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Comment by ninkendo | Hacker News Reader

If I were emperor (*), I would ban anyone from homeschooling or private school, with exceptions only for kids with special needs.

Every time a parent who cares about their child’s education pulls them out of public school, that’s one less parent who might otherwise be involved enough to improve the public school situation. You end up with public schools containing only the children of parents who are unable to afford the time or money for other options, only the teachers who can’t get jobs at private schools/tutors, etc etc.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for everyone to think “public schools are bad, I’m going to send my kid somewhere else.” I really wish we’d focus that energy towards making public schools better.

* It would probably take an emperor to do this, because there’s no way such a law would pass in the US today.

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I can make a concrete difference for my kids. I can't move the needle for the school district.

By the way, to those who are saying that your first responsibility is to your own kids, I agree, even if you put them in public school. It's still your responsibility.

Pay attention to how they're doing in school. If they're struggling, help them. You may not know as much as the teacher, but you're a functioning adult with access to the internet, and you can work with them one-on-one. If they need it, do that.

Pay attention to how they're doing emotionally. If public school is destroying them, you should know. When your kid says something like "Every day when I get ready for school, my stomach hurts", listen. (In our case, it was getting ready for private school, but it still was a giant red flag.) Do what you have to to either get them out or to help them survive.

Pay attention to what they're being taught. If they're getting propaganda - from either side - then give them balance. Teach them how to examine positions critically, not just to swallow whatever they're told.

It's your responsibility as a parent. Don't just hand them to a school and walk away.

I'd rather just make sure my kid gets a great education than sacrifice their well being and future to your cause, so I'm glad you're not emperor.

Education is about more than just your particular children. We all benefit from a society where people are better educated. (A more informed electorate creates a better society.) If the act of pulling your kid from school causes that school to get just a little bit worse, you’re making society just a little bit worse as a result.

There’s a similar reason why, in countries that have state-funded health care, you’re not allowed to seek out private doctors or private insurance. The point is to not allow the rich to siphon the best resources away from everyone else. (This is obviously very anti-capitalist, but I think for some institutions like medicine and education, it may make sense.)

Once you have kids you really don't care about all of that.

I have kids. The reason I bring it up with an “If I were emperor” qualifier, is that for an individual, it doesn’t make sense to keep your child in a failing public school if you can afford to pull them out. It would take a unified effort of banning all private education, for it to actually improve things. I’m aware it’s a pipe dream right now, and as long as private schools exist, it still makes sense for individuals to use them.

It’s similar to the tragedy of the commons… people acting in their own self-interests (better education for my child) create a situation that is worse than if we had a collective strategy (we all get a decent education, and get to share a better, more educated society.)

Are you going to ban relocation to a better school district as well? I don't see where the rabbit hole ends.

There would ideally be no “better school districts”, because they would receive the same (population-adjusted) funding, and teachers would be paid similarly enough that schools couldn’t unfairly attract the best teachers. Getting rid of all private/charter schools can help with that. So can centralizing the school funding (so that richer districts can’t somehow secure more funding for their school.)

That's how the world burns, everyone neglects the communal interest in favor of their own.

History has shown that the world burns because of some fanatic trying to impose their theory of utopia which overrides human nature. People caring first about their own family, then their extended family, then their neighborhood, then city, etc, in radiating zones of decreasing concern is a required part of human nature and does not cause the world to burn.

Exactly!

Me spending more time with my child doesn't take away from what other children receive. If I wasn't working with my child, then I certainly wouldn't be working with all of them in place of that.

The moral and educational formation of children is the right of parents. Your authoritarian attack on the family isn't representative of most people's views.

And if everyone pulled their kids out of public school, virtually all of those children would be better off, with very few exceptions. Punting one's offspring to daycare and public schools so that both parents can work is the real tragedy of the commons.

I don't know whether virtually all will be better off. But like people realizing that with the interent they no longer need to be in the office, many are realizing their kids no longer need to be in a physical school building.

There are just many resources out there on the internet to have excellent course materials and information delivered straight to your home, together with all sorts of physical activities and clubs available for recreation and group events, and there are big advantages to being able to learn at your own pace in a safe and non-disruptive environment taught by someone with a strong commitment to your well-being. Given all these advantages, the bar is pretty low for when customized learning exceeds the factory-style and heavily politicized education given at schools, especially given the current dysfunctional state of educational pedagogy in the U.S and the fact that unlike in other nations, the U.S. tends to draw teachers from the lowest scoring college graduates. The situation is very different in other nations, but in the U.S., education majors tend to be selected from the bottom of the barrel of the college graduate pool.

That said, the reason why most homeschoolers are much better off today is because parents who care about education and have the wherewithal to tutor their child self-select to homeschool. If everyone did it, you would find that a lot of parents can't spend the time to do it and need the school as a babysitter. Or they don't have the wherewithal to do it due to their own lack of education. So homeschooling is generally done by parents with above average education and income which is why it's so successful in the U.S. Make everyone do it, and those outcomes would change quite a bit.

> That said, the reason why most homeschoolers are much better off today is because parents who care about education and have the wherewithal to tutor their child self-select to homeschool.

If you believe in the growth mindset, you necessarily have to reject this idea that homeschoolers are a gifted bunch whose success cannot be replicated.

> And if everyone pulled their kids out of public school, virtually all of those children would be better off

Except for the children who aren’t able to be pulled out of public school. They would be far worse off.

If you’re advocating getting rid of public schools as an institution, what are you replacing it with? Just not educating kids at all if their parents can’t afford it? Do you view education as a right or a privilege? Would you at least agree that society is better off if everyone is educated, or do you think it’s just a perk that you can go without?

My right to educate my children to the best of my ability trumps your desire to hold them back for some imagined benefit that might accrue to their classmates.

Your plan is just crab bucket mentality dressed up in egalitarianism's clothing.

You imply that a parent in a public school has a lot of power to make the school better, which is questionable. If the poor outcomes are due not to a lack of resources but to the preferences of the administrators and teachers, you as a parent will be SOL.

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