> damn bullies didn't pick on _everybody_ did they?

Maybe the truth is that kids are generally just fucking horrible to each other. That, apart from a few isolated cases, the meme of the Nelson Muntz style "school bully" is a myth. Many (most?) kids are both the bully and the bullied. This brutal experience gives us all the baggage we need to work through in the future.

Maybe we should be honest about what school is really for. I always thought Paul Graham was right when he said it's really just a place to put teenagers until they're useful to society.

> Now adults have no immediate use for teenagers. They would be in the way in > an office. So they drop them off at school on their way to work, much as > they might drop the dog off at a kennel if they were going away for the > weekend. [0]

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)

<comment><USER5> Most of my nerdy friends were bullied. Most of my non-nerdy friends were not bullied. Or maybe other way - some may have some bulling incidents, rather than being a victim being the main story of their primary school.

(And yes, being bullied does not stop one from bulling - on other occasion, in another place.)

<comment> J-dawg Admittedly my anecdotal experiences might also be affected by confirmation bias, based on the nerdiness of the people I associate with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I went to public school through grade 7, and my parents pulled me out to home- school me through high school.

It worked out really, _really_ well for me. Most immediately, it relieved a bunch of social pressure to "fit in". My curriculum was self-paced so I was able to work through the material I already knew at a fast clip. I did grades 9-12 in 3 years instead of the typical 4, and was able graduate the same year as my then-girlfriend, now-wife (hold the jokes please, she's not my sister).

Beyond my personal experience being home-schooled, I'm now a father of 5, and I think the biggest thing missing from the other comments in this discussion is the concept that the education of children _is just one of the many responsibilities of parents_.

As a parent, it's your personal job to make sure your children are fed, clothed, bathed, socialized, educated, moralized, understood, and secured. Everyone worries about the "socialization" of home-schooled kids. But the parent who is taking an active interest in the education of their child is almost certainly also taking an active interest in their child's social development.

I think it's rather more likely that parents today are all too happy to abdicate and outsource those responsibilities to whatever institution is willing to take them on.

Don't get me wrong. That we have freely available public education is undoubtedly a great thing. The capacity to read and write effectively and to think critically is an amazing economic mobilizer. There's a reason slave- owners in the deep south wanted to keep their slaves from learning to read. But having that education _available_ is supremely preferable to having it _mandated by the state_.

<comment><USER7> > I think it's rather more likely that parents today are all too happy to > abdicate and outsource those responsibilities to whatever institution is > willing to take them on.

s/too happy/required to/

Try to get by with a high-earning single income in the south bay area or a median income in any metro. Housing prices and health costs force families to move to dual income.

<comment><USER8> The answer to that is, "get out of the metro". Cities are designed for singles and DINKs. There's a reason people talk about moving to the country, building a little house, starting a garden, etc... it's a better life for a family, and sustainable.

<comment><USER9> Living in the country is in no way more sustainable. It's far less sustainable for the environment as people must drive everywhere. Infrastructure for water, sewer, trash, etc. all cost more (regardless of whether the homeowner pays the increased cost) and cause more environmental impact as they're less efficient due to lower density.

You might find it to be a better life (I don't) but it's not more sustainable.

<comment><USER10> The driving isn't the same at all.

Small town with car: go a few blocks, never stopping for traffic, going the direction you like and stopping where you please

Big city with car: go many blocks, constantly stopping in traffic, route around 1-way streets, and then slowly loop around looking for a place to park

Big city with bus: go many blocks, constantly stopping in traffic, route around 1-way streets, often going kind of the wrong direction, spewing diesel soot all the way -- and often the bus runs nearly empty, a big soot-spewing vehicle with almost no people

<comment><USER9> Big city driving is often not driving at all. Want to grab some milk? Walk to the store. Want to go to a restaurant? Walk.

That's obviously not all city transit but it's a much larger part. Also lots of grocery stores still have parking lots (actually garages) in the city. If you're going somewhere like that you can still park easily. Depends on the location I'm sure.

I'm not sure what your dislike of buses is. They are far more efficient than personal transit from a fuel perspective. A bus can be "nearly empty" and still replace a half dozen cars. And at peak times a bus will replace dozens. There are issues with buses but "soot-spewing" isn't one of them, at least not relative to cars.

Small town is also not really country. If you can drive a few blocks to the grocery store, you don't live in the country. In fact, if your house is near _blocks_ , you don't live in the country. Small towns are of course also less sustainable than cities as small towns are basically built like suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So many opponents to homeschooling are talking about socialization as the key component of schooling. This seems misguided. Modern schools seem to be a terrible environment to socialize kids, with things like bulling, weapons, drugs, sexting, sex. It seems like utter madness to want to have your kids "socialized" in an environment like that. There are much better places and environments for them to be around and socialize with other kids, for example extracurricular sports teams, religious events etc. I remember when I was a kid, I used to go out and play with the neighborhood kids, and it didn't matter that I didn't go to the same school as they did. There was a whole whole word of socializing that occurred before schools and I don't think children will lose much socializing without schools.

<comment><USER12> >Modern schools seem to be a terrible environment to socialize kids, with things like bulling, weapons, drugs, sexting, sex

Do people spouting this have any kind of realistic evidence for how schools are so terrible for socializing, instead of spouting off folksy wisdom?

The whole "socialize, more like INSTITUTIONALIZE mirite guys?" just feels so flimsy and patronizing. Some are even comparing public schools to Lord of the Flies? That's just ridiculous.

<comment><USER13> I take it you've only been to either very high performing (nationally) public high schools or private schools?

I have a unique education background at that age - I was homeschooled until 5th grade, then went to a private religious school until 8th, then a private very high-end high school in 9th grade, and then a brand new suburban high school in 10th, and then inner city shitbox schools in 11th until I finally dropped out and took the GED since it was such a waste of my time.

In the good schools? You're pretty much correct. I can definitely see why a parent would not like a lot of what happens in them, but it's a bit much to call those social scenes dysfunctional entirely.

The inner city schools? Oh man, I would do _anything_ to keep my kid out of such hellholes. I think you really need to volunteer in a Chicago south side or similar high school for a week - I haven't met anyone who's spent any time in that system who would ever send their children to them. It's social environment is more like a juvenile hall.

> Some are even comparing public schools to Lord of the Flies? That's just > ridiculous.

I'd say it's a pretty apt comparison, murders and all for a significant portion of the US population.

<comment><USER12> >The inner city schools?

I could comment this with my own perspective fairly extensively, but quite honestly every time I give some kind of personal experience in this thread it's just met with snark, and every time I ask for objective evidence I get some "why trust some jackass's study" type of response. But, _in my own experience_ , schools, even in the "inner city" (which just seems to be kind of key word for an aggregate of poorly functioning schools, or a poorly functioning student population), can still offer a bit of refuge from home life. Even poorly funded schools will have some great teachers/mentors.

So let me just ask this: How is home schooling going to fix such "hellholes"? You're effectively blaming an institution on the failings of the society around it; even when that institution actually provides a constructive outlet that most likely would not have ever been provided at home. And for all it's tasked with doing, this institution by the way, continues to be constrained by people who seem to hate it.

<comment><USER14> _> But, in my own experience, schools, even in the inner city, can still offer a bit of refuge from home life_

I've volunteered in the south side schools your parent mentioned, and I can think of some cases where this was definitely very true.

Of course, it's also true that all of those kids also would've been _much_ better off in better schools.

 _> How is home schooling going to fix such "hellholes"?_

If a family has an adult in the house hold who can stay home and educate the children, then they're definitely not living in these neighborhoods in the first place.

And in any case, that family would be _much_ better off if the second parent works so that the family can move to a better neighborhood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Full disclosure: We homeschool our children.

Many here are repeating uninformed myths about homeschooling.

Specifically in regards to academic performance, "The home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests."[1]

But who cares? Though I could talk at length on educational benefits, what is needed for children is not an ideal academic environment. Our children need to be loved and mentored to become adults and, on average, no one can do that job better than their own parents.

[1] [http://www.nheri.org/research/research-facts-on- homeschoolin...](http://www.nheri.org/research/research-facts-on- homeschooling.html)

<comment><USER16> It seems like there are two very different groups being discussed here: the "I think I can do a better job of educating my kids than the state" homeschoolers and the "I want to protect my kids from this immoral society" homeschoolers.

I don't know which is more prevalent but all the homeschoolers seem to think of themselves as being in the first group, and most of the vitriol is aimed at the second group, so there's a lot of people talking past each other.

<comment><USER17> The lines are not so clear. My parents started out as the former and evolved into the latter.

<comment><USER18> Please elaborate. Why did that happen?

<comment><USER17> My parents got into home-schooling for practical reasons; I learned to read early, the kindergarten was a long drive away, etc. They intended it as a temporary thing, a year or two before I went off to school like a normal person. By the time my younger siblings came along, they'd gotten the hang of it, liked it a lot, and just kept on teaching us all at home; I never did end up going to school.

They had always been religious, and we were raised with religious practice as a part of everyday routine, but they steadily became more and more a part of the countercultural fundamentalism that was growing up around them in the 1980s. As that happened the practice of home-schooling became both a cultural marker and a means of rejecting and protecting their children from what they saw as a corrupt and unhealthy mainstream society. By the time I graduated, my parents and most of their social circle were fully on board with the whole quiverfull homeschooling right-wing fundamentalist subculture.

Of course I promptly rejected the whole thing, as did most of my cohort. The fundamentalist homeschooling subculture appears to perpetuate itself almost entirely via recruitment and not through reproduction, so far as my observation goes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was homeschooled all the way through 10th grade, and as far as social development is concerned it's a really mixed bag. I was involved in quite a few homeschool groups where I got to see first hand the wide range of social skills of other homeschooled kids. In my opinion the majority of kids I knew were just fine socially. There was also a small percentage that had significant trouble making friends and vocalizing their thoughts, however that was the exception rather than the rule.

Being homeschooled I had a completely different childhood than most of my peers, and that alone can make it more difficult to connect with people. At the same time I can also tell if someone my age was homeschooled just by listening to them talk, so finding other people with similar backgrounds usually isn't too hard.

<comment><USER20> ...and plenty of kids in public schools have significant trouble making friends too! So it's tough to evaluate this stuff based on just anecdotes; I'm not aware of any large-scale studies on home-schoolers that have good controls, and it'd be very hard to do that given how much of a self-selecting group that is.

I agree re: different childhood, although that's not unique to homeschooling by any means. I also spent a few years in a "gifted kids" program, and even that by itself has the exact same effect given how unique the social environment of such programs are.

For that matter, I did go to public school for high-school, and again anyone at that school had a similar experience for a totally different reason: the school happened to have an unusually diverse student body, with a very high percentage of recent immigrants, and this lead to an unusually diverse social structure in the school. For example, every year no-one had any clue who the prom king and queens were because the social structure didn't have a school- wide hierarchy. More like multiple smaller groups based roughly on shared backgrounds and interests, with quite a bit of overlap. My brother on the other hand went to a different school which had a social hierarchy straight out of a American movie.

<comment><USER21> > ...and plenty of kids in public schools have significant trouble making > friends too!

Absolutely. I went to a private school up through 5th grade, then public elementary school for 6th grade, then junior high at a school that wasn't the one that my elementary school sent people to (the one I went to had fewer knife fights). Coming into a school where I knew nobody two years in a row was rather rough...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The one thing I do not agree with is the tax deductions for homeschooling. I don't agree with vouchers either. Starving public schools is not the way to fix them, or make them go away. The way to fix them or make them go away is a combination of voting and running for school boards.

The reason why U.S. taxes are so complicated is because every special interest group wants their one line item deduction. And when they can't get a full deduction, they'll accept convoluted computations for partial deductions with a cap, so now it's a worksheet to do the computation for the actual deduction. Multiply that by every goddamn special interest and you get a 15 form submission every year.

Income tax should be a single form for everyone. Progressive rate. No deductions for anything. No home mortgage deduction - your mortgage interest is not a superior benefit to all of society than someone else's marked up rent. It's a special interest hand out.

The only fair way is if it's the same for everyone.

<comment><USER23> Public schools in the US aren't (primarily) funded by income taxes. They're primarily funded by local property taxes.

<comment><USER22> But any deduction or credit for education happens on income tax forms; there's no mechanism to get deductions or credits on property taxes any other way.

People with enough deductions get to file Schedule A and explicitly itemize property taxes. Typically owning a house gets you enough itemized deductions to justifying filing Schedule A so while a renter indirectly pays property taxes too, they don't get an explicit deduction for property taxes and thus also wouldn't get to deduct additional costs of homeschooling incurred.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I honestly don't know how to feel on this. At some level personal experimentation is a wonderful thing that everyone should consider. I am personally terrible at it, but I feel that is because I wasn't taught to be rigorous; which is ultimately what is needed.

However, I am also convinced that schools serve two real purposes for kids. 1) To push them further than parents think they should be pushed, and 2) to socialize them. (Which, really, is just part of 1.)

Ignoring all of the advantages that schools have -- mainly, more experience than makes sense -- even "bad" teachers are almost guaranteed to be better than a given parent. Because of their experience. They will have seen more kids than I can comprehend.

But back to my points. Even if I was somehow a better informational teacher than the ones at the school, I can not be a better teacher than their peers. Building healthy peer relationships is tough. As a parent, you think "nobody that will hurt my kid." However, I am not sure that is right. What we really want is "nobody that will unfairly hurt my kid." And even then, we want peers for our kids that will grow with them. So, really, it is "nobody that will convince my kids to repeatedly hurt others."

And this gets to the crux. Building a peer relationship for kids when you deprive them of diverse peers is nigh impossible. And if you have a reasonable set of peers, you are really just in a private school; not a home school.

Privates schools are not bad. At least, not something I want to vilify. However, I want my family to know and be a part of the community. Not a separate bubble within it. Weighing that against them having a "quality" education is tough.

<comment><USER25> I think there are many different experiences of homeschooling and I think for some they do develop strong peer groups without it becoming just a private school. One of the main arguments for home schooling is that done properly schooling will take less long as you can focus on just one or two kids and thus there is time left over for extracurricular. On the other hand as somebody who was home schooled I wouldn't do it with any kids I have. I think what made it bad was that both my parents are introverts.

The amount I've grown socially in the last couple of years of college really makes me annoyed at myself for missed time.

<comment><USER26> I have pretty mixed opinions on whether it's a good thing, was mostly home schooled myself (some private and public school too) and ended up in foster care voluntarily for some years. Home schooling vastly increases parent control over their kids, considering how "I can teach my kids better than schools can" selects for traits like narcissism, it can get messy. Peer social interaction is definitely an easy thing to mess up as well.

Heard some true horror stories in foster care, like a guy who grew up "homeschooled" by meth addict parents who faked tests, forced him to steal to get back in the house (at least at some points), and left him almost illiterate at 18.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, the people saying "at least you can count on parents to give a shit" really have me scratching my head. If I'm looking for someone to give a shit about a kid, I'd rather draw from teachers than parents.

<comment><USER21> I think I'd rather trust the parents, but I think you get no guarantees with either group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Homeschooling seems like a no brainer option when your kid flames out of public school and you can only afford 1 spouse not working but not private school. These are the homeschooling cautions I've read about or observed.

1 - Homeschooling has been documented as locus of identity abuse by withholding modern identity paperwork required to prove citizenship. This insures the child remains dependent on the family and religious unit into adulthood since they have no documentation to prove they are a citizen. [1]

2 - Homeschooling allows for abusive parents to be abusive with limited opportunity for a mandated reporter discovering the abuse. [2]

3 - When I went through high school and college, a homeschooled student was rare like a unicorn. I never met a single person. When I went back into a school setting in the last 5 years I met several. Anecdotal observations: (a) untreated autism spectrum disorders, (b) homeschool teachers unqualified to teach math & science leaving the adult student unable to academically survive college level sciences despite a passion for science subjects, (c) a well adjusted kids who joined 4H programs and had parents with a scientific background, and (d) one student with a deep love for English literature.

On the whole, I'm dubious when I hear of people home schooling. I ask things like "Do your kids have birth certificates?". "Do you immunize?". "What is your math and science background?". "Are your kids being socialized with their peers?"

I'm sure the homeschooling parents really love me. But a number of homeschooled kids are child abuse victims and I feel an obligation to probe these weird situations.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post- nation/wp/2015/03/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post- nation/wp/2015/03/12/how-a-teenagers-viral-campaign-to-prove-her-citizenship- is-inspiring-a-new-texas-bill/)

[2] [https://www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/policy- issues/abuse...](https://www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/policy-issues/abuse- and-neglect/abuse-in-homeschooling-environments/)

<comment><USER29> I heard that a bigger number of child abuse victims are going to regular schools, and some abuse in fact is happening inside those schools. There goes your argument.

<comment><USER28> Teachers and principals are mandated reporters. When they observe abuse of a student they are mandated by law to report it. Homeschooling parents are not.

Furthermore, I didn't have an argument. Homeschooling seems dubious to me. As a homeschooled kid, if you win the genetics lottery to have educated non- lunatic non-abusive parents capable of teaching the entire spectrum of knowledge areas, it might work out really well.

God help the kid chained to a bed at home being homeschooled without anybody knowing the child's plight. God help the kid whose parents can barely manage the mathematics required to keep a checking account balanced. God help the kid who has a medical condition like autism that the parent is incapable of addressing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was home schooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. My program was very loose and there are gaps in my education I wish didnt exist. However when I joined public school in high school I realized how basic and sub par most of the classes were.

I never really suffered from social issues due to having a "home school group" that we regularly met with to play sports, a couple siblings that were close to my age, and being on various high school or public sports teams while being home schooled.

If I could go back and do it again I would make sure to get a better foundation in English and Math. My overall understanding in science and history probably suffered more than it should have as well but those dont have as much impact on my day to day life.

<comment><USER31> Largely similar experience. I took the ACT having never taken a formalized test in my life or having stepped foot in a real classroom. Completed most sections with perfect or near perfect scores, but my math score was abysmal. It uncovered some major gaps in my knowledge.

<comment><USER30> Haha. Interesting that you mention the ACT. I took the ACT before a home football game, score a point or two above average and then joined my team right as we ran onto the field. When I saw the results they were similar. Math was by far the worst section.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My public school education in the 70's taught me, among other things, French, physics, differential equations, music, Fortran, and an appreciation for reading great literature. My parents (who are wonderful people in every respect) could never have taught me any of these things. My later education and career and life as a mindful person would never have been possible had my parents not sent me to really good schools.

Home-schooling may be a right. Fine. But it's a parental right. What about the right of the child to a top-quality education?

<comment><USER15> For gifted children such as yourself, a top-quality education is much more likely via homeschooling than public schools.

Everyone I know who homeschools thinks the same thing at first: "How will I teach my child subjects I don't understand?" There are many surprising answers, actually!

1\. You will learn alongside your child. A rewarding part of homeschooling is that you continue your own education. You will learn many subjects more deeply than you would have otherwise.

2\. You will provide resources for your child to teach themselves. As your children learn to learn, they will tackle many difficult subjects on their own using textbooks, pre-recorded courses, and other materials.

3\. Others will help teach them. Successful homeschoolers don't do it alone. They find peers, form co-ops, and/or utilize tutors or community resources. Many homeschoolers take lots of college courses online or at local universities as they enter their early high school years.

<comment><USER33> Exactly this! All 3 points are true for our case.

We have such a large support system with the program we are in. Much larger than what we got with public school. It really was a nice surprise as a newcomer to see how supportive the community was.

I have even volunteered to teach a programming elective at my sons hybrid charter 1 day a week that he will help me with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'll be your whipping boy here if I may, guys, but can we please refrain from downvoting based purely on disagreement for this one? I'd really appreciate reading a discussion on this subject from both sides and all between. This is difficult to do otherwise.

<comment><USER35> Turn on showdead if you're worried about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wish people who are underemployed and such exceedingly talented teachers that they are better able to teach their kids than their local school would enter the teaching profession so others could benefit from their teaching.

<comment><USER37> Part of the benefit of homeschooling is the ability to teach 1:n where n is 1 or a small number, allowing you to progress at the pace of the child rather than that of the class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Given that we're currently struggling to help four kids adapt and recover from a "homeschooled" education where the parents literally went off the rails into occult chanting and conspiracy theories, I find myself conflicted over this. It has good intentions, but that's just not enough. Especially for isolationist parents that just work on establishing echo chambers and eliminating dissent.

Home schooling as a means of accelerated education for parents with means or extensive time and personal education can do quite well. But there are plenty of parents who aren't capable of teaching their kids and, in fact, shouldn't be allowed to have kids at all. School interactions have been an important lens into the private life of abusive families, and I don't think that parents should be allowed to just check kids out of the public school system for a decade without any oversight. There should be tests and required contact for this - far more than what many states have in place. And I don't know if there's enough budget for that type of infrastructure.

On the other hand, I've seen various school districts increase the cost of schooling significantly while decreasing the value. And I've seen some teachers (retired and current) that probably have or should have restraining orders against them by children, science or both. And classes have always struggled with teaching a curriculum to kids in various levels of comprehension. Hundreds of bright kids slog through boring classes everyday just waiting for others to catch up, while some struggle just to stay afloat.

There's more to both sides than we like to think, but there definitely needs to be more supervision of "alternative" education. Government investment in a recognized, "free" curriculum and online testing resources would be a good start.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is from Victoria, Australia in case there is confusion.

And as a background. The majority of K-12 schools are free, public schools with a smaller but growing group of religious schools. Home schooling is perfectly legal but requires you to register with the government.

Personally I think those who advocate for home schooling often think schooling is purely for education. When for children it is also the time in which they develop socially. Taking them away from that without a suitable alternative is in my opinion somewhat reckless. But provided there is some alternative I don't see why it wouldn't be an option.

<comment><USER40> There is nothing preventing kids from developing socially if they are home schooled. They just need to get out of their house and socialise with other kids, which they will do on their own if people let them...

The socialising you get from the school is a bit artificial these days anyway. For example, the class leader is often who get the top marks in the exams. Good luck with that when you get out of school...

<comment><USER41> > There is nothing preventing kids from developing socially if they are home > schooled. They just need to get out of their house and socialise with other > kids, which they will do on their own if people let them...

You can't really make global assumptions like that. I know for a fact I would have preferred to play games and code in high school rather than go out to socialize, and hanging out with friends I made at school was the majority of my socialization until I was forced to keep in touch with them in college.

Not every kid is a social butterfly waiting to be let free.

The socialization from school is 100% not artificial. I can look back at many stupid things I did in middle and high school that taught me valuable life lessions and have concretely shaped how I think about things.

<comment><USER40> >Not every kid is a social butterfly waiting to be let free.

Not every kid, but most kids are. May not be a "social butterfly", but most of them like to go out and play with other kids..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This thread and all its anecdotes doesn't speak for the general public. Everyone here is a techy, many of whom are probably anti-social even as adults.

People in this thread discrediting homeschooling for being anti-social, when they're probably anti-social 20 something programmers. You may have been social in high school, but as an adult you chose an anti-social career.

Yet the solution for homeschooling socialness is the exact fucking same that people on HN recommend for anti-social 20 something techies. They're called clubs. (Not the nightlife kind)

Homeschool parents get their children in sports clubs, music clubs, dance clubs, etc. 20 something programmers who want to be more social should get into a club also.

Let me ask you this, if with your current anti-social adult brain you were transported back in time to your teenager self and given the chance to be more social at youth -- would you spend time conversing with other high schoolers and their typical teenager talk or would you seek out clubs with more mature individuals and activities that could lead you to success in adult life? Intelligent people would chose the latter, but kids aren't smart enough to make that decision at a young age, so adults should give them that guidance and direction.

</comment><comment><USER43> I've met a surprising number of entrepreneurs who were home-schooled. I don't think it's a coincidence. Home-schooling _can_ instill some positive out-of- the-box thinking and a willingness to stand out from the crowd.

</comment><comment><USER22> I remember in 2nd grade asking, "Do I have to do this?" whatever the assignment was, because it was boring. By 6th grade I was asking, "Why does it take this long to learn this little?"

Primary schools, at least in the U.S. are designed to make good little worker bees who follow instructions. It's practically designed to make children feel comfortable with being bored.

The practicality of homeschooling is very far from universal. The whole concepts of time devoted to career, wealth projection, real estate cost, all need to be made more practical if homeschooling is also going to be practical. It's not practical to expect one parent to be the stay at home teacher. Not everyone is a good teacher anyway, and most of them are working full time jobs.

</comment><comment><USER12> Personally, I've never seen a well adjusted person who was home schooled -- or admittedly one that I knew. I say this as someone who had multiple friends who were home schooled. There's always something a little bit "off" about them socially. And it's not in a terribly detrimental way, there just seems to be a noticeable latency between them picking up social cues and appropriately reacting to those cues (if they do at all!)

There's also the issue, at least in the U.S., where homeschooling is really kind of a code word for "religious, non-secular" schooling. Anything from evolution to certain history is skimped over and treated in a "just learn this for the test, but don't believe it" kind of fashion, which is extremely unfair and unfortunate for the child in those situations.

The biggest issue I really have with homeschooling, tied into the previous paragraph, is that you end up getting absurdly unqualified people teaching their kids (and sometimes other people kids!) subjects they have absolutely no clue about! For a group of people that tends to be extremely vocal about teaching "organically" and not by the book I've never seen any other population so reliant on textbooks when it comes to a variety of subjects. The kids basically lose out on what would be a "pseudo-professional" in what ever subject they're studying, who would able to guide them through certain areas of the subject the text book may not gracefully cover or maybe even not cover at all! Instead you get a stay at home mom, dad, or some kind of combination thereof that didn't bother to study the subject they're trying to teach _and_ went to a public school themselves on top of it all.

All these posts seem to be far fetched rationalizations when it comes to homeschooling. There's nothing stopping you from teaching your kids things you want them to learn, beyond what schooling will give them. But it's been plainly obvious to me _personally_ that homeschooling doesn't really give you anything extra, or circumvent problems with the education system, it just takes away from what you would have gotten while claiming it's doing the exact opposite.

<comment><USER44> Reading your post _personally_ made me chuckle, as you could be "arguing" against institutional school with only a few words changed and it would hold the same weight.

<comment><USER12> I mean, that's a fairly lofty claim considering what I wrote. Would you care to point out some examples?

<comment><USER8> High school graduates are all "off". It takes years for them to learn to behave naturally as adults. I'm a professor - I've seen it. The only freshmen who are interesting to talk to at all are the homeschooled ones.

High school teaches "just for the test" and includes a lot of baloney like "evolution" for purposes of checking checkboxes.

High schools are packed with "absurdly unqualified" teachers and even more unqualified "administrators".

All your rationalizations seem pretty thin gruel when you face the undisputable fact that homeschooled kids far exceed public-school peers in academics.

See? beat for beat.

<comment><USER12> You didn't provide any examples, you just took what I said and treated it in a completely disingenuous manner.

I didn't say high school aged graduates are "off." I am talking about fully fleshed adults, and in my circle of friends ones that exceed 25 years old.

It's not that I necessarily have a problem with "just for the test", which I view as a cheap criticism of people who can't demonstrate what they know when asked to do so, it's that the people who claim such things and then homeschool teach directly for the test with no other insights into the subject because it happens to be that's all they're literally capable of doing due to their own personal studies -- or rather lack thereof.

>High schools are packed with "absurdly unqualified" teachers

That's another very lofty claim that you're going to have to back up in some substantive form without resorting to folksy wisdom.

>that homeschooled kids far exceed public-school peers in academics.

And yet there are hardly any notable contributions in any field brought forth by homeschoolers in a manner that is consistent with such a claim. I personally don't _work_ with people who have been home schooled, I don't know anyone in my field as a programmer who grew up homeschooled, and I don't know any homeschoolers who have actively achieved a high value professional career or have demonstrated their exceedingly good academic performance in another way. I'm also not aware of any metric that would lend any reasonable amount of credence to such a claim that homeschoolers will out perform students who attend a public or private school, controlling for everything from family environments and socio-economic status.

<comment><USER8> You apparently didn't notice I was simply taking your four paragraphs, which to you must seem to be taken-for-granted common sense, and replaced them with four corresponding statements that are well known to everyone else's common sense. You're free to ask for examples, but I didn't need to provide any to make my point.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure what gives you the idea that I didn't "notice." Also falling back to some kind of vague term like "common sense" is basically you just saying you don't have a point to make and that'd you rather just stick with your opinions, instead of defending them in any meaningful form or critiquing mine. You then flat out admit that "you didn't need to provide any to make my point", which is really you just saying you can't make a point. Why bother to respond?

I clearly labeled what was my personal perspective, and then asked for any kind of credible, objective information.

You called what is far from a fact "indisputable", and then proceeded to label a subject like evolution as baloney.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I was homeschooled my entire k-11 career in the US. So was my sibling. We've both gone on to graduate school. We're quite functional socially.

We're probably the most career-successful of the peer group of homeschoolers we grew up around; the least successful were a SAHM last I heard. Most were tradespeople in their dad's profession. Well and good, I suppose.

There's a heavy cost to be borne to do it proper-like; it really requires one parent to stay home and be the teacher - most multimedia curricula are total drek, largely because kids just aren't that self-motivated to learn, they'd rather do legos or throw snowballs. Old Tom Sawyer stuff, you know. Human nature works best with a human teacher in meatspace.

For a US public policy perspective, I have a few thoughts - most relatively inflammatory. I don't want to have a flamewar, but I think they merit some level of thought - email me to continue the conversation.

There's a _huge_ social cost to having diverse schooling; it funnels children out of the public schools into private schools and other alternatives, and provides a salt lake effect reducing the quality of children in schools. So I'm not actually a fan of private/charter/religous schools for that reason. It diverts funding and excellence. Homeschooling will never be popular enough (it's _hard_ work) to really consider it a serious competitor. But it's reasonable to require tests periodically - enough parents fart around that it's a real issue.

It's my opinion that control has to pass out of the hands of local school boards upwards into state or federal level. There are far too many stories about local school boards funkifying their children's grades or ruining a teacher's career who gave their child bad grades. Similarly, teachers need not unduly worry about their career because an upset parent is panicing. There are _serious_ issues with the structure of public schools in the US, and teachers need to be privileged much more than they are now. Admins and parents are legendary for causing issues.

It's my opinion that a tiered education approach is proper for the US: one tier for college-bound children, one tier for trade-bound, and one tier for "misc". Tiers should be broken out at 10 y/o or so based on aptitude tests & history, without much regard to parent's opinion. Similarly, children who are disruptive in class need to be shuffled out of class.

Many people think school is about socializing. That is both true and a bad idea. It doesn't have to be: anthropology and history would tell us that modern schools are a very new innovation, and generally you got socialized outside of the school system. Having your age-peers shape you primarily is contra the long standing human experience and is segregationist in concept. It'd be _much_ better to focus on effective use of time in school and let families adapt to having more time to socialize children.

All of the above turn out to be reasons to homeschool; it's a very nice game theory picture - cooperate or defect! - what is best for my local society is that I send my children to the public school, vigorously fight for excellent academics and rigorous training of character, and make a tiny difference. What is best for my children is that I send them to a highly ranked private school or homeschool them, sacrificing either my or my spouse's career to give them 1:1 personal tutoring and drive them to the top of their potential.

edit:

As a clarifying note, there are about 4ish groups of homeschoolers in the US, broadly stroked out:

\- Academic - v. common. US public schools are often bad.

\- Religious (Young Earth Creationists etc)

\- Difficult/gifted child has inability to cope with school

\- Unschooling & crew "hippie" stuff

I have absolutely _zero_ sympathy for the unschooling world, both philosophically and from an outcomes perspective. It's a deep disservice to the child's potential. Again, Old Tom Sawyer loved playing hooky: don't enable it...

Religious homeschooling is highly variable. A lot of it is video curricula. It can range from straight up traditional latin/greek heavy-duty academic rigor all the way over into some drivel that is a bare pastiche of what might be an education. I would advise not writing it off, but looking a bit closer at the curricula. Most is quite adequate at the basic stuff as I recall.

And, of course, all sympathy to the people struggling with the difficult children.

<comment><USER20> I don't agree with your strict stance against unschooling. Yes, for some kids it's probably quite harmful - something I occasionally saw first hand when I was homeschooled - but for other kids it seems to work very well. And for the kids that it works well with, I think it helps instill a true drive to succeed that's difficult to do for those kids in an institutional environment; for some kids that's a drive that gets driven out of them.

FWIW my own experience was more on the unschooling side than not, although I also was in high-school full time after grade nine. Particularly when I started working full time I found it strange seeing most of my coworkers and interns just not being willing to take initiatives and learn on their own, something that to me seemed very natural - if I didn't when I was a kid nothing would happen. Meanwhile I advanced very quickly because I did just that. And from talking to others with similar unschooling backgrounds, that's not an unusual experience to have.

Part of why unschooling seemed to work for me is probably the environment. Growing up I didn't have access to computer games or the internet, and TV was strictly an evening thing. So for many hours a day I had nothing to do but learn. Sure, I didn't have all that much direction on _how_ I was supposed to learn, but I seemed to figure that part out well enough on my own; the main structure I was given was to always have math textbooks around to work through, and I was expected to spend time every day studying them and doing problems. Programming on the other hand, was something I spent a lot of time learning on my own in a very self-directed fashion because I wanted too - <USER3> for subjects like economics, science, and art.

An exception to all this though was spelling and grammar: when my parents took me out of school in grade five I still wasn't able to read to write very well, so for about the first year I remember my mom spending a lot of time with me on those subjects. But that year was all it took to finally catch up; once I knew how to read sufficiently well learning on my own beyond that was much more practical.

Of course, I have to give a lot of credit to my parents there: the environment I had while "unschooling" was likely no accident... I'm sure they worked quite hard to make that happen.

<comment><USER45> Briefly: a quality education involves a wide set of subjects, some of which are distasteful or boring to the childish mind. Unschooling does not demand attending to those. Thus, it will produce a narrowness of knowledge in the profound majority of children who are involved, barring the genuine polymath (n.b.: hacker news seems to have a disproportionately high number of polymaths. It's entirely plausible that you, gentle reader, are such a polymath. Please don't generalize from your experience to everyone). That is a disservice to society and the child.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Underexplored in this discussion is that primary & secondary education, period, appears to have minimal impact on outcomes. Individual teachers appear to have absolutely minuscule effects at best.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a- graduation-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation- speech/)

</comment><comment><USER47> Maybe part-time computer-assisted stay-home days standard practice for public schools could help relieve some of the overcrowding pressure, allow kids time to progress at their own speed, and permit more focused attention for addressing problem behaviors both by school administrators as well as parents.

Perhaps for households that cant provide supervision, just create a minimally supervised and perhaps somewhat interaction-limited computer lab for self paced study during that time.

</comment><comment><USER48> How do people afford to homeschool? If we assume public schools are tax funded, and homeschooling is not (so homeschooling parents are not given tax breaks or voucher money) - then basically you are paying a fair amount of taxes, and you basically can't have a job, because you spend N years educating your kids?

From an economics/labor force participation/GDP perspective, having few kids per teacher isn't very sensible.

</comment><comment><USER49> In my experience, most of the people who home-school their kids are young- earth creationists or some other kind of nutters who don't want their kids exposed to science as taught by mainstream schools.

<comment><USER50> Your experience is atypical.

[http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/statisti...](http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/statistics.html)

Under "Parents' Most Important Reasons for Homeschooling Their Children", "A desire to provide religious instruction" comes in fourth, and "A desire to provide moral instruction" comes in fifth.

<comment><USER51> However, under "Parents' Reasons for Homeschooling Their Children (in percentages)", between 2011 and 2012 64% wanted to provide their children with "religious instruction," 77% "moral instruction."

Also desire to provide religious instruction and concern about the environment in other schools (top reason) are not mutually exclusive. How do you know that the parents who were concerned didn't also list "A desire to provide religious instruction" as their second?

<comment><USER50> Yes, religious instruction is a _common_ reason, but not the _most important_ reason.

Also, note that this would include any kind of religion, not just the kind of Flat Earth stuff that the OP was suggesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I disagree , i think an education is a right , not homeschooling

</comment><comment><USER53> In my experience, which is not too much, people who "home-school" their children, would better not be allowed to do so.

</comment><comment><USER54> Did not have time to read this but I think what is really needed is extra small class sizes

K-3 three to four kids per class

4-5 seven to eight kids per class / gender seperated

6 ten kids per class / gender seperated

7-12 anysize / mix it up

</comment><comment><USER55> I don't have a horse in this race (no kids), but this call to action bothered me. Lots of run-on sentences; incorrect capitalisation; 'Math' instead of 'maths', 'lite' instead of 'light'[1]; weird double- and triple-spacing; 'Id' instead of 'I'd' grammatical errors; overuse of dashes[2]; using both -ise and -ize endings on the same word (realise); so on and so forth.

On the one hand, I realise that I'm being a bit pedantic, but on the other hand, there were a _lot_ of these errors, in a call to action to allow the author to teach people. Clarity of expression is one thing that is taught in high school, and it's important. I'd want to proofread my article if I was trying to put forward that my ability to teach was decent. The occasional error should be overlooked, but this was pretty sloppy.

If I saw these errors in someone wanting to teach more practical skills rather than abstract ones, I guess they wouldn't stand out so much.

[1] I've lived in that state all my life, and am familiar with the localised terms (lite? yuck) [2] which I frequently abuse myself, to be honest

<comment><AUTHOR> op, here - yes, you could argue Im not well educated for writing such articles - I was educated in schools not homeschooled :)

Im happy to correct spelling grammar errors - I by no means represent myself as a professional author.

Be aware that 'Math' or 'Maths' can be correct according to where you are [ Ive heard Maths used in Australia, Math used in US, ymmv ]

ps. I really _am_ trying to teach practical skills - for example my videos on multiplication - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAucwKdByrU&t=385s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAucwKdByrU&t=385s) Now you may say they aren't very good .. but thats okay if they help even one student learn math, or open to the idea it might be interesting or understandable by them.

<comment><USER55> You need to get someone who is good at writing to proofread it and clean it up. Your target audience for this piece is educated administrators, and those mistakes will stand out like dog's balls. They're friction points that should be smoothed out so that they don't distract from your message.

Re: Math/Maths, 'math' is American English, 'maths' is British English. Maybe it's bled through from American textbooks - perhaps go by whatever is on the cover of your son's textbook? Australian English can supposedly use either form, but generally it's considered to be British English, and you should stick to one or the other when you write (ie: don't mix and match).

I perhaps came across more hostile than I intended. It just struck me as notable the difference between the intent of the article and the way it was presented.

\---

EDIT: I've hit my comment limit, but wanted to respond to your comment with:

On the mixed audience - just remember that your primary audience is Victorian education administrators - they're the ones whose opinions you want to change. Write for your audience in the way that has least friction.

When you mix'n'match British/American English (like realise/realize), you will annoy someone in each camp. If you pick one style and stick to it, it's more coherent and the message content flows more easily. It doesn't make what you say more convincing, but it does reduce potential sticking points that might distract a reader's attention.

Good luck with your efforts. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry my bad writing detracts, Ill work on that. I was expecting a mixed AUS/US audience, so used "Math" not "Maths"

I did proofread it thru[through] a couple [of] times myself, but should have had a few friends proofread it and give feedback and fix typos before releasing.

ps. I've given up the local textbooks in favor of the AoPS.com ones, they are vastly superior imo - they just go much more deeply into things like completing the square etc.

Your comments most welcome - I think its an issue worth discussing, even if my writing skills not quite up to the job.

<comment><USER56> Interchanging Math/Maths doesn't bother me. Leaving off apostrophes from words (Ill, Im, Ive) however is something I find genuinely distracting.

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, fair enough .. will try to spellcheck more carefully.

Thanks for specifics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Ah, so instead of fixing a system that does not meet their needs homeschoolers opt out and leave the less time and resource affluent to stew. How commendable and good for society.

I think the course presented illustrates well why democratic and republican societies should always prohibit private and home schooling.

Instead of opting out parents such as the writer would be forced to engage and reform and participate in change and help bettering things for society and not just themselves, because the differences in educational equity they'd otherwise beget are seeds sown on the path to social schisms, vast class divides, and the destruction of a system dependent on educated voters.

<comment><USER50> Your primary duty as a parent is to your child, not "society".

"I think the course presented illustrates well why democratic and republican societies should always prohibit private and home schooling."

Any society that does such things is neither "democratic" nor "republican". It is totalitarian, pretty much by definition.

They're not your children, dude.

<comment><USER58> Indeed parents have a _duty_ to their children. Clearly this cannot and should not mean that they're allowed to treat their children however they want or that they're allowed to educate them on what and how they want. There can be a space for them to make decisions but the rights of the children always have to take precedence.

It's only natural for the government to step in and determine exactly what this means. Allowing the government to do this without limits is problematic, so you balance that out with rights assigned to parents.

It's not an easy question to determine where the line should be drawn but I don't think it's really all that totalitarian to prohibit home schooling. It ensures that children are educated, that they socialize with other children, get confronted with different points of view and gives them the freedom and ability to safely explore the world and themselves in an environment where there parents have much less influence over their lives. It should not be forgotten that not all parents are included to provide that without force.

<comment><USER59> If you could prove that homeschooling is unhealthy or even worse than public schools, then you could have a point. But now you are just stating your opinion and suggesting that your opinion should be reinforced by the government.

The data shows that homeschoolers perform better than public school students not only academically, but also on measures of social, emotional and psychological development.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Never get another marketing email again - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zackshapiro.com/never-get-another-marketing-email-again

<comment><USER2> This way you're going to receive only the real spam (that doesn't give a damn about any CAN-SPAM act) and stop all the legitimate newsletters you could easily unsubscribe from... not to mention false positives that just talk about "unsubscribe" for any reason.

</comment><comment><USER3> The false positives this would generate, in my opinion, outweigh any benefit of having such a filter. I'd rather manually unsubscribe from marketing emails, since, as the author says, the "unsubscribe" functionality is so prevalent.

</comment><comment><USER4> What, and throw out any legitimate e-mail that contains the word "unsubscribe"? Seems a little heavy-handed to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see your point. There are of course false positives but this approach removes a lot of unwanted crap from your inbox instantly

<comment><USER5> Yeah and to check for false positives I have to go through the spam again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good idea on the face of it, but do Gmail filters let you create exceptions? There are plenty of useful emails that also have "unsubscribe" in the body.

</comment><comment><USER7> A bayesian filter is probably sufficient to do this, and will probably do a better job in terms of false positives.

</comment><comment><USER8> This would catch a lot of things I wouldn't want to block. It doesn't seem like a great solution to me.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm OK with some false positives because I think there will be very few in my case. And I can check the Junk folder once in a while to see if there's anything I want to keep. I like it.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've had this enabled for about 2 months, and its been nothing short of amazing. (picked it up from an HN thread somewhere). Cannot recommend this highly enough.

Yes, there's the occasional false positive, but its surprisingly rare. I pop into my "Unsubscribes" folder every few days to make sure nothing is caught, just like my Spam folder. If there's a false positive, I make a new rule in Outlook.

Seriously, try it. You'll be surprised how nice it is, like a clean apartment.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sweet, I'll be sure to change our marketing missives to say "remove subscription"!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, there you go. I'll update my filter accordingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> so if i do this, every list server that i subscribe to will be junked because normally have unsubscribe info in them ...

</comment><comment><USER13> Won't work with black hat email marketers.

<comment><USER14> Speaking of which: any suggestions on ending the deluge of likely black-hat spam? Shrinking hoses, Russian brides, plenty of other crap which darn near screams "if you hit 'unsubscribe' we'll know we have a live one and send you more!"

<comment><USER13> I wish I knew. (:

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Clever :)</comment>