Education

[dknv]

Originally Posted by knucklesplitter

In today's economy I think that is already happening.

Agreed! Also, they are waving signs ...

[ScottyS]

Originally Posted by Kevin M

Social group segmentation is a function of human behavior, it is not because of dumping kids into a classroom together. The only thing that prevents it is isolating children to those same social groups altogether.

I still don't see the advantage of home schooling. What exactly does it provide that traditional public education lacks? And why cant parents provide those things as an addendum to the educational system rather than trying to completely bear the burden themselves?

Nobody said that homeschooling isolates children from interaction with others. Data show that they are in fact more capable of dynamic interaction outside of their demographic. This has also been my personal observation. Good thing you said that social segmentation is a natural human function - the synthetic environment of the public school in many instances brings out the worst of this tendency, in my opinion.

Besides all of the resultant advantages I already referenced that can be observed and measured, homeschooling gives the parent the ability to choose the curriculum, the learning pace (faster or slower), schedule, and far more control over the child's focus and drive. Being able to tailor these things to the individual child is something that high teacher/student ratios give, and public education cannot. In fact, they will not. It is the focus of public education to try to make all students function as similarly as possible, not cater to diversity so that each child can excel to their unique ability. Classes would not function if every student was taught at their ideal pace, and with techniques that fitted them best.

I think that you are missing something: those parents seriously considering this WANT to be able to do this, it is not a burden but rather an interest and goal. Depending on which state you are in, political, social, and economic discrimination hinders many from being able to do it. Your addendum comment doesn't make sense: why send a child to public school for several hours, and then spend several hours more trying to undo the crap and methods that they learned there?

Bottom line, if you are fine with the State, some clueless 23yo education major, and peer groups raising your kids in an environment that you have no control over - fine, go for it. Nobody is stopping you and the system is happy to have your child there. But, in this country, we still have the theoretical freedom to manage our own kids' education ourselves (novel idea!), so fighting for less discrimination in this field is worthwhile, especially since all measurable metrics show a HUGE positive difference.

[Kevin M]

Given that my wife is a teacher, I'm finding your assertions about public education and how the system really works to be more disturbing than you're finding mine regarding the inability of 97% of parents to properly educate a child.

[ScottyS]

Originally Posted by Kevin M

Given that my wife is a teacher, I'm finding your assertions about public education and how the system really works to be more disturbing than you're finding mine regarding the inability of 97% of parents to properly educate a child.

You have your experiences, I have mine. I'm not listing mine in the interest of not making this personal, but rest assured, I am not speaking from the position of the uninformed. That's not a card I need to play in this discussion.

React to the data, not to the emotion.

[Kevin M]

You're right, this isn't worth making personal and I'm not interested in that either. But some of your statements about the people in education were very cynical and not true. The low pay of teachers right now pretty much guarantees that only people who really care about the profession actually move into it. My wife has dual BS degrees that worth be worth twice as much in a private field, but she really likes being a teacher. So the suggestion that public education fails because of the personnel involved is just not true. The main problem is that public education is such a political football, and a lot of people who aren't professional educators get to influence the system.

[ScottyS]

Originally Posted by Kevin M

You're right, this isn't worth making personal and I'm not interested in that either. But some of your statements about the people in education were very cynical and not true. The low pay of teachers right now pretty much guarantees that only people who really care about the profession actually move into it. My wife has dual BS degrees that worth be worth twice as much in a private field, but she really likes being a teacher. So the suggestion that public education fails because of the personnel involved is just not true. The main problem is that public education is such a political football, and a lot of people who aren't professional educators get to influence the system.

Heh, my cynical comments were simply based on the fact that I've been in a required curriculum department at the U for 10 years now, and I see a lot of different majors come through. I've met your wife, she is not my "typical education major". I believe that the public education failure is mostly due to letting government manage it - it does become the "political football" - and policy rarely is ever set by the on-the-ground personnel in any form of bureaucratic government (welcome to my world, actually). Oops, back to Spatial Analysis before the prof kills me.

[Kevin M]

Originally Posted by ScottyS

Heh, my cynical comments were simply based on the fact that I've been in a required curriculum department at the U for 10 years now, and I see a lot of different majors come through. I've met your wife, she is not my "typical education major". I believe that the public education failure is mostly due to letting government manage it - it does become the "political football" - and policy rarely is ever set by the on-the-ground personnel in any form of bureaucratic government (welcome to my world, actually). Oops, back to Spatial Analysis before the prof kills me.

Ah, I've been talking about K-12 mostly. As I led with in this thread, college is totally different, and I agree that the salaries and the research opportunities attract a lot of people who aren't really that dedicated to the product they turn out. Also, for K-12 educators, I'd say my wife actually is pretty close to the typical. At least for ones still young enough not to have been totally crushed by the system.

[100_Percent_Juice]

At least the police force will employ all those stupid dogs that drop out early.

[JC]

Originally Posted by sperry

Now I'm not advocating that all college level schooling should be free. But I would argue that if a person wants it, they should have access to at least a 2-year college type school, or a trade/apprenticeship type post high-school education paid for by my taxes. I know I'm sounding more and more socialist in these threads, but I firmly believe that properly educating everyone is the "magic bullet" that will make the difference between America's survival as a prominent world nation and becoming China's place to outsource their manufacturing over the next 100 years.

I have to agree with this. It's easy to say that everyone should be responsible for themselves but we are slowly building a society where it's difficult to find competent workers. I know some of you are manager level folks, what quality of people do you see come through when you interview? There are high school grads (many) in Nevada who can't spell or alphabetize. That's not good for anybody. Right know as a country we survive by importing a lot of our best workers from foreign countries but how long can that model sustain? I just got back from Beijing and let me tell you it's not so bad. The more advanced they get the more likely people will be to stay there instead of coming here.

We are not an economy that grows because of manufacturing and blue collar jobs, we are driven by innovation and information. Those are things that largely require a higher education. There are always stories of people that became rich with a high school diploma but I assure you they are the gross minority. The more that we gut our home grown work force the more we slow down our economy as a whole. It's easy to sit here and say people should work hard and figure it out on their own but the reality is a more educated America is better for all of us.

Originally Posted by ScottyS

This is funny, because I attended a symposium on Home Schooling today. The basis of Home Schooling, for the most part, is obviously the fact that both the consequences and products of government schooling do NOT work for everyone, and SHOULD not be forced on everyone. It has been 30 years since the start of the Home Schooling revolution, and the stats support the claims straight up.

When I was younger my mom took a temp job up in Alaska so I was home schooled for ~6 months during that time. We joined the local home schooling organization so I hung out with plenty of other kids who were home school. I've also known a half a dozen other kids later in life who were home schooled. I know it's a personal decision but I would implore you not to do it. Almost all the kids I knew were quite successful academically and were more often than not nice enough but trust me they were all "off" socially. School isn't just a place to learn it's a shared experience amongst the American populace. There is a whole frame of reference that our society and our societal norms are based on that they are missing.

Not to be cocky but I'm sure I'm one of the most educated people on this board and consequently I know a lot of people who are very successful academically. The thing most of them have in common is parents who helped and encouraged them academically when they were younger. By all means your should teach your kid on your own in addition to whatever school they attend, but homeschooling starts kids off a step behind in my experience.

JC

[ScottyS]

Originally Posted by JC

Not to be cocky but I'm sure I'm one of the most educated people on this board and consequently I know a lot of people who are very successful academically. The thing most of them have in common is parents who helped and encouraged them academically when they were younger. By all means your should teach your kid on your own in addition to whatever school they attend, but homeschooling starts kids off a step behind in my experience.

JC

Too bad about your experience. Mine has not been the same. I have known at least 100 homeschooled kids over the course of my life so far, and their levels of proficiency, adaptability, and capability are on average far better than the hundreds of public-educated people I have dealt with over the same time period. Again, my observations are consistent with national-level statistical results.

I don't normally talk about what I do for a living, but there is a distinct possibility that I am more integrated into academia than you are. For whatever that seems to be worth.

"Off" socially is a completely subjective measure. How many high school graduates today appear to be "off" socially? Depends on who you ask, doesn't it? It has been referenced in a round-about way earlier in the discussion, but I think we all know that stats between children and parents are highly autocorrelated. This has all sorts of implications, even when looking at the issue strictly subjectively, as most people tend to do.

Obviously, I would not be so informed on and interested in this topic if I had no personal experience with it. ;-)

[100_Percent_Juice]

I had several home schooled friends, all of which were behind compared to what I was learning in school. One of them was a year older than me and very much so a hard worker and always getting his work done way before it was due. He decided to join public school for personal reasons and he actually had to start in a grade lower. That is my experience. I have noticed that my little sisters age group (13-14) seems to be worse. I don't blame the work given to home school kids. I think it is a product of parents being too busy to devote to proper time to the task of being a teacher.

[Kevin M]

Originally Posted by 100_Percent_Juice

I think it is a product of parents being too busy to devote to proper time to the task of being a teacher.

This is my issue with home schooling. It's not the concept, it's the fact that few families can pull it off successfully. But it's really not that relevant to the debate. Public education needs to be improved, and private/charter/home education are kind of on the fringe and not really key to the well-being of our society as a whole.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by ScottyS

3) College degrees are pretty much literally handed out by the state schools to those who can pay and show up for classes. I have very little respect for the quality of education that goes into a 4-year degree, and even many graduate programs. I think I have worked with and supervised enough of the products of this system over the last 8 years to evaluate this in a reasonable manner. Most of the problem is that the state schools are revenue-driven, and student evaluations of faculty are highly influential in the annual review process.

I don't know if Nevada state schools are vastly different or what, but I went to Cal Poly and I can assure you nobody was just handing out engineering degrees to every warm body that filled a chair. It was a fucking hard program.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

I don't know if Nevada state schools are vastly different or what, but I went to Cal Poly and I can assure you nobody was just handing out engineering degrees to every warm body that filled a chair. It was a fucking hard program.

True. But you could get a liberal arts degree just by being there everyday. I had high school AP classes 10 times harder than my general ed courses at Cal Poly.

[ScottyS]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

I don't know if Nevada state schools are vastly different or what, but I went to Cal Poly and I can assure you nobody was just handing out engineering degrees to every warm body that filled a chair. It was a fucking hard program.

Haha, if we were all engineers and scientists, the world would either be wonderful place or a slowly-expanding cloud of dust right now....