[Yacht Rock]

@Yacht Rock that is the thing we keep thinking too. If they have a whole summer to prepare it will probably be much different. My wife's thing (since she wil be the one at home) is if they are at home she may as well find a curriculum that works best for them as opposed to whatever the school district decides. I love our daughter's school though. We are blessed with a very good public school situation. Our son is really looking forward to kindergarten there in the fall so maybe things will improve enough but I have my doubts which is why we will continue to weigh our options.

Yeah, there is certainly something to be said for retaining some control over the situation.

Choice is a huge motivator for both parents and students and I think this is one of the areas where the education system will have to change.

[Sly Fox]

There are MANY different reasons to homeschool. Our motivations were very different than most others with whom we run in the homechool communities here in Texas. We made the move from public school reluctantly and quickly realized that we had no interest in returning. Our current public school district is among the best in Texas but it still pales in comparison to what we can do elsewhere.

My only regret from the homeschooling experience has been that so many of the best Christian kids aren't letting their light shine in the darkness. But that is the only regret. Sure we have made a ton of mistakes and wasted money on curriculum that was not a good fit for our kids. But the investment of time and resources can't be quantified beyond seeing the finished results.

[Yacht Rock]

I think the big issue I have with homeschooling is that even the best curriculum doesn’t replace a good teacher.

Some homeschools are able to compensate for this through robust co-ops and other programs but not all are able to take advantage of that.

Now, in the end there will be positives and negatives to both sides and so much, in the end, will depend on all the ingredients that are being added to a student’s education.

Heck, I’m endorsed in the state of Virginia to teach Computer Science, Digital Design, Engineering, Shop, Business, Economics, Government, History, and English but I know for my own children, there are other teachers I want them to experience some of that content from.

[thepostman]

From what I understand, Texas is a really homeschooling friendly state that has got to help make the situation easier. Especially with the homeschooling community there.

Maryland is not as homeschool friendly but a lot of the red tape that is normally in place has been removed.

With that said, it seems the parents who so the best job homeschooling are the ones also involved with other homeschooling parents through co-op's. A lot of military families homeschool for obvious reasons so there is almost always a good homeschool community in places with a heavy military population.

[Purple Haize]

From what I understand, Texas is a really homeschooling friendly state that has got to help make the situation easier. Especially with the homeschooling community there.

Maryland is not as homeschool friendly but a lot of the red tape that is normally in place has been removed.

With that said, it seems the parents who so the best job homeschooling are the ones also involved with other homeschooling parents through co-op's. A lot of military families homeschool for obvious reasons so there is almost always a good homeschool community in places with a heavy military population.

The obvious key is parent engagement. Great teachers can’t really overcome disengaged parents but engaged parents can certainly overcome Crappy teachers.

[Yacht Rock]

In a perfect world, a hybrid approach would be more accepted.

Let's say you want to homeschool for core curriculum but have your child go to school to take one of my Computer Science classes or something. I think that should be possible.

Obviously, this could be challenging if a course is part of cross curricular studies, which is happening more and more, but I'm a huge fan of school choice and think the system should be as open as possible.

[Ill flame]

Homeschooled kids should also be able to participate in sports and other extracurricular activities (band, debate) offered at the local school district. I think that's a factor in why some families are reluctant to homeschool kids.

[Sly Fox]

Those are fighting words to Haize, Ill Flame.

If you are even considering homeschooling at all that indicates parental engagement. It is always easier to push them onto a bus and let somebody else worry about your kid's education. Regardless of what decision a family makes, parental involvement significant;y increases the chances of success.

We have done coops of all shapes & sizs over the years. The most significant one is the previously mentioned Classical Conversations (CC) that Mallet has referenced. They are nearly everywhere on the planet ad the first one we experienced was in Lynchburg of all places. Coops are meant to enhance the overall learning experience and provide social engagement. They are not intended to a be a cheap alternative to private schools. Sadly some treat them as such.

Teacher quality is less significant in the younger years but becomes more pronounced in secondary education. That's part of the reason we moved toward online classical education in high school. Our experience actually saw our kids be taught by Oxford, Cambridge & Harvard gards in our coops. The more educated folks become the more they want to manage their children's educational experience. Nearly all intellectual & athletic prodigies now homeschool. This allows flexibility to pursue aspirations not bound by waiting on the last kid in the class to figure something out to let the class move forward.

One cool aspect of choosing your own curriculum is you don't have to wait to move forward on education trends. We were doing Singapore math long before it caught on with privates and then publics. That gave our kids a competitive advantage in testing.

[Ill flame]

Is it controversial to say homeschooled kids should be allowed to play sports?

[thepostman]

Yes. Even though I agree with you, there are very strong opinions against it.

[Sly Fox]

Even here in Texas the hardcore homechoolers fight the Tebow Bill becuase it requires government oversight that it doesn't require of kids in public schools. I disagree but understand their indepedent spirit.

The public school snobs just want to take our tax dollars and then deny access to services in our attendance zone. Thry claim that because homechool sports exist out of necessity that we should follow the Jim Crow mantra of separate but equal.

Yes, it is a contentious issue. It shouldn't be.

[thepostman]

Yeah, I never really understood it either but such is life I guess.

[Class of 20Something]

I think the only way you can justify inaccessible public school sports is if the state financially assists the tax payers with school choice. That seems fair to me.

[Ill flame]

Even here in Texas the hardcore homechoolers fight the Tebow Bill becuase it requires government oversight that it doesn't require of kids in public schools. I disagree but understand their indepedent spirit.

The public school snobs just want to take our tax dollars and then deny access to services in our attendance zone. Thry claim that because homechool sports exist out of necessity that we should follow the Jim Crow mantra of separate but equal.

Yes, it is a contentious issue. It shouldn't be.

It makes sense that they would fight Government oversight that public schools kids don't need to deal with. Polling is overwhelmingly on homeschoolers side on this issue so i expect more progress. This seems like it should be such a non issue to me.

[RubberMallet]

So what parents are seeing isn't what a real week in a classroom would look like. I hope that parents don't jump into homeschooling based on what they are seeing now, lol, they might be in for a rude awakening.

in many cases they probably would be but on the flip side in many cases they shouldn't be. its purely a one on one evaluation that haas to be made. what many of our friends and their kids are experiencing, is what our kids experience all the time. We certainly fill the rest of the time with other learning opportunities But this is what we've experienced through grade school. The challenge certainly increases as we see jrhigh/Hsschool. my hs has about 5-6 hours of school work a day. My jr higher has about 3-4. Perhaps my children were just blessed with their mothers motivation and intellect but its been hardly a challenge and our kids move through their curriculum outside of minor things here or there pretty well. Our first child struggled with math until we found the right software. Our 2nd child hasn't really had much adversity and my 3rd struggles with attention stuff so there is little things here or there. not all flowers and rainbows but still so much more efficient comparitively.

so on the flip side, i think this is a great introduction into what homeschooling can be

[RubberMallet]

My only regret from the homeschooling experience has been that so many of the best Christian kids aren't letting their light shine in the darkness.

it took a while to process this but in the end i spoke at length with my dad who was a youth pastor for 30 years. his opinion (he was not for us homeschooling initially btw) was that its not crazy to not expose your children at their most critical cognitive development to the "darkness" at such a level. your job as a parent is to prepare them to face the darkness with the tools that equip them to handle it. sometimes it means exposing them here and there to it to see what it really is. but that doesn't mean just dumping them in the deep end. He said in his 30 years of being a youth pastor he's seen more kids succumb at early ages to the darkness than he cares to remember. he said i did see some that shined a light and it was special and very much something to behold seeing Christ work like that in some. But if you look at things purely statistically, those situations were clear anomalies. In the end its where have you felt God lead you to do with your families.

My wife and I were a product of being thrust into public education at early ages. There were bumps and scrapes but we made it through so noone who sends their kids to public schools should take the above as a slight in the least bit. I know the struggles and the work that goes in on the back end sending your kids into a secular education environment and i commend anyone who takes that on. my buddies 8 yr old the other night asked him what a rimjob was.

[RubberMallet]

I think the big issue I have with homeschooling is that even the best curriculum doesn’t replace a good teacher.

Some homeschools are able to compensate for this through robust co-ops and other programs but not all are able to take advantage of that.

Now, in the end there will be positives and negatives to both sides and so much, in the end, will depend on all the ingredients that are being added to a student’s education.

Heck, I’m endorsed in the state of Virginia to teach Computer Science, Digital Design, Engineering, Shop, Business, Economics, Government, History, and English but I know for my own children, there are other teachers I want them to experience some of that content from.

there are plenty of students who make their way successfully through school with a fleet of mediocre teachers (me being one of them). Great teachers are special, thats for sure, but having a "teacher" who can focus on a single or few individuals and pour their entire "career" into them is also a great asset. can i teach my kids physics as well as the local hs teacher could? probably not. but the internet is a great thing... the great equalizer in today homeschool age. curriculum and videos exist because of great teachers.

[Purple Haize]

The fact that inter scholastic sports for home school kids was compared to Jim Crow is why I’ve stayed out of that part of the debate. It’s a ridiculous and offensive comparison and offers no room for discussion.
That’s why I’m more interested in the curriculum side

[thepostman]

I'd really be interested to revisit that discussion at some point because it is an issue I never quite understood being so strongly against but this topic should be strictly about homeschool curriculum.

[Yacht Rock]

I think the big issue I have with homeschooling is that even the best curriculum doesn’t replace a good teacher.

Some homeschools are able to compensate for this through robust co-ops and other programs but not all are able to take advantage of that.

Now, in the end there will be positives and negatives to both sides and so much, in the end, will depend on all the ingredients that are being added to a student’s education.

Heck, I’m endorsed in the state of Virginia to teach Computer Science, Digital Design, Engineering, Shop, Business, Economics, Government, History, and English but I know for my own children, there are other teachers I want them to experience some of that content from.

there are plenty of students who make their way successfully through school with a fleet of mediocre teachers (me being one of them). Great teachers are special, thats for sure, but having a "teacher" who can focus on a single or few individuals and pour their entire "career" into them is also a great asset. can i teach my kids physics as well as the local hs teacher could? probably not. but the internet is a great thing... the great equalizer in today homeschool age. curriculum and videos exist because of great teachers.

I think therein lies the issue. Curriculum alone is only one part of teaching content and access to content doesn't make someone a good teacher.

In the business world I had candidates who knew X,Y,Z very well and were experts in their field. However, they couldn't explain X,Y,Z to anybody in a way that made sense to a novice.

There is a lot of nuance. Some homeschool parents are good at that. Some aren't. Just like some classroom teachers are good at that. Some aren't.

The one good thing that a parent has that takes a classroom teacher more time is an existing relationship with their child. They may be able to key in on how their student learns, etc a lot quicker than the classroom teacher. But that would take a homeschooling parent to understand what kind of questions to ask and what to observe about their own interactions with their student. Some are certainly keyed in on that. Some aren't.

[Yacht Rock]

So what parents are seeing isn't what a real week in a classroom would look like. I hope that parents don't jump into homeschooling based on what they are seeing now, lol, they might be in for a rude awakening.

in many cases they probably would be but on the flip side in many cases they shouldn't be. its purely a one on one evaluation that haas to be made. what many of our friends and their kids are experiencing, is what our kids experience all the time. We certainly fill the rest of the time with other learning opportunities But this is what we've experienced through grade school. The challenge certainly increases as we see jrhigh/Hsschool. my hs has about 5-6 hours of school work a day. My jr higher has about 3-4. Perhaps my children were just blessed with their mothers motivation and intellect but its been hardly a challenge and our kids move through their curriculum outside of minor things here or there pretty well. Our first child struggled with math until we found the right software. Our 2nd child hasn't really had much adversity and my 3rd struggles with attention stuff so there is little things here or there. not all flowers and rainbows but still so much more efficient comparitively.

so on the flip side, i think this is a great introduction into what homeschooling can be

I think though, as you stated earlier, is that your friend stated that their kids were getting through their current quarantine work very quickly, right?

I'm in a group of global educators (classroom teachers and administrators who are teaching through the quarantine) and most aren't assigning much to be done during the quarantine. The main reasons have to do with equity. While a homeschooling family is prepared to teach in their house as a regular part fo their routine, a student who goes from the classroom to their house was not prepared. It takes a lot of assumptions about a student's home environment (beyond something as simple as internet access) to assume that they can be educated at a normal level at home.

Now, that being said, even if students are home during the fall, their curriculum will not look the same as it does right now. I can promise you that.

Even if students are home full time or part time during next school year, I would assume (based on conversations I've had) that they will have work that much closer relates to being in school full time, unlike during this last quarter of school.

My point is, if parents are seeing what their kids are doing now and saying, "That's all they did in school?" they would be drawing the wrong conclusions based on the wrong data.

I'd also be concerned that they weren't plugged in to what their kids were doing pre-quarantine as well. Hopefully they should have been keyed in on their pre-quarantine workload as well as a form of comparison.

[Yacht Rock]

One cool aspect of choosing your own curriculum is you don't have to wait to move forward on education trends. We were doing Singapore math long before it caught on with privates and then publics. That gave our kids a competitive advantage in testing.

One of the things I love about being the only Computer Science teacher at my school is that it allows me to change curriculum on a dime. At least for me, it's not as slow moving as one would think.

It was part of the culture at Apple that one of the things that made it a successful company was that when something was the right decision to make, we didn't have to wait for bureaucracy to make it happen.

I try to bring those ideas to my classroom, but you are right that it's not possible in every department. I love the autonomy I get.

[Rubicon]

I have nothing against homeschooling on its face. I know my wife and I could do a better job than the school system of educating our children, and even socialization isn't really an issue, given church, sports, community, etc. So, I don't accept the canards usually leveled at homeschooling (inferior education and lack of social skills). The two things that make homeschooling unattractive to me are:

1) Adversity as part of the education and socialization. An important element of the growing up experience is dealing with bad situations (e.g., bad teachers, bad peers, bad situations). I think shielding kids from these does them a disservice. To learn, perform, and achieve in the face of and in spite of these things is sometimes more valuable than pure academic learning.

2) Hiding our candle under a bushel. By pulling kids out of the school system, we deprive teachers and other kids of the example of sharp, impressive kids who could have a positive impact on others in a school setting. Intelligently and effectively countering secular humanism, demonstrating a "godly walk and conversation," and excelling in the school setting are important missionary opportunities.

Conditions might deteriorate to the point where the only thing to do is to pull the kids out of the system, but I don't think we're to that point yet.

[Yacht Rock]

I have nothing against homeschooling on its face. I know my wife and I could do a better job than the school system of educating our children, and even socialization isn't really an issue, given church, sports, community, etc. So, I don't accept the canards usually leveled at homeschooling (inferior education and lack of social skills). The two things that make homeschooling unattractive to me are:

1) Adversity as part of the education and socialization. An important element of the growing up experience is dealing with bad situations (e.g., bad teachers, bad peers, bad situations). I think shielding kids from these does them a disservice. To learn, perform, and achieve in the face of and in spite of these things is sometimes more valuable than pure academic learning.

2) Hiding our candle under a bushel. By pulling kids out of the school system, we deprive teachers and other kids of the example of sharp, impressive kids who could have a positive impact on others in a school setting. Intelligently and effectively countering secular humanism, demonstrating a "godly walk and conversation," and excelling in the school setting are important missionary opportunities.

Conditions might deteriorate to the point where the only thing to do is to pull the kids out of the system, but I don't think we're to that point yet.

I think that these decisions for our kids are always conditional. There shouldn't be any absolutes either way. Every family and student has different needs and I love a robust system that has multiple solutions to meet their needs.

[RubberMallet]

So what parents are seeing isn't what a real week in a classroom would look like. I hope that parents don't jump into homeschooling based on what they are seeing now, lol, they might be in for a rude awakening.

in many cases they probably would be but on the flip side in many cases they shouldn't be. its purely a one on one evaluation that haas to be made. what many of our friends and their kids are experiencing, is what our kids experience all the time. We certainly fill the rest of the time with other learning opportunities But this is what we've experienced through grade school. The challenge certainly increases as we see jrhigh/Hsschool. my hs has about 5-6 hours of school work a day. My jr higher has about 3-4. Perhaps my children were just blessed with their mothers motivation and intellect but its been hardly a challenge and our kids move through their curriculum outside of minor things here or there pretty well. Our first child struggled with math until we found the right software. Our 2nd child hasn't really had much adversity and my 3rd struggles with attention stuff so there is little things here or there. not all flowers and rainbows but still so much more efficient comparitively.

so on the flip side, i think this is a great introduction into what homeschooling can be

I think though, as you stated earlier, is that your friend stated that their kids were getting through their current quarantine work very quickly, right?

I'm in a group of global educators (classroom teachers and administrators who are teaching through the quarantine) and most aren't assigning much to be done during the quarantine. The main reasons have to do with equity. While a homeschooling family is prepared to teach in their house as a regular part fo their routine, a student who goes from the classroom to their house was not prepared. It takes a lot of assumptions about a student's home environment (beyond something as simple as internet access) to assume that they can be educated at a normal level at home.

Now, that being said, even if students are home during the fall, their curriculum will not look the same as it does right now. I can promise you that.

Even if students are home full time or part time during next school year, I would assume (based on conversations I've had) that they will have work that much closer relates to being in school full time, unlike during this last quarter of school.

My point is, if parents are seeing what their kids are doing now and saying, "That's all they did in school?" they would be drawing the wrong conclusions based on the wrong data.

I'd also be concerned that they weren't plugged in to what their kids were doing pre-quarantine as well. Hopefully they should have been keyed in on their pre-quarantine workload as well as a form of comparison.

our industry is in the k12 and i work with technology integrators all day long. from my conversations with them all over the country, the curriculum they utilize allow them to not have to change much. but i'm sure there are some concessions here or there. I just spoke to one who had significant percentage of 100% completion of the years curriculum.

That said i see many who wore out the copy machine and have students in very rural areas where they had to cut it down a ton.