How would you know if you met a normal home schooled person? Wouldn't they just seem like a normal person? Do you ask everyone where they went to school?
For the record, I've seen a lot more naive, odd, or strange people who did go to public school.
Social behavior is one thing, and if you're home schooled, it's something you miss out on to some extent unless your parent/teacher/tutor takes special care to expose you to that.
However, the point I take issue with is the "knowledge" thing. Considering we have standardized tests, parent commenter was talking out their ass.
Indeed there are. Bad habits like drinking, smoking, drugs, teenage pregnancy, and how to assault teachers in the parking lot.
These were all extremely common things in the school district where I grew up, which is why my parents, (and the parents of many others in the area) chose to homeschool their children. I never learned those things by "just being among other people" and I think I'm better for it. (My state-required yearly standardized testing scores growing up, that I started college at 16, and the leadership positions in social organizations I’ve held most of my life seem to bear this out.)
Being "around people" is not exclusive to public school kids, nor is it some sort of magical indicator for life success. In addition, homeschooling isn’t exclusively the domain of religious zealotry and terrible people. There are plenty of us who you've met who are perefectly "normal", and may even lack some of the usual bad habits. Please update your stereotype database. :-)
Maybe they don't have the pack mentality of schooled individuals. Maybe they are individual instead of demographic bins that you biased mind can't put them in...
Applying common sense should be enough. You as a parent have neither the time nor the knowledge of all the various subjects that are taught in school, not to mention a proper paedagogic/teaching education.
Every study I've seen contradicts this common sense argument. Combined with the fact that home schooled students still must take and pass state standardized tests means the students have to be at least meeting the minimum educational requirements.
I have a family member in Texas with a home schooled child. They attend group teaching sessions, sit in on other classes, and use the many reference books that are provided for home school teachers. Home schooled does not mean "taught only what the parent wants to teach", nor does it mean "taught only what the parent knows". There's a legal definition surrounding home schooling.
> Every study I've seen contradicts this common sense argument.
Can you provide some of these studies? I've never seen one that was written by someone who understood why its important to control for race/financial status/etc, which makes them fairly meaningless.
Why does that make the study meaningless? I don't think I've ever read a study that says "homeschooling only works if you're white" or "public schools are only for the poor". Are we supposed to believe that the effectiveness of education is dependent on skin color?
No, its because people who are home schooled are more likely than the average student to be in classes (white, rich) that already do well in school, yet they still compare their scores to the general population.
Religious or atheist, uninformed/ill-informed voters and naive policy pushers are existential threats to a free and open society.
Please slow down and use some "common sense" and reasoning before allowing your emotional ranting about how other people (religious folks in this case) lack reasoning and logic.
That is not true. Parents use quality textbooks and lesson plans. They also get together to pay specialists to teach difficult subjects one or more times per week. Also, by the time a homeschooled child is of the age that their subjects can only be taught by specialists, they either know how to teach themselves or take courses from local junior colleges or correspondence courses.
There is no one proper pedagogy. Teachers use a lot of different methods, as do parents, whether they have an education background, a science background, or are just using well-reviewed curricula.
The ability to give a child a customized, one-on-one education is an advantage over the classroom model. The parents have time because one parent does not work or does not work very much; they are a full-time educator and put in a lot of work to be good at it.
Regarding your earlier remark about abuse: abuse does not really happen. The safest place for a child is in a home with intact parents, and most homeschooling families are intact.
I mean this kindly when I say you are completely ignorant of what homeschooling is like. I encourage you to acquaint yourself with actual homeschoolers. There are probably several communities in your area and you would be invited to observe some of the co-operative activities and talk to the parents.
You point about abuse is incorrect. Abuse (physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect) is more likely to happen in the home, perpetrated by a family member.
I'm not sure why it's a reason to avoid home schooling. Schools are not great at spotting and reporting abuse.
I think that you misunderstood me. The majority of child abuse happens at home (~72,000 parents vs. ~58,000 known non-family [0]), but it happens in broken homes, second marriages, etc. Most homeschooling parents are together and in their first marriage, so they, just going by the statistics, aren't likely to abuse their children.
For a source on the uneven distribution of abuse by family members, I would suggest to start with this HHS report: [1]
"Children living with their married biological parents universally had the lowest rate, whereas those living with a single parent who had a cohabiting partner in the household had the highest rate in all maltreatment categories. Compared to children living with married biological parents, those whose single parent had a live-in partner had more than 8 times the rate of maltreatment overall, over 10 times the rate of abuse, and nearly 8 times the rate of neglect."
`Common sense' in this case is quite misleading; indeed `[a] collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen' fits this case perfectly.
For one, a quick look at Wikipedia gives list of references indicating the opposite -- homeschooled studends tend to sligtly outpeform school-schooled students [1] [2].
For another, there's been plenty of stories in press, and specifically on HN, indicating that giving students a lot of freedom in picking both subjects and methodology yields better results than highly uniform, mass schooling.
Your common sense is failing you because the reasoning isn't sound. Teachers are not super-intelligent all-knowledgeable people. Parents can have the time (stay at home dad homeschooling). Home schooling is 100% 1-on-1 whereas school schooling is at a huge disadvantage to start with 1 teacher per 30+ students. Parents home schooling responsibly have access to the same text books that teachers do. Parents can learn a little bit of how to teach. Parents are more motivated to teach well than a random teacher. Etc.
I am a college instructor. I think that covers "proper paedagogic/teaching education."
>You as a parent have neither the time
This part is true. Even if it weren't, I probably wouldn't pursue home-schooling my children. Neither proves the point that no person/family is up to the task.
> nor the knowledge of all the various subjects
I may be deluding myself, but I feel confident that I have mastered all of the elements of "basic high school curriculum." I expect that is true for many people. As far as any of that goes, home-schooling does not necessarily require that one person does all of the instruction, nor that the curriculum is confined to that which is within the bounds of what the parent(s) knows. In fact the parent(s) could outsource nearly all of the instruction, and merely act in a supervisory role.
This entire discussion is an awful bag of anecdotes, with this "common sense" thing right at the bottom of the pack.
Let's base our discussion on actual facts and statistics, shall we?
If homeschooling is worse, the statistics will bear this out. If the statistics don't bear it out, then it's not worse. This "don't bother to look for facts, just think about it" business is reprehensible.
There are certain things you pick when you go to school, just by being among other people.