“Do not spank children in public” and “Do not spank someone else’s child unless they are close Christian friends.”
What is an educated population? What is economic opportunity? What is a diverse, robust economic structure that can adapt and respond to natural and technological challenges?
These are the issues successful countries deal with in setting education policy, yet the policy wedge of anti-science religious groups seem to predominate. Conceivably, home schooling could succeed, especially if both parents are Nobel Laureates or at least know something about where “leading out” ends up in the fully formed adult. But this is not what is happening. Let’s grant Lant Pritchett’s maxim that “schooling ain’t learning” necessarily and work to create a system that develops minds and bodies fit for the novel problem-solving and adaptation that will benefit mankind and natural systems in coming decades.
Good luck getting Johnny into a good college when all he knows is a bunch of Bible stories.
They’ll go to Christian colleges. They’ll be hired by corporations like Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A.
Home-schooled kids often get really good educations, actually, but a minority run ad hoc orphanages, frequently out of the goodness of their hearts, and can’t handle raising kids with severe developmental disabilities or behavioral problems in a home where they’ve set out to accept everybody in need. These sorts of situations can turn into real disciplinary problems. And if there’s no oversight or help for those parents, who are trying to do something that requires far more resources than their family has, things can get very dark.
Even parochial schools have entrance standards.
Some do, usually when one or both parents are educators. Often, homeschooling lacks rigor and rote.
It’s axiomatic: If DeVos is for it, it’s bad for education.
Do you think missing out on the social structure of a public school is a good or bad thing?
Tempted to actually try this:
Yea, that’s my kind of humor.
They don’t care about that. They just care about getting them into Liberty University (by Jerry Falwell), Regent University, or similar colleges.
These places are just straight up young-earth creationist politician mills. They have deep connections in state, local, and federal government to get their students into jobs. (example: http://archive.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/08/scandal_puts_spotlight_on_christian_law_school/)
What’s interesting is some of the schools often have very bright students with high standard testing scores. So they can learn everything they need to know to pass biology, science, government, etc, but they just ignore it.
Presumably the flip side of this story is that there are a dozen shell groups in the works that will take that public money and find a way to hand it out to the homeschoolers as some kind of educational “choice” non-profit grant-giving. I.e., money-laundering courtesy of DeVos.
The Christian Patriarchy Movement often doesn’t want their daughters to go to college at all. The Christian colleges often aren’t accredited and operate more like trade schools or community colleges.
They repeat that homeschooling provides a better education (on the basis of no data) but most homeschooled kids end up with the educational credentials of a high school drop out.
Eh, they’ll eventually get something passed that allows a religious (ie. Evangelical Christian-only) exemption to admission tests.
HSLDA represents the the fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers. They don’t want any oversight because the education they provide is worse than substandard. And they don’t want anyone looking at the abuse of their kids. Even families that don’t beat their kids regularly, in large families, the older daughters have huge chore responsibilities, often including helping teach their younger siblings.
There’s a blog, Where Cows and Kids Collide that details some of this. You can find a lot of criticism of HSLDA at Homeschoolers Anonymous, which is run by people brought up in the Christian homeschooling cult.
If there’s no public money involved, the likelihood of avoiding regulation gets better.
The moment someone brings up religion and education, I think slavery and mind control.
It’s entirely possible for a good home-schooler to provide the socialization and exposure to diversity to their children. I see the involvement of public money as the reason for regulation, indeed, as the fire-wall against deregulation. Taking the argument into the actual make-up of the educational opportunities offered by home school, public school, etc. is a hopeless quagmire.