The Problem With Finding Problems With Homeschooling.

I'm sure everyone noted YDD's exploration into why homeschooling isn't such a good idea, but perhaps as interesting is the somewhat deserved comment shredding he received. Strangely enough, I've got fairly mixed opinions on homeschooling.

On one hand, most people that I've known whom were homeschooled tend to be the least socially adjusted folks I've ever met. Especially in college, I noticed quickly that kids who saw their parents for hours a day being 'educated' were unable to socialize with kids whom didn't. Universally, the parents who decide to home school their kids tend to be the least connected with reality anyhow (see YDD's post for an explanation) and I think we can say without any uncertainty that when a homeschooling parent says that he's trying to "prevent his kid from being indoctrinated by the homosexual liberal evolution people, what they're really afraid of is their kid accepting reality more so than the parents, which would really ruin Christmas for some of these parents who think that accepting a little science and being forward thinking will grant you a one way ticket to the hellz. The natural danger to the child is pretty obvious. We're talking about a group of people that believe:

-The Earth is only 4000 years old.
-Evolution is racist.
-That Dan Proft is a hot, hot college coed
-The pill causes cancer.
-There is no such thing as economic poverty, there is only moral poverty.
-Jews are merely "unperfected Christians"

We can all be honest about it: A ton of homeschool environments are little more than the American Taliban's version of a madrassa, which is to say it's going to breed yet another 'tiny vocal minority' of people living the religious extremist life style. Keeping your kid out of regular schools, seems pretty extreme to me, amirite?




On the other hand, as these poor kids will have to go home at some point, I would imagine being dumb is probably in their best interest. I don't have a stat on me, but the cop gene says that the type of parents whom home school their children are probably more....shall we say....'Biblical' in their use of corporal punishment which translates nicely into abuse. That being said, if the parents are drunk from the Jeebus juice, the kids probably aren't going to come out into the real world all that well adjusted anyhow.

So it's a quandary: Either way the kids come whacked out of their noggins at no harm to society. I guess it's just a matter of whether it's better for the kid to be exposed to some modicum of reality while they're in their younger days.

There are, of course, completely good reasons to homeschool your kids as well. These tend to not be issues of 'values', but rather academic proficiency considerations. There are some kids whom are just way too slow for schools and there are some kids who are way too fast for regular schools. In those narrow circumstances, who really beefs with the idea of a parent recognizing their kid's handicap and/or doogiehowserdom and takes the initiative if other options aren't available.

Note: I know what you're doing. You're about hit "post comment" and tell me about all the medical doctors who choose to homeschool their kids, and how many well adjusted homeschooled brain surgeons you heard about on lifesitefamilyfaghatingnews.com. Save it. I'm not talking about the majority of homeschooling parents. You know. The crazy ones.

So call me distinctly on the side with the homeschoolers. Sure, my kids will still make fun of your kids. But I'm hard pressed to come up with a good reason to be against letting people teach their own kids. The statistics on where these kids stand academically are, understandably, murky. Public and private schools regularly produced screwed up and socially maladjusted kids, and ultimately - who are we to make any commentary on the legality of how you raise your kids, so long as it's not abusive.

And then there's this.

The Center on Education Policy (an advocacy group with an agenda to promote public schools over private schools) has released a study in which they conclude that private schools are really no better than public schools.

In all honesty, the folks at SayAnything were really digging into why such a study does not serve as an argument against school choice, but I think the core idea here is that we can test for basic reading/writing/math/etc. proficiency and that if there's limited statistical difference between public and private schools, thus as long as the parent doing the teaching isn't woefully stupid, home schooled kids will probably perform within the same range as kids from traditional schools. Naturally, that's because the ultimate point of standardized testing is to determine what you know and not whether or not how you learned it actually contributes to your ability to think critically - which is the most important thing, imo, about education to begin with.

That, if anything, might provide for the best argument on why in the correct set of circumstance homeschooling can potentially be at least as good as regular education. Which is mainly because...well...most schools aren't doing so good, anyhow.