Washington Post series on homeschooling

[bea]

A bunch of the articles are fundie-adjacent or about fundies. 

I have a Washington Post account so I'm gifting the articles that involve the SOTDRT and fundies. 

How a true believer’s flawed research helped legitimize home schooling

The revolt of the Christian home-schoolers

Edited December 19, 2023 by bea
update links

[bea]

(Also I am putting it here because that's where I think the people who are interested in this hang out, but I am happy to move it if necessary - I get 8 free articles a month, so anyone interested in this series, I'm happy to continue gifting articles.)

[Baxter]

@bea thank you! They were both very interesting reads. It would be great if you could share the rest. 

[noseybutt]

5 hours ago, bea said:

A bunch of the articles are fundie-adjacent or about fundies. 

I have a Washington Post account so I'm gifting the articles that involve the SOTDRT and fundies. 

How a true believer’s flawed research helped legitimize home schooling

The revolt of the Christian home-schoolers

The article about the Ray research is very well done. His research has loooong been criticized for sampling problems—he was cherry picking his families and then generalizing far beyond that. Dontgetmegoing

Money quote:

A 2016 federal survey, by contrast, found 41 percent of home-schoolers were not White, 56 percent had parents with less than a Bachelor’s degree, and 21 percent were living in poverty.

 

 

[bea]

What home schooling hides: A boy tortured and starved by his stepmom

 

This is not about fundies, but it involves the lack of accountability around homeschooling and the fact that kids can just be literally not educated.

The Christian home-schooler who made ‘parental rights’ a GOP rallying cry

About Michael Fariss, the giant creep who started Patrick Henry College - if you haven't read "God's Harvard" by Kathryn Joyce, you should, it's fascinating.

In Michigan, a new push for greater home-schooling rules, oversight

Turns out people get concerned when kids go uneducated and/or die because no one knows they exist.

Edited December 19, 2023 by bea

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

A friend of mine who taught upper level HS math in a semi-rural area told me over 30 years ago she could always tell who in her math classes had been home schooled.* These were kids who joined public school as juniors/ seniors in order to get a state HS diploma for college applications. She had at least 1-2 in every one of her classes for years.

She said::

1.  They were not prepared at all for upper level math or much beyond basic math (8th grade/ pre-algebra)

2.  They were convinced of their education superiority and convinced of their math education prowess/ superiority even when shown to be giving the wrong answers.

3.  They would argue with the teacher that their wrong answer was correct and that the teacher was wrong.

4.  They had very poor social and interpersonal skills.

5.   It did no good to speak with the parents as they too were convinced the child was a math genius, and that the teacher was just wrong and should just pass the young genius with the "A" they so obviously deserved.

 

* You may decide for yourself if the home schooling was designed to keep the child away from the evil world and its evil influences and was heavily religiously-based.

Hint:  Yes. Yes it was.

 

[bea]

If there's any more of the articles that reference fundies, I'll put them in this thread.

(For the record, I have NYT and WaPo accounts and can gift articles from either, so if anyone has an article they're dying to read, hit me up.)

[Howl]

On 12/19/2023 at 2:41 PM, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

A friend of mine who taught upper level HS math in a semi-rural area told me over 30 years ago she could always tell who in her math classes had been home schooled.

Ditto with someone I know who taught English at the community college level. 

She taught a remedial English class  at the local community college one summer relatively recently, and had to fail all three homeschooled students in her class. 

They didn't understand what a syllabus was and how to  follow it.  They didn't understand  that completing assignments as described and  on time was a requirement, and due dates weren't optional.  They were truly clueless about any form of structured education and their basic English proficiency (writing and grammar skills) were not sufficient to move on to a regular English class.  Since they couldn't sort out what was required, reading comprehension was also lacking. 

This is in a state with zip for home school oversight. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Howl

[hoipolloi]

Thank you, @bea, for sharing these articles. I am just glad to see some of this stuff hit the mainstream press, finally.

Could I wish for deeper dives & more pointed analyses? Sure, but as long as people are being made of aware of WTF is going on with homeschooling, primarily pushed or carried out by Christian Nationalists, it's all to the good.

[JermajestyDuggar]

One aspect that I think should be illegal is allowing parents to immediate unenroll their kids in school if the school staff reported them to CPS. There have been instances where a child showed signs of abuse, the teacher reported, and the parents immediately took the kid out of school to “homeschool.” That’s a huge red flag and it should be allowed to happen. 

[hoipolloi]

41 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

One aspect that I think should be illegal is allowing parents to immediate unenroll their kids in school if the school staff reported them to CPS. There have been instances where a child showed signs of abuse, the teacher reported, and the parents immediately took the kid out of school to “homeschool.” That’s a huge red flag and it should be allowed to happen. 

Hard agree. That should be part of a federal law that all states & territories have to follow. 

Pulling the kids out of public school in order to "homeschool" them was a big part of the Hart family annihilation.

[JermajestyDuggar]

26 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

Hard agree. That should be part of a federal law that all states & territories have to follow. 

Pulling the kids out of public school in order to "homeschool" them was a big part of the Hart family annihilation.

There are actually a lot of child abuse situations that lead to murder where they had taken the child out of school to homeschool and it escalated. Which led to the murders.

[KSmom]

On 12/19/2023 at 2:41 PM, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

A friend of mine who taught upper level HS math in a semi-rural area told me over 30 years ago she could always tell who in her math classes had been home schooled.* These were kids who joined public school as juniors/ seniors in order to get a state HS diploma for college applications. She had at least 1-2 in every one of her classes for years.

She said::

1.  They were not prepared at all for upper level math or much beyond basic math (8th grade/ pre-algebra)

2.  They were convinced of their education superiority and convinced of their math education prowess/ superiority even when shown to be giving the wrong answers.

3.  They would argue with the teacher that their wrong answer was correct and that the teacher was wrong.

4.  They had very poor social and interpersonal skills.

5.   It did no good to speak with the parents as they too were convinced the child was a math genius, and that the teacher was just wrong and should just pass the young genius with the "A" they so obviously deserved.

 

* You may decide for yourself if the home schooling was designed to keep the child away from the evil world and its evil influences and was heavily religiously-based.

Hint:  Yes. Yes it was.

 

I have a unique perspective here- I homeschooled my kids and tutored math for 25 years. Many of my students were homeschoolers. They pretty much fell into two categories: parents who were serious about their child’s education and sought outside help for subjects they weren’t able to teach and parents who had neglected math (and often science) and were scrambling for a miracle to catch their child up. I had many students and parents who displayed the above behaviors. One of my saddest was a 17 year old who wanted to study civil engineering and was barely doing pre-algebra. I only met with him once because his mom decided I was too far away to drive weekly, about 20 minutes. I have no idea if mom followed up on any of my suggestions.

[Columbia]

2 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

One aspect that I think should be illegal is allowing parents to immediate unenroll their kids in school if the school staff reported them to CPS. There have been instances where a child showed signs of abuse, the teacher reported, and the parents immediately took the kid out of school to “homeschool.” That’s a huge red flag and it should be allowed to happen. 

West Virginia proposed that bill after a child was killed under similar circumstances; they called it Raylee's Law. HSLDA pitched a fit and the bill never passed.

[JermajestyDuggar]

56 minutes ago, Columbia said:

West Virginia proposed that bill after a child was killed under similar circumstances; they called it Raylee's Law. HSLDA pitched a fit and the bill never passed.

Bethany Wissmann Beasley’s husband works at HSLDA and lives in WV. So I’m sure he was a big part of that fit thrown. 

[bea]

New one today, about oversight.

Home-schoolers dismantled state oversight. Now they fear pushback.

Turns out that the homeschoolers don't want the money from the state under "school choice" laws if it means they have to....uh.  Tell people their kids exist, or prove that their kids are learning something.

Edited December 29, 2023 by bea

[FilleMondaine]

The Guardian wrote a piece about homeschooling just a couple of days ago. As a UK paper (with US branch), it was really interesting. I cannot link, because I just had a bilateral mastectomy (double chop) and I’m just tired. Sorry.

Yet, I wanted to use a bit of energy to write how much I agree with the need for oversight. I was almost homeschooled so that my crappy mother could harm me with impunity. Luckily, it was the early 90s and before HSLDA had really grown, and the work and the oversight made my mum abandon it. On the outside, we were awesome, yet the signs were being picked up by teachers.

I am glad that this is getting more news. I was protected by the laws at the time, and I know many more recent kids were not.

 

 

[apple1]

@FilleMondaine Sending my good thoughts and prayers (20+ year survivor here).

[Jasmar]

17 hours ago, bea said:

New one today, about oversight.

Home-schoolers dismantled state oversight. Now they fear pushback.

Turns out that the homeschoolers don't want the money from the state under "school choice" laws if it means they have to....uh.  Tell people their kids exist, or prove that their kids are learning something.

This is true. I have a personal story of this, myself! The first year we started homeschooling (2004, I think), there was a very well run co-op in our town offering all different kinds of classes, supported by the local public school system, at no cost. Unlike the other two co-ops in the area, they didn’t require a referral and/or passing thoroughly obnoxious interviews (I turned one down because they only allowed Christians, and a certain kind of Christian). So my oldest was able to take some awesome classes with really talented teachers, and we were really excited for the opportunities the kids would have. 

Until spring term, that is. We got emails from the leadership explaining that they were disbanding rather than submit to the state’s requirement that kids in classes supported by public money do standardized testing at the end of every year. Our state required testing at the end of grades 3, 5, 8, and 10 for homeschoolers already, so this was not a big deal. At all. The testing was laughably simplistic, and the kids only had to score in the 15th percentile to pass. So the objection was purely to increased state oversight. 

We were disgusted and appalled. It still makes me mad when I think about it!

[Ozlsn]

From the article:

Families for Alternative Instruction Rights in South Dakota, a home-schooling advocacy group, put out an action alert this month warning home-school parents that they “will be facing hostile legislation in Pierre coming from bureaucrats who think they own the kids.”

This really annoys me. You don't "own" your kids and resisting any oversight on those grounds is a huge red flag to me.

The debate is over state-funded Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs. Unlike vouchers, which only cover private-school tuition, ESA money can be used for a wide range of expenses. Parents have used them not only for textbooks and tutors, but trampolines and theme park tickets.

Yeah I would love to see the justification on the last one. "We were studying physics, practically!"

[Caroline]

One summer I was taking a walk on the beach with my husband. A friend on the other side of the street (We were on a sidewalk) yelled something to me in French. I responded in French. This woman with a little boy of about six who was walking towards us stopped us and explained that her son was homeschooled and was ALWAYS learning, even in summer! It sounded to her like I spoke French and could I teach her son a few words? I was thinking, 'Right here on the beach? You don't even know me. Lady, you're kind of strange and I hope your kid's social skills are a little better than yours.' I explained to her that I also had a child and she went to the local public school and is also ALWAYS learning, even in summer.  The woman reminded me of the above mentioned homeschool parents who think their kids are so unusual. We continued to walk, and maybe I suggested that she investigate Duolingo or something like that. 

When certain homeschoolers imply that kids don't really learn much in public schools these days as their reason for homeschooling I get a little crazy. When our daughter was born, I let my husband know that we would be the main teachers in her life, making sure she could read and supplementing her reading at home, paying for someone to teach her to play a musical instrument and so many other things. I've been a public school teacher for 41.5 years, and schools cannot do it all, especially with the myriad emotional problems of all age groups right now. Unfortunately, a lot of parents don't know that and don't always supplement their kids' education by at least making sure that they are read to and read and do not spend too much time with video games and phones. It's every parent's job to communicate with their kids' teachers and to be their kids' main educational advocate, doing whatever they can to enrich their child's academic life. And when parents have not been involved enough in a practical way and their kids are not as successful as they could be, it's STILL the school's fault. 

I know that not all schools and school districts are equal (a crime, in my opinion), but we owe it to our children to push them, make them do their schoolwork, limit screen time, encourage them to read, read, and read some more. 

I'm also an advocate of whatever works for in individual child (homeschool, private school, or public school), but do it responsibly and for your child's sake. Enough of my rant. I will be retiring in five months, and am concerned about my much younger colleagues. They're stressed and many are unlikely to stick with teaching for as long as I have. It's just too hard right now. 

[Bassett Lady]

34 minutes ago, Caroline said:

I'm also an advocate of whatever works for in individual child (homeschool, private school, or public school), but do it responsibly and for your child's sake. Enough of my rant.

I appreciate your rant. 
 

Putting kids first and providing an excellent education should be the goal. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I will always recognize my extreme privilege that I can be a stay at home mom. Because it’s my CHOICE. Some women are basically forced to SAH because the money they make wouldn’t cover the childcare bills. Since I’m able to SAH, I can volunteer at my children’s school. I love being able to help out the teachers. I want their jobs to be less stressful. Because it just means they will stay in the profession longer. We are so lucky that there isn’t a ton of teacher turnover in their elementary school. It’s so good for the kids to have that stability. To have a lot of the same staff in the school year after year. For my kids to have a lot of the same teachers so I already know them and can communicate with them. I wish all schools had all the same advantages, stability, and support for kids. 

[Hane]

@Caroline, amen! Kids do best when there’s a healthy level of communication and mutual support between parents and teachers.

One problem I’ve seen in many bigger public schools is that the school buildings, number of teachers/administrators, and student populations get so big that communication breaks down, to everyone’s detriment. This happens in both impoverished and upper-middle-class school districts, and I’ve seen it firsthand.

The ideal would be more, smaller schools in the students’ neighborhoods, but we know that isn’t going to happen because of the perceived financial benefits of the “economy of scale” that occurs when school districts opt to consolidate students into fewer, bigger buildings.

[Ozlsn]

On 12/30/2023 at 4:52 AM, FilleMondaine said:

The Guardian wrote a piece about homeschooling just a couple of days ago. As a UK paper (with US branch), it was really interesting. I cannot link, because I just had a bilateral mastectomy (double chop) and I’m just tired. Sorry.

I got interested - The Guardian piece is here.

"The potential for harm inherent in the US system is not replicated in other countries. Home schooling is effectively banned altogether in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain, while Bartholet said most countries that do allow it enforce strict monitoring, which can include home visits by teachers, and require home schoolers to follow the standard school curriculum. (Bartholet said the UK is rare in having relatively little oversight.)

“I think a lot of the people [in the US] promoting the current unregulated regime in home schooling are saying: ‘Parents should have this absolute right to bring up their kids free of government intervention,’” Bartholet said.

“And the rest of the world doesn’t think that way. I think the rest of the world is much more ready to see children as having rights. They don’t see adults as having as sacrosanct a right to be left alone by the government. They see adults as more part of the community and having responsibilities for children, not just rights vis-a-vis children.”"

That sums up the differences in thought quite well.