Topic: Public School vs. Home School - proof that home school is better

[michelleo]

Instapundit highlighted a hit piece on online virtual schools, which was especially harsh on Colorado Virtual Academy, the online program that our family uses.  COVA scores below public schools in state standardized tests.  The reason is because the majority of kids who choose COVA choose it as a last resort after their brick and mortar schools have failed them.  They enter COVA way behind grade level.  Although they can select Math and Language Arts courses suitable to their current skills and needs, they still are technically enrolled in the grade that corresponds to their age.  So they take CSAPs based on age, not curriculum.  There are a lot of autistic, ADD, special needs kids using COVA.  A friend of my son, who has mild cerebral palsy, started COVA this year with his Mom.  He's in 4th grade because he's about to turn 10, but he's doing 3rd grade Math and 2nd grade Language Arts.  He's beginning to accelerate in LA, and may get through both 2nd and 3rd grade LA this year.  His Mom thinks that in a couple of years, he'll be caught up to his peers.  The article suggested such a phenomenon. 

Only 39% of students pass state math exams when they've been enrolled in K12 schools for less than a year, compared to 48% for kids enrolled at least one full school year. The same trend holds true for reading.

  Notice it doesn't look at any longer term trend with these kids, and because they specifically don't say, you can guarantee these scores continue to improve just as dramatically year after year.
Also linked by Glenn is a blog discussing a NYT piece on what kids think of homeschooling.  The comments from students are remarkable.

Sample from public school children:

I believe that home-schooling doesn’t prepares children and teenagers for the ” Real world”. It doesn’t let children that chance to be in a social community with more kids or people. I think Home-schooling has his dos and dont’s.

......
I think homeschooling is dumb. I think homeschooling doesn’t prepare kids for the real world. they don’t learn how to socialize with other people. Some parents may sugar code the kids. So they might not know everything there suppose to know. no i do not agree.

....

If your are home schooled and you go to college you will fell as if the class is going too slow or if you know something before other kids then you will be frusterated that you are learning the same thing and nothing new. Overall I think that home schooling is not something that you should consider because you are not social with other kids, and later on in college you will not learn as much as you should be learning.

...
I don’t really think that home schooling is a good idea for everyone. It would take a special kind of person to be able to want to sit down and teach them selves everything. There are programs and guidelines now to what should be happening with the work. Even with that you would have to be very motivated to do the work and read the books. I don’t think that this prepares you for the “real world”

Sample from  a Homeschool kid:

It seems that a lot of the kids here don’t know much about homeschooling, or maybe have never met any. It’s kind of funny how everyone is giving the same opinion & assuming it’s true, too. I’m homeschooled & in 10th grade. I love it & I have tons of friends–homeschooled, public schooled, and private schooled! I suppose if you never left your house, there’d be a problem, but all the homeschoolers I know are just about as busy as I am. In fact, I bet that if you met a homeschooler today and talked with him/ her, you wouldn’t even know. Very few of us meet the stereotypical image. Funny thing is I’ve met a lot of public schooled kids who look/act socially awkward-and their schooling doesn’t get blamed. But, if you meet a shy/socially awkward HS-er, it’s because they’re homeschooled. Go figure!
One thing that keeps me busy is 4H-I’ve participated in Cornell seminars, I won the County Fair Queen contest this summer, I showed horses at the state fair, I’m the secretary of the Teen Council group(I’m the only homeschooler there). I also have a part time job as a cashier & often get involved in community service projects. I help train horses with a professional and I spend the summers barrel racing my horses & giving lessons. I say all this to show I’m out in the real world a lot (since so many of you think we’re not), not to boast! I wouldn’t call being in a school building the real world, either. In real life you don’t spend all your time with other people the same age away from the rest of the world.
Drawbacks I have personally experienced: I can’t join FFA. Sometimes my siblings irritate me during the day, but that’s normal
Positive things: I can get up, ride my horses, then do schoolwork. I can take a day off in the middle of the week to go to a cool equine seminar or spend the day at our vet’s office(I want to be one). I do things that interest me or research things I want to learn more about-I have a ton of interests and can’t remember the last time I was bored. And, I like my teacher, too  And other teachers I’ve had along the way-art, Latin, gym teachers. There are lots of extracurricular things going on, along with some sports, but not all.
Well, I’m off-catching a plane to Georgia with my grandma to visit cousins & explore Atlanta (in the real world. lol)  Hannah, 15

Read them all at the NYT.  It's truly eye-opening, and the best advertisement I've seen for why homeschooling is better.

[Alphabet Soup]

That's great! Hannah saw through the propaganda and the programming LOL.

[michelleo]

She's not the only one.  Nearly all of the homeschool kids who wrote in were articulate, well-versed and involved in many areas of study.  And many of them could see through the rote regurgitation of biased opinion as expressed by public school morons.  "This es me essay on why homesckooling is a bad idear.  I not have friends if I not go to sckool.  And that es why I think homesckooling is a bad idear."

[RickZ]

She's not the only one.  Nearly all of the homeschool kids who wrote in were articulate, well-versed and involved in many areas of study.  And many of them could see through the rote regurgitation of biased opinion as expressed by public school morons.  "This es me essay on why homesckooling is a bad idear.  I not have friends if I not go to sckool.  And that es why I think homesckooling is a bad idear."

Are you sure it's not the teachers, themselves, writing such illiterate negative reviews of home-schooling?  As part of a 'grass roots' teachers' union campaign to try and shut down the competition?

[Pandora]

Wouldn't put it past them and they ARE as illiterate as the kids they're enstupidating.  Either that, or they pointed their charges to the piece and required an "essay" in response, after some careful "instruction".

I had the "socialization" argument with my MIL years ago.  I have to laugh at the notion that functioning adults actually imagine children "socialize" themselves and each other.  Without adults to role-model and instruct, kids left to their own devices will erect a Lord of The Flies society.  As it stands now, in many government schools, there is essentially that, alternating with a prison-environment.

But keep instituting and holding those "Anti-bullying" programs and seminars, folks; that'll fix it.

[LadyVirginia]

My daughter had a friend on her sports team once ask how she made any friends since she's homeschooled.  My daughter said " the same way I became your friend."

I've noticed that almost the first thing parents ask me about homeschooling is about the socialization.  These are parents I've met at my kids' activities.  They can see my kids interacting with their kids and until they find out we homeschool they have no idea we do. Yet their first questions is about socialization.  Closely followed by --they miss prom don't they?  They usually ask about academics but honestly, they don't seem that interested in hearing about it.  It's secondary. They can't get their head around someone opting out of a what they percieve as a given way to live.

My kids can interact with any age--infant to old.  My kids' friends really are friends--people they chose to be with rather than because circumstances put them in desks next to each other.

[John Florida]

  Don't they have eyes to see with or ears to hear.

[RickZ]

  Don't they have eyes to see with or ears to hear.

Maybe it's just denial concerning the state of the public schools?  Whatever the case, not good on the clueless parents.

[BMG]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2011/11/report-math-teacher-let-students-buy-grades/

He had been a teacher in the district since 2002 and told school officials he changed grades for money because he was having financial trouble amid a bankruptcy, arrests and jail time.

“Maybe I see the kids are as desperate as I am,” he told the school’s investigators.

Principal to parents of new student:
"Hey man, if he/she ain't smart enough to pass the test, no problem! For a nominal fee, even your idiot kid can pass math!"

And then of course, there's this:

http://gawker.com/5860042/teachers-been-masturbating-behind-the-podium-this-whole-time

Teacher to himself:
"This class is so darn boring! Hey, maybe spanking the monkey will liven things up!"  

[BMG]

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/12/09/brainwashing-scholastics-incomplete-take-on-the-occupy-movement/

As a little girl, I liked to flip through the pages of the Scholastic book catalogue — and I was one of the few students who read whatever news bulletins our teachers gave us from cover to cover. Now, I wonder what propaganda pills I inadvertently swallowed as a youngster just because I was earnest and interested to learn what Scholastic had to teach.

A Michelle Malkin reader was understandably concerned when his child brought home the December edition of Scholastic News, one of many offerings from the venerable publishing company. The issue tackled the Occupy Wall Street movement — with notable finesse. Read the article and you’d come away with the impression that the 99 percent are a pretty peaceable plugged-in bunch.

It’s not necessarily that what the author of the article wrote was wrong so much as it was incomplete. Nowhere, for example, does the article mention the rampant misbehavior of the Occupiers, even though the tally of the various incidents of violence and vandalism has reached 417. The closest to a mention was the final paragraph of the article: “All Americans have the right to speak out. But as these protests continue, mayors in some cities are worried about the strain on their cities’ resources. For example, extra police officers and cleanup crews are needed to make sure the gatherings remain peaceful and orderly.”

On the flip side, Scholastic didn’t scruple to exclude these types of paragraphs from its earlier coverage of the Tea Party:

    Tea Party candidates also had some surprise wins in primary elections, which determine who will represent their political parties on the November ballot. Christine O’Donnell, a candidate for Vice President Joseph Biden’s Senate seat in Delaware, was backed by the Tea Party. She has since become known as the candidate who has had to declare publicly that she is “not a witch.”

    In Nevada, Sharron Angle, a Tea Party-backed Republican candidate, has become a real threat to U.S. Senator Harry Reid, who currently serves as the Senate Majority Leader. Reid called out the big guns to go up against his opponent. Former President Bill Clinton was recently in Nevada campaigning for him and warning voters against casting their ballots in anger.

    “If any time in your life you make an important decision when you’re mad, there’s an 80 per cent chance you’re going to make a mistake,” Clinton said at a rally for Reid. “I don’t want people to abandon their anger. I want them to channel it so they can think clearly.”

Perhaps I’d be more inclined to overlook the OWS coverage as a blatant bit of brainwashing if it didn’t come from the same company that promotes The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming, which was written by a producer of “An Inconvenient Truth.” Earlier this year, Scholastic also eliminated its “United States of Energy” curriculum, which taught students about various forms of energy, including wind, solar, hydroelectric, nuclear, coal and natural gas. The program was a balanced one — but liberal special interest groups objected because it didn’t paint coal in a negative enough light.

Why is it so hard to tell the whole truth?

Yet another very good reason to home school...the brainwashing really kinda sux.

[Pandora]

Got some further brainwashing for you right here:

"Our" culture? Are you serious? Really? Have you ever heard of the concept of the melting pot. "Our" culture was created by combining traditions, customs, and beliefs from dozens of cultures from all around the world. It shows up everyday in the words that we use, the food that we eat, and things that we do. Saying things like "their culture" is ...well...ignorant. Your bigotry is showing.

No bigotry, madam.  I am sick and tired of and will not abide with the continual assault upon our culture, as though, on one hand, we don't have one of our own -- "we're just a hodgepodge mix of pieces of other cultures" (other cultures?  you mean other cultures are authentic and allowed to exist except for our American one?) and on the other hand "American culture is oppressive, racist, homophobic and bigoted".

You people have been propagandized by cultural marxism out of your own good and authentic history, traditions and customs and seem to be congratulating yourselves on your oh so very "tolerant" relativism.

Thanks for the confirmation. You are clearly a bigoted, racist pig. Afraid of whatever is different from you and unwilling to accept that anyone out of your little circle has something to valuable to offer.  I am not even sure what you think is the "real" american culture. I hope that it doesn't include pizza (Italian) and beer (german). You are ignorant beyond belief.

[LadyVirginia]

What matilda and others like her fail to acknowledge is the "cultures" were brought here by people who wanted to be Americans!  They didn't want to obliterate American culture--they embraced it.

[Glock32]

The Matildas of the world will be finding themselves wiped off of boot soles once their belated introduction to reality occurs, and that meeting is going to happen whether they "feel" it should or not.

[Weisshaupt]

.  I am not even sure what you think is the "real" american culture. I hope that it doesn't include pizza (Italian) and beer (german). You are ignorant beyond belief.

The real american culture? A Belief in Limited Representative Constitutional Government by Consent, Inalienable rights, the Rule of law, individual responsibilty  and the ability of self-determination within those parameters.  Thats about as tolarant and all includive of other cultures as you can get.  Got to one of those authentic cultures and see how much you are despised for not being Native, then come and tel me how racist real Americans are, where acceptance of individual traits is commonplace

[Weisshaupt]

As a little girl, I liked to flip through the pages of the Scholastic book catalogue

During the last election one Scholastic magazine issuesd to my 1st grader asked who they would vote for - McCain or Obama.
1st Grade.

1) any kid that age is going to vote for whomever thier parents support, and yes, they probably know.
2) Isn't this a wonderful opportunity for certain teachers to chastize and embarrass students who give the wrong answer?

Just more Propganda and brainwashing. I was so mad. Alsmo as mad as the time  found out they were teaching "Kwannza"