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Not conservative, but I was homeschooled until I went to university. A few scattered thoughts on the topic that I can elaborate on if anyone is interested:
- I was very badly socialized and very isolated growing up, so much so that I failed my first semester entirely and had to come back years later to get a degree. This isn’t representative, from what I understand.
- I did score highly on many subjects (reading and algebra, mainly) but on others I was entirely ignorant (history, evolution or anything that contradicted the bible)
- I was able to catch up on the topics that I was ignorant of in relatively short order. I attribute this partially to my homeschooling, because the self-directed nature of my education fit very well with how you are expected to learn in university. Partially, I think it’s because public schools act as extended daycare to some degree and teach the same subjects over and over.
- I generally support homeschooling. It can be done well and seems to lead to a solid education with much less time investment than public schooling.
- My only reservation is that (in my experience) many families use it as a way to avoid teaching their children important things about the world that conflict with their ideology.
- I imagine that if I had gone into another profession, my ignorance of biology or history would have been a larger problem.
Lol I guess I should have clarified. Most homeschoolers can still function at a university- not well, but they can. I stopped talking to everyone, locked myself in my dorm, and only came out in the middle of the night. Didn’t do tests or assignments, and finally called my family to come get me just before finals. The whole semester was a zero.
My only reservation is that (in my experience) many families use it as a way to avoid teaching their children important things about the world that conflict with their ideology.
Given that we are at risk of extinction from climate change, and teaching the existence of climate change is ideologically opposed by many conservatives, it should be a bit more than just a reservation. Children need to know that the Earth is fucked right now and we need to take steps to unfuck it.
I agree that kids should know about climate change, but I’m wary of enforced education. I live in an area where, if a particular viewpoint were going to be enforced, it would almost certainly be religious, conservative, and historically revisionist. I’m not sure where that balance should be struck.
I’m not stating that a view point should be enforced. I’m stating that the facts need to be taught. And the fact is, climate change is a giant fucking risk to the existence of humanity.
Maybe you could say the “and we ought to fix it” part is a view point. But by that low of a bar “people ought to eat food” is a viewpoint.
“I don’t want my kids to learn in a place where trans kids are allowed to go by the name they prefer and where Harry Potter books are on the shelf. I want to teach my child how to hate the things I hate, not learn tolerance of others who are different”
Don’t forget, it’s also about race, religion, political beliefs, etc. It would be a crime to expose your child to something other than an in group.
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I will make a couple notes:
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The home-educated typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests.
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Research facts on homeschooling show that the home-educated are doing well, typically above average, on measures of social, emotional, and psychological development. Research measures include peer interaction, self-concept, leadership skills, family cohesion, participation in community service, and self-esteem.
Source: https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/
If I ever end up homeschooling a kid I may eventually have it’ll be to
use pedagogical approaches other than those typical in institutional schools
That’s from your source. If there is one thing I really hate about my public school education, is not learning rhetoric the way it was classically taught or at all! Sure, I had English and Lit classes, but the importance of those classes when I was younger never really made sense to me until I was in high school and jaded af.
From the Axios article though, avoiding the school-to-prison pipeline for minorities is also a really good reason.
I think this paragraph sums up the issues with home schooling (from Brookings):
…home schooling is also criticized for weakening the common civic enterprise represented by the public school system. To some, deliberation about education is a necessary means of making one society out of many groups. They think that people who demand freedom from regulations, educate children themselves, or pay for private schools weaken critical public forums.
A contrary view is that intellectual and values diversity are so important to a democratic society that questions about education should never be settled authoritatively. People who hold that view point to legislatures’ susceptibility to capture by interest groups and their inability to settle deeply controversial issues. They have reason to think that state standard-setting processes have degenerated into logrolling sessions among advocates for different subjects and that states have pretended false clarity about what skills young people must have in our boisterous, competitive, fast-moving, technology-driven, and unpredictable society.
Rhetorically, I believe the latter view merely conceals the desire for segregation. But I suppose it’s no fair to demonize the entire home schooling enterprise based on the view of a portion of the movement. And, it’s pretty clear that it can have benefits…like reducing the chances of your child being involved in a school shooting.
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The other side: Homeschooling can prevent children from learning about and being exposed to other kids from different backgrounds, Knight pointed out.
While public schools are held accountable for meeting student outcome standards and have requirements to teach social studies curriculum and civic engagement, “none of that is true for homeschooling,” he added.
There are also other challenges that present themselves “when it comes to this fracturing of educational experiences and common experiences,” Stephen Aguilar, an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California, told Axios.
Among them are the absence of mandated reports when a student isn’t in a traditional classroom, the lack of measures of a student’s progress and the introduction to certain concepts, Aguilar said.
Absolute understatement. And completely ignores the problems of handing children over to corporations.