Hm. I can go either way on this. If I may? I'll try to keep the splooge to a minimum.
The most important variable is the child's willingness to learn. Unless public school has gotten considerably worse since I graduated, it has all the resources for a motivated kid. The problem is most kids aren't. That's what parents and teachers are for.
The next important variable is how engaging the teachers are. I've been lucky, in that many of my teachers cared, and could make us care too. Perhaps I hogged all the good ones? (In my senior year, class sizes approached forty, and yet a calculus class was made available for me and less than ten other students.)
Teaching is a skill and a talent. Obviously, many of the teachers in public schools don't have it. Having gotten to know you, I'm prepared to believe that you have this talent, but I'm not prepared to believe that all those parents who do it have any more skill as teachers than the ones in schools. The standards required of a public schoolteacher may be inadequate, but what are the standards required of a homeschooler?
(There are also subjects that I feel ought to be required, but that many homeschoolers will carefully omit on, say, religious grounds. Indeed, one of the motivations cited by some homeschoolers is the intention of not covering these subjects. But let me not descend too far into wank...)
Oh, those subjects will be covered by us very well, when he's old enough. Because you need to know what the arguments are so you can refute them, right?
I think the schools have changed significantly since you and I were there. I mean, all you have to do is look at the fic we rant about every day at fanficrants and GAFF (hee! I nearly typed GAGG there), and what happens when a fanbrat finds something of theirs being sporked. I'm not saying that all these kids are public schoolkids, but I'd lay down a pretty hefty bet that a good supermajority of them are.
The advantage that a homeschooling parent has over a public or private school teacher is that my time isn't nearly as subdivided. I have a 1:1 ratio in my classroom right now. Of course, when he gets older, and into advanced math and chemistry and all that other stuff that I'm not very good at, we're going to have to change our paradigm, and I'm prepared for that. This is what co-ops are for, and we have a huge homeschooling community in Utah. You can bet that I'm going to take full advantage of it if I need to.
I didn't have to pass any sort of test to homeschool. The only standard the State imposes on me is that he has to have 180 (might be 181, not sure, one day, pft) days of school in the year, four and a half hours per day in first grade, going up to five and a half hours thereafter. The school doesn't monitor his progress at all. That being said, it's insanely difficult to fire a crappy teacher in a public school, and every time I see a news story about public schools it's like a Just Say No To Public Schools ad campaign. I saw one not too long ago about an illiterate high school teacher who was in the classroom for 17 years. And they never caught him; he outed himself.
The most important variable is the child's willingness to learn. Unless public school has gotten considerably worse since I graduated, it has all the resources for a motivated kid. The problem is most kids aren't. That's what parents and teachers are for.
The next important variable is how engaging the teachers are. I've been lucky, in that many of my teachers cared, and could make us care too. Perhaps I hogged all the good ones? (In my senior year, class sizes approached forty, and yet a calculus class was made available for me and less than ten other students.)
Teaching is a skill and a talent. Obviously, many of the teachers in public schools don't have it. Having gotten to know you, I'm prepared to believe that you have this talent, but I'm not prepared to believe that all those parents who do it have any more skill as teachers than the ones in schools. The standards required of a public schoolteacher may be inadequate, but what are the standards required of a homeschooler?
(There are also subjects that I feel ought to be required, but that many homeschoolers will carefully omit on, say, religious grounds. Indeed, one of the motivations cited by some homeschoolers is the intention of not covering these subjects. But let me not descend too far into wank...)
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I think the schools have changed significantly since you and I were there. I mean, all you have to do is look at the fic we rant about every day at fanficrants and GAFF (hee! I nearly typed GAGG there), and what happens when a fanbrat finds something of theirs being sporked. I'm not saying that all these kids are public schoolkids, but I'd lay down a pretty hefty bet that a good supermajority of them are.
The advantage that a homeschooling parent has over a public or private school teacher is that my time isn't nearly as subdivided. I have a 1:1 ratio in my classroom right now. Of course, when he gets older, and into advanced math and chemistry and all that other stuff that I'm not very good at, we're going to have to change our paradigm, and I'm prepared for that. This is what co-ops are for, and we have a huge homeschooling community in Utah. You can bet that I'm going to take full advantage of it if I need to.
I didn't have to pass any sort of test to homeschool. The only standard the State imposes on me is that he has to have 180 (might be 181, not sure, one day, pft) days of school in the year, four and a half hours per day in first grade, going up to five and a half hours thereafter. The school doesn't monitor his progress at all. That being said, it's insanely difficult to fire a crappy teacher in a public school, and every time I see a news story about public schools it's like a Just Say No To Public Schools ad campaign. I saw one not too long ago about an illiterate high school teacher who was in the classroom for 17 years. And they never caught him; he outed himself.
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