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Comment by maxwelljoslyn | Hacker News Reader

> Treating all these scenarios as a single thing that you can hold a single, consistent opinion about suggests to me a lack of familiarity with its wide spectrums along multiple dimensions. It's like passing a judgment on a person based on their race, country of origin, gender, etc.

A huge +1 to this, from observing the many friends I have who do homeschooling. Judging by their results -- super-smart, super-well-behaved children -- has gotten me thinking I'd like to do the same once I have kids.

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> A huge +1 to this, from observing the many friends I have who do homeschooling. Judging by their results -- super-smart, super-well-behaved children

Maybe.

The primary difference between the upper classes "homeschooling" and the lower classes "homeschooling" is that the upper classes will purchase tutors/teachers and the lower classes will do it themselves.

A couple of local elementary school kids from your upper middle class housing development being put together in a pod with two teachers will blow the doors off ANY school--public, private, homeschool, whatever. Homeschoolers from lower socioeconomic classes can keep up with this, but it's a LOT more effort than they generally estimate.

The problem is the dramatic increase in sophistication required in middle school grades. Writing goes from very basic sentences to multiple paragraphs. The vast majority of people are not equipped to deal with this as they can't write well enough themselves. Math goes from multiplication tables to Algebra I. The vast majority of the population is not equipped to teach Algebra I. Science comes online as a subject in middle school--we know most people aren't equipped to teach that.

The higher socioeconomic classes will recognize that they cannot handle the teaching and purchase appropriate teachers if they are committed.

The lower socioeconomic classes cannot apply the relevant resource even if they recognize the problems. However, they are committed to homeschooling at that point and cannot back down and say that they need to put their child into public school.

Your children's future classmates wish you wouldn't keep your children from enriching their shared classroom. You might be just the kind of parent that the school needs to maintain a critical mass of involved parents.

My wife resents that her parents made her be this for the other kids in her class. This meant my wife had to do things like be the one to 'tame' the poorly behaved boy. Or she had to be the one to do extra work because the teacher would group her with the worst student. This is actually not preparation for adulthood. As an adult, when someone acts like a jerk, you ignore them and shun them and may report them depending on how bad it is. As a child, you're forced to interact. As an adult, I choose my colleagues so that they're intelligent and pull their weight.

A common complaint I hear from homeschooled kids is 'parentification', where their parents expect adult responsibility from small children. I fail to see how what you're asking for is any different. Children shouldn't be expected to do adult's jobs.

Lots of adults have underachieving coworkers, have no say in the matter, and have to figure out how to deal with that both professionally and emotionally.

Underrated viewpoint. Public schools are the only option for most people. Most people don’t have the financial ability to spend their time teaching their kids when they’re already working as much as they can to make ends meet. Heck, for a huge segment of the population, public school is the only place where their kids can even get a decent meal.

If every parent that does have the time to invest in their child’s future, takes said child out of public school, said schools are left with only the uninvolved parents, which makes it worse in a “self fulfilling prophecy” kind of way.

The arguments in favor of home schooling all seem to amount to “fuck you, not my problem, I take care of my own kid, you’re on your own.”

SO you want parents to give their kids a worse education in the hope it will help other kids? As a father (and a single parent home educator) not bloody likely.

Also, my kids would not have done as well at school - they would have been a lot more like the the other kids, so would not have improved all that much.

Not in the US, but some things are the same here in the UK, and in Sri Lanka where we lived for much of my kid's lives.

Yes, your argument shows my point very well, thank you.

(Consider that public schools might not be a “worse education” if resources weren’t funneled away by private schools and home schooling.)

There are some crappy parents out there, or parents just doing the best they can after being delt a crappy hand.

Those parents who can't find the time / motivation to spend some time doing learning activities with their kids really shouldn't have applied for the job of parent in the first place.

If more parents took ultimate responsibility for their kids learning outcomes teachers would be under less pressure, and would have more ability to provide extra help.

> just doing the best they can after being delt a crappy hand

> really shouldn't have applied for the job of parent in the first place

Yeah, I mean if you plan on getting laid off from your career some day and have to work two jobs to make ends meet, you really shouldn't have kids. Having kids should only be reserved for people who plan on having no unforeseen issues ever come up in their life, am I right?

Parents should just take responsibility and make sure that they don't ever come across hard times. See also: the poor are just lazy.

What I actually said is that the more parents can take responsibility teaching their children, the more it frees up teachers to teach those kids who need more help. No judgment on anyone's economic status.

Turning every response into a gotcha isn't incisive, there are plenty of other forums better suited than Hacker News if arguing and strawmanning is your thing. Chill out.

Your last paragraph said that yes. But your second paragraph explicitly says that if you don’t have the time then you’re not qualified as a parent. That doesn’t need to have a gotcha response, it stands on its own as representing willful ignorance to the problems people face.

Or, the teachers will thank you for keeping the teacher:child ratio lower so that they can focus on kids needing more attention.

If there are too few kids the schools will let teachers go. Funding is provided based on enrollment.

Then they will go teach in pods?

Phew, I'm glad you hold this viewpoint, because I need a little help. My local prison has a lot of inmates who would be better off, and less likely to re-offend, if they just had more good influences in their lives. I mean, who thought it was a good idea to put all of the bad-influence people together in one location? So, I'm looking for volunteers to live side-by-side with the prisoners, in the hopes of rubbing off on them. You'll get three hots and a cot, just like them. Come on, in the spirit of social responsibility and collective welfare, what do you say? Can I put you down for a four-year stint?

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