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by surge 2579 days ago
You have a very narrow view of home schooling and only the worse cases. Take a look at the worse outcomes of public schooling and the averages in performance of home school kids versus public school kids. The social anxiety and other issues of kids going through a modern high school versus kids who socialize with mostly adults and socialize in sports programs, co-ops, or groups and learn to be self driven in learning.

Public schools have a long way to go before they should be made mandatory. Until it is the very best solution for everyone, until it addresses every learning disability, the class sizes are smaller, teachers are paid better, classes track with a students ability and mental development and actually run in line with the latest in neuroscience and child development, have flexible hours so teenagers can sleep longer, put less on the kids when they go home so they have time for family activities and social interaction instead of 3-4 hrs of homework. Maybe when the solution isn't to medicate kids who don't learn by sitting still at a desk 6 hours a day with few breaks, elimination of recess and 20-30 minute lunch periods and few if any opportunities to "socialize" in the current schooling environment. When they teach problem solving and critical thinking, rather than rote memorizing for one standardized test at the end of year. If going to school was more like being an adult or put responsibilities on the student, like a college does, rather than treating the student population like they're in a low security prison. When it uses a system that wasn't developed for training factory workers and hasn't transitioned at all since then. When all the new money added to their budgets isn't siphoned up in administrative costs. When schools in many neighborhoods put kids in physical danger, involve gang activity and a good option simply isn't available to them because of their district. Then maybe we can talk about making it mandatory.

Even then, the most rich and privileged still would have loop holes for tutoring their kids for something other than factory work. We would still need exceptions for kids who for a variety of reasons, medical or otherwise need to be at home, students who travel or work in acting/performance. Kids who are on specialized career tracks in schools geared towards where its best they learn very young (perforamance arts and music, CS) to compete in a global market.

This idea that one education fits all is myopic and doesn't line up with the results that public schools produce thus far, and you want to take away any alternative.

It would be like if the only healthcare option in the US was the VA, and no one was allowed to seek healthcare else where because some people make bad health decisions and go to homeopathic healthcare providers.

1 comments

In America we've had decades of various people attacking public schools. So to look at the state of public schools and saying this is how things are, well you're ignoring a broad history of American conservatism taking objection to public schooling.
Right, so fix that first, don't tell people they have to go to a certain school while you spend another 30+ years figuring it out.

Also blaming it on just conservatism is silly, the bluest most democratic districts have some of the worst problems and solutions. Administrators keep thinking more of the same and blanket solutions address the needs of every kid. They forget that children are individuals. If this were the case, schools in very liberal areas like D.C., Chicago, LA, etc would be amazing and all producing the very best students given their funding and that the school board would be incredibly liberal/progressive.

Talk to teachers, many of them that burn out or leave because of how bad its gotten home school their own kids because they've seen the sausage factory.

Addendum (how bad its really gotten):

https://www.dailyinfographic.com/homeschooling-by-the-number...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/15/robots...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/03/29/social-jetlag/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13086098

https://ideapod.com/born-creative-geniuses-education-system-...

https://nypost.com/2018/01/30/teen-suspended-for-inciting-vi...

https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/9isnux/teacher_says_s...

https://www.greensboro.com/opinion/columns/christie-murphy-w...

https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/8smwb6/lawsuit_school...

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/7p69uk/teacher_arre...