
Homeschooling as a right, and a needed practical alternative - jgord
https://quantblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/homeschooling-as-a-right-and-a-practical-alternative/
======
jstewartmobile
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.

~~~
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 - those
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)

~~~
stared
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.)

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

------
notdonspaulding
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_.

~~~
r00fus
> 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.

~~~
joeclark77
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.

~~~
dpark
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.

~~~
tropo
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

~~~
dpark
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.

------
vivekd
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.

~~~
justinlaster
>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.

~~~
phil21
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.

~~~
justinlaster
>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.

~~~
throwaway729
_> 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.

------
claar
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)

~~~
mundo
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.

~~~
marssaxman
The lines are not so clear. My parents started out as the former and evolved
into the latter.

~~~
ScottBurson
Please elaborate. Why did that happen?

~~~
marssaxman
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.

------
valine
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.

~~~
petertodd
...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.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> ...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...

------
cmurf
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.

~~~
NoGravitas
Public schools in the US aren't (primarily) funded by income taxes. They're
primarily funded by local property taxes.

~~~
cmurf
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.

------
taeric
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.

~~~
space_fountain
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.

~~~
asddddd
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.

~~~
pasquinelli
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.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I think I'd rather trust the parents, but I think you get no guarantees with
either group.

------
rabboRubble
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/)

~~~
dsabanin
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.

~~~
rabboRubble
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.

------
Taylor_OD
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.

~~~
TrevorJ
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.

~~~
Taylor_OD
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.

------
pklausler
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?

~~~
claar
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.

~~~
20years
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.

------
yakhat
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.

~~~
eropple
Turn on showdead if you're worried about it.

------
shirro
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.

~~~
timthorn
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.

------
justabystander
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.

------
threeseed
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.

~~~
babyrainbow
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...

~~~
KallDrexx
> 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.

~~~
babyrainbow
>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..

------
ArlenBales
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.

------
joshfraser
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.

------
cmurf
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.

------
justinlaster
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.

~~~
joelhooks
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.

~~~
justinlaster
I mean, that's a fairly lofty claim considering what I wrote. Would you care
to point out some examples?

~~~
joeclark77
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.

~~~
justinlaster
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.

~~~
joeclark77
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.

~~~
justinlaster
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.

------
pnathan
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.

~~~
petertodd
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 - same
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.

~~~
pnathan
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.

------
h4nkoslo
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/)

------
ilaksh
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.

------
alkonaut
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.

------
twblalock
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.

~~~
Turing_Machine
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.

~~~
baobrain
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?

~~~
Turing_Machine
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.

------
lawless123
I disagree , i think an education is a right , not homeschooling

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

------
wehadfun
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

------
vacri
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

~~~
jgord
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.

~~~
vacri
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. :)

~~~
jgord
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.

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

~~~
jgord
ok, fair enough .. will try to spellcheck more carefully.

Thanks for specifics.

------
Glyptodon
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.

~~~
Turing_Machine
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.

~~~
DasIch
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.

~~~
PerfectElement
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.

