Comment by dkhenry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dkhenry | Hacker News Reader

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I am part of this increase, and after a full year homeschooling we will not be sending our kids back to traditional school. What we noticed is that our kids weren't actually learning, they were being pushed through a program so they could pass a test with very little concern about where that would leave them in the future. This was most apparent in math, where foundational concepts were being rushed just to cover the full syllabus and in future years the foundations of computation were not really well covered and when we started to put them though our math program of choice ( Saxon math ) it was really clear they didn't understand the concepts ( for instance, given a word problem there was no real ability to write down the equation, even though they had been taught that material in the past ). It wasn't just math, it was every topic, and it was really apparent as we started to actually evaluate what they knew. As time goes by I am really struggling to see any benefit of the traditional model except for keeping kids busy so their parents can work. Giving kids the individual attention and tailoring the schoolwork for them its just so much better and able to actually instruct the children.

I would much rather live a simpler life in a place with a low cost of living, than require a two income household and offload the education of my children to a system that doesn't particularly care about them being educated.

Teaching your children to reason and think as independent agents is a most wonderful gift. It seems like mass education is often aimed at _increasing_ groupthink.

Unpopular opinion around here: teachers aren't underpaid, they are drastically overpaid given the utter lack of results they produce.

Certainly much of the blame goes not to the teachers themselves but the entire public education industry, but you can't quibble the total lack of results.

> Unpopular opinion around here: teachers aren't underpaid, they are drastically overpaid given the utter lack of results they produce.

Remember: You can't ever fire an underperforming teacher.

> Unpopular opinion around here: teachers aren't underpaid, they are drastically overpaid given the utter lack of results they produce.

Teachers tend to be paid less than an assistant manager at a Walmart. And require a master's degree.

Meanwhile, if you want different results, have teacher's judged differently. Right now, they're judged based on how well the worst performers in their class do. Of course they're going to focus on bringing up the rear.

> Teachers tend to be paid less than an assistant manager at a Walmart. And require a master's degree.

Teachers on average make 62k nationally, get 2 months off a year, usually have great health care, pension, and have phenomenal job security.

And I know plenty of teachers without master degrees.

(Apparently, what I responded to was edited. This was in the original, and still holds true, so I'm leaving my response as written.)

> I don't think this is true when you take into account benefits such as:

> healthcare,

Which WalMart Asst. Managers also get. Better health care in many cases.

> job security

How much is a secure but low paying job worth? Besides, once you're an assistant manager, you probably have decent job security if you don't fuck up.

> pension

WalMart Asst. Managers get access to a 401k. It's not a pension, but it's also not subject to fuckery by elected officials. And if you quit to do something better you can take it with you.

> 3 months off a year.

Teachers aren't paid for their 3 months off, and tend to work unpaid overtime during the year such that it evens out to being the equivalent of a fulltime, year round job anyway.

Actually teacher's work less during the school year than other professionals.

https://direct.mit.edu/edfp/article/9/3/231/10191/New-Measur...

Teachers get paid an additional ~$35,000 in benefits if they work for the state or federal government.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-8/teachers-job-requireme...

I seriously doubt Walmart assistant managers are getting anywhere near that level of benefits. I can't find any data on how much Walmart pays out in benefits, but you see to be pretty familiar with how much Walmart pays so please share.

> How much is a secure but low paying job worth? Besides, once you're an assistant manager, you probably have decent job security if you don't fuck up.

I know a bunch of teachers and a few principals and all of them across the board have said it's impossible to be fired as a teacher after the probationary period. I don't know any assistant managers at Walmart, but I've known a few front line managers at retail chains and they were always anxious about hitting their numbers.

> Actually teacher's work less during the school year than other professionals.

Yes, they average 36 hrs/wk over the full year instead of 40 hrs/wk. 10% less time. And they're off 2 or 3 months a year. So, that lines up with my "they tend to work about the equivalent of a regular fulltime job while only getting paid for 9-10 months" statement.

> I seriously doubt Walmart assistant managers are getting anywhere near that level of benefits

And the majority of that is in pension benefits which assumes they work until they earn it out. It's one of those clever accounting things where since most teachers quit after < 10 years, they don't get any of those awesome benefits.

> I can't find any data on how much Walmart pays out in benefits, but you see to be pretty familiar with how much Walmart pays so please share.

I mean, I've just googled it. I saw that they have some 401k plans and some stock purchase plans. They seem to offer decent enough insurance (in that they cover dental and vision as well as health) but I have no idea what their copays are. In looking it up, it seems they also pay for you tuition costs, which is nice.

> I know a bunch of teachers and a few principals and all of them across the board have said it's impossible to be fired as a teacher after the probationary period.

Yes. It's stupidly hard to fire a teacher. But if the underlying job sucks, being secure in it is irrelevant. If teachers tend to quit, it doesn't matter how hard it is to fire them.

Also, the firing or not is very state dependent.

The people I know in retail always seem anxious about their numbers, but I've never heard of any of them getting fired for missing them.

Even more unpopular opinion: genetics is destiny, so we'll never find a systematic effect of teachers on student learning.

I don't know why so many people don't understand that educational outcomes are due to quality of life at home.

I'd encourage you to flip this same thought process around. Could it not be that the low-quality results are the result of low salaries discouraging quality people from entering the profession? You get what you pay for after-all. It shouldn't be too hard to find this correlation within the Unite States where average public school teacher pay can vary as much as $40,000 state-by-state [1].

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/which-states-have-t...

Except that, at least in my state, there is an inverse relationship between teacher salaries by district and the education results (as measured by graduation and literacy rates)

How old were they? I found that around late-middle school/high school, homeschooled kids really start to fall behind. Maybe it was the limit of parental knowledge, I'm not sure.

Our 3 kids have gone in and out of homeschool at all different ages. We generally left the choice up to them. Our youngest decided to homeschool through high school and is studying computer science at Georgia Tech now.

In the lower grades, the biggest issue is the parent/child dynamics. When things are going badly, do they spin each other up or can the parent keep things calm. If you spin each other up, homeschool is not for you.

In the higher grades, parents need to know their limitations and bring in experts when needed.

Personally, I adored homeschooling my children.

Third Grade, First Grade, and Pre-Kindergarden. I really shared your concerns about academic performance as the course material gets harder, but what we have settled on is a co-op program that teaches the fundamentals of learning in the early years ( K - 6 ) and then progressively pushes the students towards independent study in the more advanced years, with a very extensive curriculum.

Honestly the foundational work is just as vital to the parents as it is to the kids as we will be simply guiding them through a high school curriculum that is much more advanced that anything we ever experienced. This is the program we are using, but we have two more years before we begin.

https://www.classicalconversations.com/challenge/

I tend to agree that there are some amazing early education opportunities out there. I've seen and been jealous of the education available to 3rd graders.

However, having seen kids give up on the independent study route and beg to go to a standard school, I think you are underestimating how daunting it is to start learning high school subjects as independent studies. Fundamentally, arguing with your peers in history class or being able to ask questions in chemistry is really valuable. A video is interesting, but once you get to the point where there is a part you don't understand, it's really hard to make progress.

A lot of the "challenge" level courses seem to talk about class presentations? Is this a remote school more than homeschool?

They meet once a week for a full day to discuss the course material with a paid tutor. That gives a good time to have those discussions and ask questions.

You are completely correct about how hard independent study can be, in the group our younger kids go to, a few of the older siblings have opted to go back to a classroom settings, not all of them, but every kid is different and with a strong academic basis they can thrive in whatever setting you put them in. More importantly if the students choose to go to college that will almost definitely be a traditional college experience so at some point they will need to be acclimated to traditional school. I hope my children can thrive in the independent program, but if not they will have the skills needed to learn in any environment.

This sounds a lot like my own experiences growing up. We started homeschooling when I was in 3rd grade, and I used Saxon math. When I reached highschool, in nearly all my subjects I had weekly classes taught by other parents with specific domain knowledge, with other students---anywhere from 3 to 10 or so per class. We had ten of us in chemistry, and 16 or so in biology, both with labs. For physics and calculus I found a tutor, a local homeschooling dad who was an electrical engineering university professor, and I had a local Anglican pastor as my Greek tutor.

I found that a solid elementary school foundation from my parents, combined with weekly classes and individual tutoring during highschool, was excellent preparation for my university studies.

How was the perceived quality of your school district (e.g. as evaluated on a real estate site)?

I have lived in some of the best school districts in the country and sent my kids to the public school in them.

1. Garnet Valley in PA ( this one was the best of all we tried ) https://www.greatschools.org/pennsylvania/glen-mills/garnet-...

2. Fairfax Country in VA ( this one was the worst ) https://www.greatschools.org/virginia/falls-church/fairfax-c...

3. Los Gatos/Saratoga in CA https://www.greatschools.org/california/saratoga/schools/

In California we sent our kids to a private school before pulling them out for home schooling. Essentially I don't think its the school districts fault, I think its a suboptimal model and if you are really well funded with really engaged parents you can kinda make it work. Although the number of Kuman and Russian Math tutoring facilities near me makes me double guess myself on that.

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