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Sunday, March 09, 2008
Homeschoolers in trouble
Listening to Rush Limbaugh the other day, a woman called in to tell him that, as everyone should know, homeschooled children outperform not just government-schooled children, but their private-schooled counterparts as well.
Nothing about that struck me as surprising--after all, homeschooling has all the incentives and ingredients for success. Parents have, in general, the right attitude or disposition toward their children (they sincerely care for their children), that attitude or disposition means they have the right motivation to ensure their children's success (to care for x is to be attuned to the welfare of x, and to be disposed to act in ways that benefit the cared-for object*), and they are sensitive to, and have particular knowledge about, their children's peculiarities and special needs in a way that no civil servant is (they have what Hayek called local knowledge--not general knowledge that might be called "scientific," but specialized knowledge about particular circumstances and details**).
What did strike me as surprising was what she said next: homeschooled children in jurisdictions with fewer regulations outperform homeschooled children in jurisdictions with more regulations. Of course, we'll have to look this up, and my google-ing skills were not up to snuff for this purpose. But this general claim does not matter for our purposes--what matters, given the latest blow to home schooling in California--is whether or not parents with a teaching certificate, or training in a government-approved teaching college, are better able to teach their children than parents without such training.
And I can confidently announce that no, they don't. Parents without "formal" education training do just as well as their "formally"-trained counterparts.
Given this, it's just a waste of money, time, and energy for parents to have to get trained in teaching at state-approved teaching centres. Nevertheless, a judge in California recently ruled that parents must get certified in order to do what parents have done for hundreds of years--teach their own children. Judge Walter H. Crosky wrote, in his ruling, that, "California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children." He also wrote that parents who educate their own children without state credentials will be subject to criminal action. They'll be locked up, even if their kids are better-educated, more knowledgeable, and better-adjusted than their peers.
Thankfully, the Governator has stepped up: "Every California child deserves a quality education and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. He continued, "Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don't protect parents' rights then, as elected officials, we will."
Good for him. He's got empirical evidence on his side, and the arguments against homeschooling are not "arguments," they're bugaboos.
Let me just add one more bugaboo to the list: Homeschooled children have social skills that are either at the same level, or superior to, their government- and privately-educated peers. "Really?" Yes, really. "But they don't get the benefits of gov-run schools! Like being tossed in the garbage can for being smart, or getting incessantly bullied for reading books that are not assigned, or be mercilessly accosted for being too fat, too thin, insufficiently athletic, or cool. And how do they get their fashion sense if not from the brutalities of the hallways-cum-runways that is the modern-day highschool? In short, how do they get that all-important sense of what it means to be cool and hip and trendy?" ... Uhm, good point. You're right, homeschooled kids won't learn what it is like to be mauled for being or wanting to be smart. And it will remain a mystery as to how homeschooled children will ever learn to tell the difference between genuine and fake Coach handbags. Chalk one up for the government. Because when it comes to bullies, beauties, and brutalities, nothing compares to the inner-city government-run school.
So why the opposition to homeschooling, and why the constant insistence on regulations that have no--absolutely no--grounding in empirical fact? Why insist that parents get what amounts to a totally useless piece of government paper that lets everyone know they are gov-approved educators? The answer is neat and simple: government schools are protecting their market share, and the bureaucrats with pencils are protecting their jobs.
* Often, we use "care" in the sense of "not being indifferent." But caring has a deeper and more significant possible analysis--to care for or about x is to be disposed to a) have certain emotional reactions on the basis of judgments about whether x is doing better or worse and b) act in ways that we believe will benefit the cared-for object. And all of this we do for the sake of the cared-for object, rather than for some other reason. With respect to a), we are attuned to the up-and-down fortunes of x in such a way that, when we judge that things go well for x, then things go well for us, and when we judge that things go poorly for x, things go poorly for us. For more on this analysis of caring, see David Shoemaker's remarkable paper "Caring, Identification, and Agency" in Ethics, or pick up Harry Frankfurt's "The Importance of What we Care About."
**"...a little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active cooperation."
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on March 9, 2008 | Permalink
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Comments
Government schools socialize children the way prisons socialize criminals.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 9-Mar-08 4:40:35 PM
My first response to those who "defensively demand" to know why we homeschool our boys is: Why is YOUR first choice Institutionalization of YOUR children?
The bottom line: Many people, especially in Kanada, realy believe that the state knows better....sad. G.
Posted by: Gorram | 9-Mar-08 4:55:48 PM
Right you are. Having a teacher certificate/diploma does not ensure the ability to teach. That is a first and basic point, and when one adds teachers' unions into the mix it gets worse. Let us not forget either the selection of school books used. When someone with the ability to teach is able to select the books/material to be used learning actually occurs. State imposed books/material are pretty pathetic on a whole.
Posted by: Alain | 9-Mar-08 4:59:13 PM
Slight (well actually big) problem with achievement testing is that public and private schools have mandatory testing requirements while home schooled participation is voluntary.
You wind up comparing all students (smart and dumb) with mostly smart so of course the statistics will be skewed .
Posted by: Nbob | 9-Mar-08 6:52:44 PM
Home schooling is illegal in California. Most home schoolers are Christians and all they know to do is fearmonger. Just look at this as an example!
http://www.cftie.org/2007/12/sb-777-will-per.html
Posted by: Larry | 9-Mar-08 9:22:07 PM
I can not imagine home schooling being any worse than the public system.I know intelligent kids that graduated last year. They are poor readers,terrible spellers and if the batteries fell out of their calculators they would have real problems.There is too much social engineering in the whole system and the basics have been lost.
Posted by: peterj | 9-Mar-08 10:01:36 PM
I taught in the government funded and directed system for 37 years. During that time I encountered children who had been homeschooled for most of their school careers. They came to a public high school to take advantage of the science courses and labs that were available. None of them were from families that had great financial resources. What these families had in common was ambition to succeed and a great passion to do what was best for their children.
My sample was not large but it was instructive. These young people were in the upper portions of each of their classes. They were far better at social interaction than their counterparts and they were well liked by all the teachers as well as by their contemporaries.
The Department of Education is a huge bureaucracy and it is self-perpetuating. Yes, there are many of these bureaucrats who sincerely believe that they are doing their best for the children. They know nothing else and choose to know nothing else. Teachers, for the most part, also want the best for their students and work very hard to that end. They also see little alternative and have bought into the anti-homeschooling propaganda.
One last note, check out the Social Studies courses in the province of Alberta. They are just atrocious and at the high school level should be labelled "Propaganda 10,20 and 30.
Posted by: DML | 9-Mar-08 10:53:13 PM
Incredible read.
Great insights.
If only more people could see this content, we might be able to set our children -- and their parents -- free from the Government Warehouse Publik Skools...AND their "private" captive emulators!
Posted by: peter jarl | 9-Mar-08 11:52:35 PM
For a Canadian angle, here's a link to the Home School Legal Defence Association of Canada:
http://www.hslda.ca/default.aspx
As for the post, I'm impressed by Schwarzenegger.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 9-Mar-08 11:55:41 PM
Whether or not home schooled kids outperform their public, or private, counterparts, should be irrelevant. Nobody know what's best for your kids than you the parent.
It is impossible that a government public system could teach the principles of freedom and limited government, when doing so threatens the very bureaucracy that is responsible for it. And it is also impossible that the most powerful union in the country would alllow curriculum that threatens it in any way.
I read my grade nine daughter's social book the other day and it spends about 10 pages talking about the different economic systems around the world, carefully seeming objective but actually promoting a "mixed economy." This is code for socialism I think. Anyway, this same book spent 20 pages on unions. That's like using 10 pages describing how to build a house and 20 on why you should lock your doors.
I say we shoud promote the separation of school & state. The state has NO RIGHT in telling me what I should teach my kids.
Posted by: TM | 10-Mar-08 12:02:07 AM
I dated a grade 10 english teacher for a number of years. Whenever we socialized with other teachers and the topic of homeschooling came up the math and science teachers usually said they couldn't see any difference. Not so with the english and social studies teachers.
There was no difference in spelling,grammar and punctuation but when it came time to use those tools critically the homeschooled were usually far behind.
If she gave out an assignment like an essay " what I did on summer vacation" she could detect no difference but if it was an essay "x is better than y- agree or disagree" the homers had more difficulties constructing solid arguments to support their position.
The teachers thought that was probably because the homers hadn't the same level of exposure to the to and fro of classroom debate - e.g. Student 1 : " X is right because Z" --#2: " no, Z is a fallacy " --#3 " it may be a fallacy but that doesn't mean it's wrong because studies show..." --#4 " but the sample of those studies was too small to be useful" etc.
Sure enough after a few months of exposure to that most the kids picked up on what was and wasn't a good argument and the gap narrowed significantly.
Posted by: Nbob | 10-Mar-08 1:59:35 AM
nbob- your teacher friend's experience may well be legitimate but it was not the same as mine. I marked Social Studies grade 12 diploma exams for years. On many occasions the students could not address the issue and shifted to answer something else. If their were enough respondents in this predicament, the provincial examiners would change so that we would mark what was offered. The desired provincial average was thus maintained and incompetence was rewarded. Many students could not put together a reasonable argument. What is worse- they couldn't do a good job of exploring the issue and that is precisely what they were supposed to be taught to do.
Posted by: DML | 10-Mar-08 11:25:24 AM
Our 14 year old is very intelligent but seem to care not a whit about school. He told me "All they do is tell us what to think and then regurgitate it for the tests" Bright boy.
Our 10 year old just did a project on the construction of the St Lawrence Seaway as part of a class project. In it she states that "the Government of canada had to ask for permission from the US Government to build it. Then they had to kick a lot of people out of their homes...that was too bad for them"
She now thinks its ok for Governments to steal property. Sad sad sad....
Posted by: JC | 12-Mar-08 8:17:21 AM
There are several reasons why the students who have been home-schooled are at an advantage to those in the government run schools.
The main one is that there are certain students who will perform better than the average in any system. Students who are home-schooled are, for the most part, children of conservative religious parents. The homes are generally more stable, there is an emphasis on trying to get along with others and to sacrifice for others, the parents are humble enough to get by on one income, Dad often is professionally successful to support several children, the parents care enough about their children's future to invest time and money in alternatives, being a nerd is not discouraged, indivdual responsibility is a virtue, and a work ethic is both respected and encouraged. None of these advantages guarantee success, but, taken together, they do explain the advantage of the home environment in which most home schooled children live. These students would probably perform better in the government run schools as well.
We have home schooled our 7 children. Those who know little about it wonder how we do it all. An analogy can be made with building a house. Very few people own a saw mill, or any metals mines, or can manufacture ceramics or drywall. Those who choose to "build" their own house actually do not "build" it - they merely "assemble" it. In education, there are many materials available for sale from private organizations that cater to the home schooling market. The curriculum is not "made" by the parents; it is simply "chosen". The teaching of the curriculum may be done by the parents themselves, by tutors, or by teachers in a private school (video/DVD).
The reason that home schooled children are so much more advanced socially is that they are not peer-segregated as they are in the government run schools. They have the advantage of socializing in an environment that mimics society, the family, and business. Therefore, home schooled students will do better socially in these three areas and will probably not do as well in an age-segregated environment.
Posted by: Brent Weston | 12-Mar-08 11:15:42 AM
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