Comment by crazydoggers | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazydoggers | Hacker News Reader

Around here, every homeschooler we meet is extremely religiously conservative, and is unabashed in talking about not wanting their kids to learn certain aspects of science like evolution or parts of history because it conflicts with their faith.

Obviously as an anecdote, I can’t say how prevalent these types of issues are among homeschooling in general, but I do believe it’s enough of an issue to be concerned.

We already have enough people raised who have trouble understanding issues that are of vital importance to our society, and it’s only becoming more of an issue. In a democracy we need an educated electorate who can make some basic educated decisions when voting.

Public schools are not perfect by any means, but at least we have some say as a public about those curriculum, and have successfully fought things like intelligent design being taught in schools. A growing homeschooling trend takes those issues further out of the public’s control, and it’s in the public’s interest that kids all get at least some basic level of education.

We need to take steps to strengthen our public education system, and the trend of homeschooling is at the very least an extremely concerning indication that our public school system is failing. It’s a national crisis, and most certainly will affect the US ability to compete against countries like China with strong public schooling. (Studies consistently show that Chinese students beat American children in all academic categories.)

If this was my exposure to homeschooling I’d be alarmed too. I’ll just say there are also a lot of homeschoolers in NYC who do it for very different reasons - to give their kids individualized instruction, more freedom to learn in idiosyncratic ways, and even for some a chance to go deep on STEM stuff before it’s in the official curriculum yet (this obviously varies based on the kid and parent).

There are also people who do it for a 2-5 years and end up then putting their kid in public schools. I’m not sure 5, 6 and 7 year olds were meant to sit still indoors for 6-7 hours a day and there is a good argument for giving them more time for free play. Also the gap between specialized teacher knowledge vs motivated parent knowledge widens as the material gets more advanced. (Though with homework, you still end up needing to do remedial education on yourself in either context).

I definitely believe that’s the case, and it’s a similar case for private schools.

To be clear, I’m in Texas; and there’s been a push here for vouchers for example, and it’s all politically/religiously motivated.

So I’d just say we need to be aware of the bigger picture. The “need” for homeschooling is a red flag, and although for some students it’s a positive choice; for others it has massively negative consequences.

So awareness of those issues, and a powerful right wing religious lobby pushing an agenda shouldn’t be ignored because homeschooling works for some kids.

When these groups lost the battle for teaching creationism in schools, they literally took their textbook and did a “search and replace” with intelligent design.

Luckily that attempt got shot down in court. So they have moved on to vouchers and homeschooling in many states.

Please describe to me how believing in evolution is going to help Bill put my plumbing or electrical system in correctly or be able to have a good crop this year.

Bill is a voter, voting on matters of extreme importance to us all.

Also, evolution is not a belief, it’s a fact. Raising a population that can’t tell fact from fiction has profound consequences to us all. Those plumbers and electricians interact with us all in complicated ways, not just their jobs.

The PISA assessment by the OECD demonstrates that only 13.5% of American students age 15 were able to distinguish fact from opinion in reading tests.

In a democracy, that matters more than plumbing and electrical job ability.

>The PISA assessment by the OECD demonstrates that only 13.5% of American students age 15 were able to distinguish fact from opinion in reading tests.

This is so important. Raising a generation of children who are so easily misled because they never learned to think rationally or to do research at any level is already biting this country.

Currently (2023), homeschoolers make up less than 7% of the population. That is likely an all time high. So what you're telling me is that government schools are catastrophically bad at enabling American students to distinguish fact from opinion?

Also, homeschoolers do better on standardized tests than their government schooled counterparts. So it seems like we should be advocating for and advancing homeschool interests if we actually care about education, since it is the homeschoolers who are 'doing it right', according to outcomes.

Yes our public schools are doing a poor job. And given the majority of kids go to public school; that is where the attention needs to be directed.

The problem is also that homeschooling has massively different outcomes for different kids. For some it’s a positive, for others it deepens divides.

Homeschooling is worse than a bandaid solution, and a regression for many kids. We can’t ignore those who are hurt by an ongoing deregulation of our educational system just because it works for some.

And worse, we need to look closely at how that system is being abused by those with specific agendas.

> The PISA assessment by the OECD demonstrates that only 13.5% of American students age 15 were able to distinguish fact from opinion in reading tests.

What's the distribution among public and home schooling?

Also what is the rate for adults?

I thought evolution was a theory not a fact

This is a flawed idea that there is a one to one relation that everything you learn is something that will be directly used in the future.

I mean how often do we hear something along the lines of "I never used the algebra I learned in highschool" or calculus or whatever.

The reality is that while a lot of school is teaching you the basics, a lot of it is also just teaching you how to learn and how to think critically.

Or just giving you an appreciation for basic things (like science) so when you come across a new concept in your adult life you can better appreciate it and not dismiss it.

>> a lot of it is also just teaching you how to learn and how to think critically

It does not appear that this is happening in government run schools as prevalently as you may want to believe.

I never said it was perfect, but I am pointing out that your argument is fundamentally flawed.

Even if it isn't happening as much as it should be, doesn't change that there is still value in a proper science and math education.

We know that thanks to republicans many schools can no longer give their kids a proper education.

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