OT: Its not just spelling - home schooled boy aces SAT
georgann
June 2, 2001
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BUCHANAN -- A 17-year-old who has been mostly home-schooled earned a perfect
score on his Scholastic Assessment Test.
Jeff Joyce's parents rousted him from bed late one night last week to give
him the good news.
"My dad picked up the mail when he got home that night, and my SAT scores
had come," Jeff said. "So, they woke me up and told me I had a perfect
score."
According to the College Board, the New York-based institution that created
the SAT, only 541 of the 1,260,278 students taking the test in 2000 matched
Jeff's perfect score of 1,600. High school juniors take the standardized
test to help determine college preparedness.
Dan and Kathy Joyce started home-schooling their son when he was in the
first grade. His rapid progress in mathematics led him to enroll last year
in the Berrien County Math & Science Center on the Andrews University campus
in Berrien Springs.
"My mom couldn't help me with the questions I had after I went into
pre-calculus," Jeff said with a laugh.
His father, a physician affiliated with Lakeland Hospital in Niles, and
stay-at-home mother also home-school Jeff's siblings -- brother Scott, 14,
and sister Tara, 9. Kathy Joyce said home-schooling allows greater freedom
in the style of education her children will receive.
"I thought I could do a good job at keeping the love of learning alive for
them," she was quoted as saying in the South Bend Tribune in Indiana. "You
see young kids, and they are very enthused about seeing and doing new
things. But after a while, a lot of them just start going through the
motions."
Jeff has always been interested in learning, she said. Outside of his
regular curriculum, he delved into computers, chess and World War II and
Civil War history. When he had a chance to take the SAT in the eighth grade
through a gifted-and-talented program, he scored 1,360 -- better than 90
percent of high school juniors' score.
He wanted to do even better this time around.
"I was shooting for a 1,500," Jeff said. "I felt pretty good when I walked
out of the test, but I thought I would probably miss at least a couple."
He credits his achievement only partly to his years of home-schooling and
his extensive perusal of SAT study guides.
"Before I took the test, I told the Lord that whatever I got was in His
hands," he said. "This was His will."
k
"georgann" <chen...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:B73E770B.208B7%chen...@mindspring.com...
<snip Freeper BS>
This is newsworthy, why? Publicy schooled kids "ace" the test every day.
Is it a rare occurence that a home schooler does well on their SAT?
Why is it in the news? It proves nothing.
k
Truble2301
>This is newsworthy, why? Publicy schooled kids "ace" the test every day.
>
>Is it a rare occurence that a home schooler does well on their SAT?
>
>Why is it in the news? It proves nothing.
I was wondering the same thing myself. One homeschooled kids aced it. That
means 540 public/private schooled kids did the same. Not a great
recommendation for home schooling.
Tammy
Rick
<20010602132608...@ng-fo1.aol.com>...
Do you have the facts to back that up? Maybe you should do some research
into how schools like Stanford have admitted a disproportionately high
number of home schooled kids.
- Rick
Eve
>From: georgann chen...@mindspring.com
>Date: 6/2/01 7:57 AM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <B73E770B.208B7%chen...@mindspring.com>
>
>Boy aces SAT, credits his parents -- and God
>
>June 2, 2001
>ASSOCIATED PRESS
>He credits his achievement only partly to his years of home-schooling and
>his extensive perusal of SAT study guides.
Teaching to the test isn't exactly new, Georgann. That's pretty much how the
Texas primary schools raised their grade, isn't it?
Also, have you any idea how many kids has aced the SATs who went to public
school?
And, getting to your pet argument, why weren't these kids in private school?
The dad is a physician, who can most likely well afford it, even without
vouchers...wouldn't you say, Georgann?
BTW, wasn't your dad a doctor?
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Eve
>From: "k" crystal...@BITEMEdavidbowie.com
>Date: 6/2/01 8:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <dD7S6.40318$qs3.17...@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com>
It's a hot ticket in some political climates, kel. And you remember Georgann's
pet project is getting kids out of "Government schools."
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
georgann
> <snip Freeper BS - as per k>
k:
> This is newsworthy, why? Publicy schooled kids "ace" the test every day.
> Is it a rare occurence that a home schooler does well on their SAT?
> Why is it in the news? It proves nothing.
georgann wrote:
Its newsworthy because of all the whining that went on (including in this
NG) about the home-schooler winning the national spelling bee. The academic
types were claiming spelling wasn't indicative of a good education via
home-schooling. This pretty much squashes that idea.
And the article came from the AP wires not Free Republic. Though you can be
certain they were paying attention to it.
BTW fewer than 0.05% (note that's not 5%, not EVEN 1/2 of 1%) ace the SATS.
No matter how / where they are schooled.
--
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'
Isaiah 53:4 ""Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves
esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and
afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for
our transgressions, He was crushed for our
iniquities; The chastening for our well-being
fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of
us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has
caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.""
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'
Elisabeth Riba
> BTW fewer than 0.05% (note that's not 5%, not EVEN 1/2 of 1%) ace the SATS.
> No matter how / where they are schooled.
.05% means 1 out of 2000. If there are more than 2000 home-schooled kids
in America, the fact that one aced the SAT is merely a matter of odds, not
anything remarkable in-and-of homeschooling.
--
----------> Elisabeth Anne Riba * l...@osmond-riba.org <----------
"[She] is one of the secret masters of the world: a librarian.
They control information. Don't ever piss one off."
- Spider Robinson, "Callahan Touch"
Bill Bonde
What the hell are you talking about?
Rev. Dr. Tim, BsD
--
"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal
shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's
just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it."
--George W. Bush, May 14, 2001
Rev. Dr. Tim, BsD
regulated. For every homeschooled kid who shines, There are many
others whose lives are shattered.
georgann
>> He credits his achievement only partly to his years of home-schooling and
>> his extensive perusal of SAT study guides.
Eve:
> have you any idea how many kids has aced the SATs who went to public school?
georgann:
According to the article ""only 541 of the 1,260,278 students taking the
test in 2000 matched Jeff's perfect score of 1,600"". It doesn't say if the
other students were educated in public schools, private schools or for that
matter how many other students with perfect scores were also home schooled.
Eve:
> And, getting to your pet argument, why weren't these kids in private school?
> The dad is a physician, who can most likely well afford it, even without
> vouchers...wouldn't you say, Georgann? BTW, wasn't your dad a doctor?
> Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
georgann wrote:
I thought my pet argument was liburulism and the ruin of our nation....
My dad was a physician yes. And I went to private schools, yes. Did I meet
or attempt to exceed my potential in that environment, alas no. Do I care
yet, no.
What's your point?
Maddi Hausmann Sojourner
> Truble2301 (Tammy) wrote in message
> >>From: "k"
> >
> >>This is newsworthy, why? Publicy schooled kids "ace" the test every
> >>day. Is it a rare occurence that a home schooler does well on their
> >>SAT? Why is it in the news? It proves nothing.
> >
> >I was wondering the same thing myself. One homeschooled kids aced it.
> > That means 540 public/private schooled kids did the same. Not a great
> >recommendation for home schooling.
Actually it means 540 kids of indeterminate educational background
aced it, which would include public, private, and other forms of
education.
> Do you have the facts to back that up? Maybe you should do some research
> into how schools like Stanford have admitted a disproportionately high
> number of home schooled kids.
Maybe you should back up that statement with an actual cite, Rick. Be
sure to account for your estimates of the number of children who are
home-schooled in demonstrating that the Stanford admittees are
"disproportionately" represented.
trdm
Loves cites
--
Maddi Hausmann Sojourner mad...@alumni.princeton.edu
georgann
> georgann <chen...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> BTW fewer than 0.05% (note that's not 5%, not EVEN 1/2 of 1%) ace the SATS.
>> No matter how / where they are schooled.
Elisabeth Riba:
> .05% means 1 out of 2000. If there are more than 2000 home-schooled kids
> in America, the fact that one aced the SAT is merely a matter of odds, not
> anything remarkable in-and-of homeschooling.
georgann wrote:
Lis, the article says only ""541 of the 1,260,278 students"" aced the test
in 2000. If he's one of 541, that means only 540 others aced it too. That's
a fair indicator that his performance is pretty significant as percentages
go. The case for home schooling just got an enormous boost. The naysayers
can just sit on it.
Truble2301
>>Tammy said:
I was wondering the same thing myself. One homeschooled kids aced it.
>That
>>means 540 public/private schooled kids did the same. Not a great
>>recommendation for home schooling.
>
>Do you have the facts to back that up? Maybe you should do some research
>into how schools like Stanford have admitted a disproportionately high
>number of home schooled kids.
Here's the first part of the original story:
Maybe instead of me doing research, you do some looking yourself next time.
I'm not saying home schooled kids don't get into college -- just that it's not
newsworthy that one of them scored 1600 on the SAT. And that one of them doing
it is not a validation of homeschooling.
Tammy
<<Boy aces SAT, credits his parents -- and God
June 2, 2001
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BUCHANAN -- A 17-year-old who has been mostly home-schooled earned a perfect
score on his Scholastic Assessment Test.
Jeff Joyce's parents rousted him from bed late one night last week to give
him the good news.
"My dad picked up the mail when he got home that night, and my SAT scores
had come," Jeff said. "So, they woke me up and told me I had a perfect
score."
According to the College Board, the New York-based institution that created
the SAT, only 541 of the 1,260,278 students taking the test in 2000 matched
EMF1947
>Date: Sat, Jun 2, 2001 4:42 PM
>Message-id: <20010602174200...@ng-ch1.aol.com>
I wish I could remember where I read this but I think it is now possble to get
that "perfect score" with an error or two; that an 800 now can be achieved even
if you get one (or maybe 2) items on that section wrong.
Ellen
-----------
Everybody looks "different" one way or another. That's how we tell them apart.
-Miss Manners
Bill Bonde
georgann wrote:
>
> > georgann <chen...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >> BTW fewer than 0.05% (note that's not 5%, not EVEN 1/2 of 1%) ace the SATS.
> >> No matter how / where they are schooled.
>
> Elisabeth Riba:
> > .05% means 1 out of 2000. If there are more than 2000 home-schooled kids
> > in America, the fact that one aced the SAT is merely a matter of odds, not
> > anything remarkable in-and-of homeschooling.
>
> georgann wrote:
> Lis, the article says only ""541 of the 1,260,278 students"" aced the test
> in 2000. If he's one of 541, that means only 540 others aced it too. That's
> a fair indicator that his performance is pretty significant as percentages
> go. The case for home schooling just got an enormous boost. The naysayers
> can just sit on it.
>
A large part of public or private school is socialization. I wonder if
home schooled kids get much of that. In any case, one in 2330 got a
perfect score in 2000. How many of the tested kids are home schooled?
That isn't in there for some reason.
Bill Bonde
I hated the exploded boxes. "What does this look like if you exploded
it?" Who the hell cares?
Rick
<20010602174200...@ng-ch1.aol.com>...
>>From: "Rick"
>>>
>>>Tammy said:
>I was wondering the same thing myself. One homeschooled kids aced it.
>>That
>>>means 540 public/private schooled kids did the same. Not a great
>>>recommendation for home schooling.
>>
>Rick said:
>>Do you have the facts to back that up? Maybe you should do some research
>>into how schools like Stanford have admitted a disproportionately high
>>number of home schooled kids.
>
>Here's the first part of the original story:
>Maybe instead of me doing research, you do some looking yourself next time.
>I'm not saying home schooled kids don't get into college -- just that it's
not
>newsworthy that one of them scored 1600 on the SAT. And that one of them
doing
>it is not a validation of homeschooling.
I agree. A lot of stories like this are not much more than interesting
anecdotes.
>Tammy
>
><<Boy aces SAT, credits his parents -- and God
>
>June 2, 2001
>ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
>BUCHANAN -- A 17-year-old who has been mostly home-schooled earned a
perfect
>score on his Scholastic Assessment Test.
>
>Jeff Joyce's parents rousted him from bed late one night last week to give
>him the good news.
>
>"My dad picked up the mail when he got home that night, and my SAT scores
>had come," Jeff said. "So, they woke me up and told me I had a perfect
>score."
>
>According to the College Board, the New York-based institution that created
>the SAT, only 541 of the 1,260,278 students taking the test in 2000 matched
>Jeff's perfect score of 1,600.>>
-Rick
Mr. Red
<chen...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > georgann <chen...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >> BTW fewer than 0.05% (note that's not 5%, not EVEN 1/2 of 1%) ace the SATS.
> >> No matter how / where they are schooled.
>
>
> Elisabeth Riba:
> > .05% means 1 out of 2000. If there are more than 2000 home-schooled kids
> > in America, the fact that one aced the SAT is merely a matter of odds, not
> > anything remarkable in-and-of homeschooling.
>
> georgann wrote:
> Lis, the article says only ""541 of the 1,260,278 students"" aced the test
> in 2000. If he's one of 541, that means only 540 others aced it too. That's
> a fair indicator that his performance is pretty significant as percentages
> go.
The case for home schooling just got an enormous boost. The naysayers
> can just sit on it.
No. it didn't...unless you can prove that home-schooled students as a group
did significantly better than school-schooled students. Your study must be
well constructed, with all the proper controls. What is there to prove that
this particular student, who scored 1600 on the SAT, wouldn't haave done so
had he gone to a regular school?
Cheers,
Mr. Red
--
"A dangerous-looking redhead sat languidly at an Adam desk talking into a
pure-white telephone. I went over there and she put a couple of cold-blue
bullets into me with her eyes and then stared at the cornice that ran
around the room."
The Little Sister (1949)
--Raymond Chandler
Rick
<3B194CF5...@alumni.princeton.edu>...
I love 'em too. Here's some Cites&Sites:
http://www.homeschoolnewslink.com/articles/vol5iss4/SpecialCollege_v5i4.htm
"Last year Stanford University (CA) admitted 27% of their homeschooled
applicants, and approximately 13% of their regular applicant pool."
Now to verify those numbers:
http://www.stanfordalumni.org/jg/mig/news_magazine/magazine/novdec00/article
s/homeschooling.html
"The latest Stanford numbers show a rise in homeschooler applications. In
1999, the first year of tracking, 15 applied. Four were admitted, and all
four enrolled. In 2000, there were 35 applications, more than double the
previous year's. Nine were accepted, and five, including Butler, started
classes on the Farm this fall.
That's a tiny subgroup, just 0.2 percent of the applicant pool."
http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/facts/undergraduate.html
"Each year, many more highly qualified students apply than the university
has places for in the freshman class of 1,600 or the transfer group of about
100."
Now, putting it all together, when I used the 35 applicants as the 0.2% of
the applicant pool, it wasn't even close. Putting the two years together
works.
50 / 0.2% = 25,000 applicants for two years
(1,600 + 100) * 2 = 3,400 admitted for two years
3,400 / 25,000 = 13.6% overall admission rate
13 / 50 = 26% homeschool admission rate
(I don't know how they got 27%. Maybe they used fuzzy calculus)
- Rick
GregK
news:9fbv8e$bac$1@sshuraac-i-> 50 / 0.2% = 25,000 >
> (1,600 + 100) * 2 = 3,400 admitted for two years
>
> 3,400 / 25,000 = 13.6% overall admission rate
>
> 13 / 50 = 26% homeschool admission rate
> (I don't know how they got 27%. Maybe they used fuzzy calculus)
They used Homeschooler Math.
GregK
He should credit his parents, since he went beyond what they could teach
him. Obviously a smart kid who would do well whether homeschooled or not.
GregK
"GregK" <gre...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9fc1g...@enews2.newsguy.com...
I meant to say he should also credit himself.
Rick
Nah, Amish laptop.
http://www.mystique.net/amish.html
(note: there seems to be a problem with this page in takes a minute or so
for the picture to show up)
- Rick
Eve
>From: tim...@newsguy.com (Rev. Dr. Tim, BsD)
>Date: 6/2/01 12:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <90B48A8E5timh...@209.155.56.94>
Or who, just like regular kids in (government) public schools, barely make the
grade. I have a family member who couldn't concentrate (her excuse) in her
last year of high school, so she started home schooling. Didn't learn enough
to be a file clerk. Too bad.
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Eve
>From: georgann chen...@mindspring.com
>Date: 6/2/01 1:29 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <B73EC503.20944%chen...@mindspring.com>
>
>
>>> He credits his achievement only partly to his years of home-schooling and
>>> his extensive perusal of SAT study guides.
>
>Eve:
>> have you any idea how many kids has aced the SATs who went to public
>school?
>
>georgann:
>According to the article ""only 541 of the 1,260,278 students taking the
>test in 2000 matched Jeff's perfect score of 1,600"". It doesn't say if the
>other students were educated in public schools, private schools or for that
>matter how many other students with perfect scores were also home schooled.
>
>Eve:
>> And, getting to your pet argument, why weren't these kids in private
>school?
>> The dad is a physician, who can most likely well afford it, even without
>> vouchers...wouldn't you say, Georgann? BTW, wasn't your dad a doctor?
>> Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
>
>georgann wrote:
>I thought my pet argument was liburulism and the ruin of our nation....
>
>My dad was a physician yes. And I went to private schools, yes. Did I meet
>or attempt to exceed my potential in that environment, alas no. Do I care
>yet, no.
>
>What's your point?
You've made it for me, Georgann. Thanks.
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Eve
>From: "GregK" gre...@hotmail.com
>Date: 6/2/01 5:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <9fc1g...@enews2.newsguy.com>
Definitely. Not many kids at his age are "into" calculus.
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Cyn
GregK wrote in message <9fc1g...@enews2.newsguy.com>...
>"georgann" <chen...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
>news:B73E770B.208B7%chen...@mindspring.com...
>> Boy aces SAT, credits his parents -- and God
>
>He should credit his parents, since he went beyond what they could teach
>him.
Isn't that the goal of every teacher?
>Obviously a smart kid who would do well whether homeschooled or not.
>
Not necessarily. At the time I pulled my son out of public school, I had my
doubts about whether he'd ever excell in school or not. They'd completely
turned him off learning. In two years, he progressed four grade levels, and
he loves to learn again. *Now* he has a chance where ever he's schooled-- he
knows how to learn, and he wants to.
He's an average student at school, but the things homeschooling taught him
to teach *himself* will take him a lot farther than scores on standardized
tests will, which is the whole point of homeschooling.
Some of you guys need to remember that there's more than one way to do
things right. I'm with Tim on this one, I think parents ought to be willing
to seek some kind of certification, I think kids ought to be tested
regularly, and I think the fact that the needs of individual children are
going to be different ought to be recognized.
And, if you don't already, find areas of interest for your kids to study
independently from school, things you can't really teach them either. It's
really neat to watch a kid teach himself when you give him the time, the
resources, and the space. You'll start to see the real appeal of
homeschooling.
Cyn
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back
home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with
treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the
timid."
-- Q with Picard in "Q Who"
Get the FAQs, Jack
http://www.angelfire.com/journal/artdljunkie/faq.html
Elisabeth Riba
>>> BTW fewer than 0.05% (note that's not 5%, not EVEN 1/2 of 1%) ace the SATS.
>>> No matter how / where they are schooled.
> Elisabeth Riba:
>> .05% means 1 out of 2000. If there are more than 2000 home-schooled kids
> georgann wrote:
> Lis, the article says only ""541 of the 1,260,278 students"" aced the test
Then why did YOU say the odds were less than .05%? I'm merely quoting
your own statistics back at you.
David Friedman
this thread:
In article <dD7S6.40318$qs3.17...@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com>,
"k" <crystal...@BITEMEdavidbowie.com> wrote:
> This is newsworthy, why? Publicy schooled kids "ace" the test every day.
>
> Is it a rare occurence that a home schooler does well on their SAT?
>
> Why is it in the news? It proves nothing.
Two things make it newsworthy:
1. There are a lot more publicly schooled kids than home schooled kids.
While nobody seems to have hard numbers, it looks as though the ratio is
between fifty and a hundred to one. If so, then if the fraction who get
1600 on their college boards is the same in both groups, there should be
about five to ten home schooled students a year getting 1600. So
although one such case isn't miraculous, it is newsworthy.
2. Part of the argument for public schooling--even more generally, for
school schooling--is the idea that parents can't do a competent job of
educating their kids, so it has to be turned over to professionals. If
that is true, one would expect home schooled students to do much worse
than publicly (or privately) schooled students.
Incidentally, I think the description of 1600 as a perfect score is
somewhat misleading. My understanding of SAT grading is that, while an
800 is the highest grade you can get, it does not necessarily require
getting all of the questions right.
GregK writes:
"Obviously a smart kid who would do well whether homeschooled or not."
Obviously a smart kid. But smart kids may or may not do well
academically, depending on whether they want to--which may in turn
depend on what sort of schooling they encounter.
Elizabeth Riba writes:
> .05% means 1 out of 2000. If there are more than 2000 home-schooled kids
> in America, the fact that one aced the SAT is merely a matter of odds, not
> anything remarkable in-and-of homeschooling.
The relevant number is not how many home-schooled kids there are but how
many took the SAT's this year. If the quoted figures were right, the
total number of children in school is mearly forty times as high as the
number who take the SAT in one year.
The boy's mother was quoted as saying:
""I thought I could do a good job at keeping the love of learning alive
for them," she was quoted as saying in the South Bend Tribune in
Indiana. "You see young kids, and they are very enthused about seeing
and doing new things. But after a while, a lot of them just start going
through the motions.""
My kids go to a small and very unconventional private school (Cedarwood
Sudbury; you can find a link to their web page on my web page). Kids
basically do what they want with their time, subject to not mistreating
each other or the school. Classes happen when and if some of the kids
tell a staff member that they want a class.
A while back, some of the parents were talking and one of them was
describing how her daughter had been a bright and enthusiastic child,
and that had all stopped after she started going to (I think public)
school. After she switched to Cedarwood, she felt as though she had
gotten her daughter back. I was particularly struck by the story because
I know the daughter, and she is an unusually happy, energetic, creative
child--the mastermind behind last year's school play, in which she
played the big bad wolf with enormous enthusiasm.
One other question. Does anyone know if the SAT eventually got renormed?
For a long time, it was done in such a way that a given score in
different years was supposed to correspond to the same absolute
ability--with the result that for a long time SAT (and achievement)
scores were trending down. There was pressure to renorm it, but I'm not
sure if it finally happened or not.
timhill writes:
> I have no problem with homeschooling, but it needs to be tightly
> regulated. For every homeschooled kid who shines, There are many
> others whose lives are shattered.
Do you similarly feel that you have no problem with letting UPS and
FedEx compete with the post office, but they have to be tightly
regulated?
I would have said that although parents sometimes make mistakes, they
are likely to know their children better and care more about their
children than any other adult. So transferring authority away from the
parents to some other "regulator" is more likely to do harm than good. I
suggest that the current state of the public schools provides some
evidence for that.
And is your assertion about shattered lives backed by some sort of data,
or just your own guess? An awful lot of children get badly educated in
public schools.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Bill Bonde
What training in high school would be required to be a file clerk?
GregK
news:9fc8dq$4rla$1...@newssvr06-en0.news.prodigy.com...
>
> GregK wrote in message <9fc1g...@enews2.newsguy.com>...
> >"georgann" <chen...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> >news:B73E770B.208B7%chen...@mindspring.com...
> >> Boy aces SAT, credits his parents -- and God
> >
> >He should credit his parents, since he went beyond what they could teach
> >him.
>
> Isn't that the goal of every teacher?
>
> >Obviously a smart kid who would do well whether homeschooled or not.
> >
>
> Not necessarily. At the time I pulled my son out of public school, I had
my
> doubts about whether he'd ever excell in school or not. They'd completely
> turned him off learning. In two years, he progressed four grade levels,
and
> he loves to learn again. *Now* he has a chance where ever he's schooled--
he
> knows how to learn, and he wants to.
>
> He's an average student at school, but the things homeschooling taught him
> to teach *himself* will take him a lot farther than scores on standardized
> tests will, which is the whole point of homeschooling.
Cyn, I have absolutely *zero* problem with homeschooling when the parent is
capable of doing it. In many cases the individualized attention is the best
thing for the child. I have a problem with anecdotal stories such as these
being held up as typical of homeschooling though. For every one of these
stories we can hold up plenty of stories that are just as impressive about
kids in the public schools
> Some of you guys need to remember that there's more than one way to do
> things right. I'm with Tim on this one, I think parents ought to be
willing
> to seek some kind of certification, I think kids ought to be tested
> regularly, and I think the fact that the needs of individual children are
> going to be different ought to be recognized.
Lots of kids need more individual attention, that is true. Your son
obviously needed it, and kudos to you for being willing and able to provide
it.
> And, if you don't already, find areas of interest for your kids to study
> independently from school, things you can't really teach them either. It's
> really neat to watch a kid teach himself when you give him the time, the
> resources, and the space. You'll start to see the real appeal of
> homeschooling.
My son, in particular, picked up a love of reading during this past school
year, well beyond what they were teaching him in school (a charter school,
which they will NOT be returning to next year.) I know exactly what you are
talking about.
Bill Bonde
k wrote:
>
> "georgann" <chen...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:B73E770B.208B7%chen...@mindspring.com...
>
> <snip Freeper BS>
>
> This is newsworthy, why? Publicy schooled kids "ace" the test every day.
>
'Ace' is 90+ percent correct.
> Is it a rare occurence that a home schooler does well on their SAT?
>
> Why is it in the news? It proves nothing.
>
Home schooled kids regularly win the national spelling contests. It is
rare to have someone get the entire SAT correct.
Eve
>From: Bill Bonde stderr_...@mail.com
>Date: 6/3/01 12:48 AM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <3B19EBD7...@mail.com>
>
>
Once.
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
georgann
>>> georgann <chen...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>> BTW fewer than 0.05% (note that's not 5%, not EVEN 1/2 of 1%) ace the SATS.
>>>> No matter how / where they are schooled.
>
>> Elisabeth Riba:
>>> .05% means 1 out of 2000. If there are more than 2000 home-schooled kids
>
>> georgann wrote:
>> Lis, the article says only ""541 of the 1,260,278 students"" aced the test
>
> Then why did YOU say the odds were less than .05%? I'm merely quoting
> your own statistics back at you.
georgann wrote:
I was being exceedingly generous by saying a number of less than 1/2 or 1%.
Which is a number people can retain in their head. Not like the actual
0.0004292 or 0.04292%.
Let's just agree its a very very very minute number of students that ace the
SAT. With or without a givie of 1 or 2 errors.
David Friedman
evedu...@aol.com (Eve) wrote:
> >Home schooled kids regularly win the national spelling contests. It is
> >rare to have someone get the entire SAT correct.
>
> Once.
I think there is a point lots of people are missing in interpreting this
particular news story.
SAT scores are not public information, or at least were not back when I
took them. A reporter cannot simply go to ETS and ask for a list of
everyone who got 1600.
Suppose you, or your kid, got 1600. While it is possible that you will
call up the news media to tell them about it, it isn't very
likely--whether you are homeschooling or not. So the fact that one
homeschooled student is known to have gotten 1600 probably means that a
good many more also got it--how many more we don't know, of course.
What we do know, since the story included the total number of 1600's, is
that if the numbers were proportional to the numbers of home schooled
and conventionally schooled students in the country, there should have
been a total of five or ten homeschooled kids who got 1600. That at
least one got 1600 and the news got to the press suggests to me that
there probably are at least that many.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Lawrence Garvin
F26DD0.074...@news.wwc.com>:
It suggests to me that a home schooled child who achieves a perfect
score on the test is a real anomoly. It also suggests that this 'news
story' is more story than news.
Lawrence
public school supporter and one of
my kid's teachers.
David Friedman
lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
> >What we do know, since the story included the total number of 1600's, is
> >that if the numbers were proportional to the numbers of home schooled
> >and conventionally schooled students in the country, there should have
> >been a total of five or ten homeschooled kids who got 1600. That at
> >least one got 1600 and the news got to the press suggests to me that
> >there probably are at least that many.
>
> It suggests to me that a home schooled child who achieves a perfect
> score on the test is a real anomoly. It also suggests that this 'news
> story' is more story than news.
All news stories are stories--that's an important filter that you have
to take account of. The news media are mainly in the business of
entertaining their readers, so the chance that they will report an event
depends very much on how good a story it makes.
But your "real anomaly" makes very little sense. How would the reporter
know how common 1600's are among homeschooled children? As I pointed out
earlier, it isn't public information. Indeed, so far as I can tell,
nobody even knows how many children are being home schooled--estimates
seem to vary over about a factor of two (roughly half a million to a
million).
As I have already pointed out, if homeschooling does as well as ordinary
schooling in this regard, we would expect five or ten homeschooled
1600's a year. That's a small enough number so that we might not hear of
any of them. So neither you nor the reporter has any idea whether such a
result is an anomaly.
I can, however, offer a little evidence from a different source. Some
time back, I was invited to speak at a highschool debate conference on
the subject of immigration that was being held at my school. After
agreeing, I discovered that the students in question were homeschoolers.
I gave the talk, and it was one of the best audiences I have ever spoken
to--bright, enthusiastic, interested kids. That certainly isn't a
scientific experiment--I haven't given a similar talk to a
conventionally schooled highschool debate conference--but it is some
evidence.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Lawrence Garvin
>In article <90B56D69Flga...@207.107.250.114>,
> lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
>
>> >What we do know, since the story included the total number of 1600's,
>> >is that if the numbers were proportional to the numbers of home
>> >schooled and conventionally schooled students in the country, there
>> >should have been a total of five or ten homeschooled kids who got
>> >1600. That at least one got 1600 and the news got to the press
>> >suggests to me that there probably are at least that many.
>>
>> It suggests to me that a home schooled child who achieves a perfect
>> score on the test is a real anomoly. It also suggests that this 'news
>> story' is more story than news.
>
>All news stories are stories--that's an important filter that you have
>to take account of. The news media are mainly in the business of
>entertaining their readers, so the chance that they will report an event
>depends very much on how good a story it makes.
Exactly. If home schooled kids were achieving perfect scores
as a matter of course then a perfect score is hardly newsworthy,
right?
>But your "real anomaly" makes very little sense. How would the reporter
>know how common 1600's are among homeschooled children? As I pointed out
>earlier, it isn't public information. Indeed, so far as I can tell,
>nobody even knows how many children are being home schooled--estimates
>seem to vary over about a factor of two (roughly half a million to a
>million).
>
>As I have already pointed out, if homeschooling does as well as ordinary
>schooling in this regard, we would expect five or ten homeschooled
>1600's a year. That's a small enough number so that we might not hear of
>any of them. So neither you nor the reporter has any idea whether such a
>result is an anomaly.
I was just answering your conjecture that perfect scores among
the home schooled would naturally fall into one range or
another. The fact that on kid who is home schooled managed a
perfect score says exactly nothing about the value of home
schooling - that's all. It's my opinion that home schooling is
something that all kids should get _in addition_ to the
education they receive in a good public school.
>I can, however, offer a little evidence from a different source. Some
>time back, I was invited to speak at a highschool debate conference on
>the subject of immigration that was being held at my school. After
>agreeing, I discovered that the students in question were homeschoolers.
>I gave the talk, and it was one of the best audiences I have ever spoken
>to--bright, enthusiastic, interested kids. That certainly isn't a
>scientific experiment--I haven't given a similar talk to a
>conventionally schooled highschool debate conference--but it is some
>evidence.
The problem with that anecdote is that home schooled kids
who had no interest in your topic would not attend. In the
public system, your audience -your sample- would not be self
selected.
Lawrence
David Friedman
lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
> dd...@best.com (David Friedman) wrote in
> <ddfr-D1F031.0...@news.wwc.com>:
> >All news stories are stories--that's an important filter that you have
> >to take account of. The news media are mainly in the business of
> >entertaining their readers, so the chance that they will report an event
> >depends very much on how good a story it makes.
> Exactly. If home schooled kids were achieving perfect scores
> as a matter of course then a perfect score is hardly newsworthy,
> right?
If home schooled kids were achieving perfect scores as a matter of
course, that fact would be very newsworthy indeed, since it would mean
that they were doing enormously better than kids with ordinary
schooling. When a home schooled kid wins a national spelling bee, which
I gather has happened a couple of times, that is newsworthy--since there
is only one winner, and home schooled kids are a tiny minority of all
kids.
Perhaps what bothers me is your use of "anomaly," which suggests, not
merely that a random home schooled kid is unlikely to get 1600 (surely
true), but that for any home schooled kid to get 1600 is anomalous--i.e.
that we would expect zero to.
> I was just answering your conjecture that perfect scores among
> the home schooled would naturally fall into one range or
> another. The fact that on kid who is home schooled managed a
> perfect score says exactly nothing about the value of home
> schooling - that's all.
It doesn't say an enormous amount, but it says more than "nothing at
all." Given the low odds that a particular 1600 will become public, it
is, in my view, evidence, although weak evidence, that home schooling
does at least as well as conventional schooling at the upper end of thes
cale.
> It's my opinion that home schooling is
> something that all kids should get _in addition_ to the
> education they receive in a good public school.
I agree that parents should educate their children. But it isn't clear
to me that a conventional school is worth the time it costs the children
who are in it. That's one reason my children go to a very unconventional
school.
> >I can, however, offer a little evidence from a different source. Some
> >time back, I was invited to speak at a highschool debate conference on
> >the subject of immigration that was being held at my school. After
> >agreeing, I discovered that the students in question were homeschoolers.
> >I gave the talk, and it was one of the best audiences I have ever spoken
> >to--bright, enthusiastic, interested kids. That certainly isn't a
> >scientific experiment--I haven't given a similar talk to a
> >conventionally schooled highschool debate conference--but it is some
> >evidence.
>
> The problem with that anecdote is that home schooled kids
> who had no interest in your topic would not attend. In the
> public system, your audience -your sample- would not be self
> selected.
Sure it would be. This wasn't a class, it was a conference for students
who were engaged in highschool debate; I gather immigration was this
year's topic. A similar conference for public school students would also
be self-selected.
But since I haven't spoken at any public school debate conferences, what
I am actually comparing that audience to is my experience of students
coming into higher education. That is a pretty highly selected sample as
well, both because only about a quarter of the population goes through a
four year college and because my teaching has mostly been at pretty good
schools (I have taught freshmen at UCLA, Santa Clara, and I think VPI).
The home schooled kids seemed brighter and more interested than most of
those.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
JAY1BEE
>dd...@best.com (David Friedman) wrote in <ddfr-
>>What we do know, since the story included the total number of 1600's, is
>>that if the numbers were proportional to the numbers of home schooled
>>and conventionally schooled students in the country, there should have
>>been a total of five or ten homeschooled kids who got 1600. That at
>>least one got 1600 and the news got to the press suggests to me that
>>there probably are at least that many.
>
>It suggests to me that a home schooled child who achieves a perfect
>score on the test is a real anomoly. It also suggests that this 'news
>story' is more story than news.
>>Lawrence
The presence of one does not demonstrate the presence of more.
Ivy
Eve
>From: lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin)
>Message-id: <90B56D69Flga...@207.107.250.114>
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Eve
>Date: 6/3/01 9:29 AM Mountain Daylight Time
>Message-id: <ddfr-D1F031.0...@news.wwc.com>
There is no doubt in my mind that kids who are home-schooled, can be
extraordinary in many ways....but so can public school kids, given the
opportunitity that good home-schooling provides. By that I mean, one-on-one
attention, motivation to succeed, understanding of the "teacher's" methods,
their own text books, personalized answers, and other perks that most Public
School kids just can't get. In California, as I'm sure you are aware, many of
the kids in Public School don't understand and/or speak English as a first
language. I don't agree with the idea of having other than English taught in
school, but it stands to reason that those kids need help from somewhere. This
is the kind of program for kids that I would like my taxes to pay for.
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
David Friedman
evedu...@aol.com (Eve) wrote:
> There is no doubt in my mind that kids who are home-schooled, can be
> extraordinary in many ways....but so can public school kids, given the
> opportunitity that good home-schooling provides. By that I mean, one-on-one
> attention, motivation to succeed, understanding of the "teacher's" methods,
> their own text books, personalized answers, and other perks that most Public
> School kids just can't get.
You are putting it in terms of additional things that public schools
don't provide and implying that the problem is lack of resources. While
that is one possible interpretation, I don't think it is the most
plausible. In my view, the major problem with conventional schools,
especially but not exclusively public schools, is not what they don't do
but what they do.
The major difference between a Sudbury school, such as the one our kids
go to, and a conventional school is that the former lets the students
decide how to spend their own time. The school provides support for
education but not compulsion.
I went to a good private school. My wife went to a good suburban public
school. Both of us felt that most of our time in school was wasted. In
our view, at least, sitting someone down, telling him "this is what I
have decided that you are going to learn today" and trying to teach it
to him is a very bad approach to education.
Home schooling varies, of course, but my impression is that although
much of it is less free than a Sudbury school, it is a good deal freer
than convenntional schooling.
So far as resources are concerned, tuition at our school is less than
per pupil expenditure in the public system. That's a little misleading,
because we also get donations of money and time--one of the staff
members, who was a central figure in starting the school and has a kid
in it, is willing to work for IOU's when the school is short of money.
But even allowing for all of that, our expenditure per pupil is probably
comparable to that of the public schools--and because we are so small,
many of our costs are higher than they would be at a larger scale. And
our students, although self-selected to want (and have parents who want)
an unconventional education, are not a particularly select group
academically--out of about twenty we have one with TS and another who is
significantly retarded.
On the general subject of resources, it is worth noting that between
1960 and 1980, real per pupil expenditure in the U.S. public school
system roughly doubled--and output measures fell sharply.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Eve
>From: David Friedman dd...@best.com
>Message-id: <ddfr-C9EE7B.0...@news.wwc.com>
You have determined "resources" to mean dollars....where the majority of my
perks identified as "time". You must admit not having one's own textbook is
rather inhibiting when it comes to homework. And not all parents can afford or
feel required to buy textbooks for the kids to use at home.
I'm not saying that Public Schools are "good enough"..on the contrary, many
school districts turn out a poor product in terms of what kids actually know.
Nor am I saying that home-schooling is the best thing to do, since many parents
are simply not qualified to teach. Neither do I believe in school vouchers
that will bleed Public Schools to death, since I don't believe that vouchers
will foster "competition". In fact, DL had a caller to her program a week or
so ago where the complaint/question was that a teacher in her son's private
school, "helped" the kids with their tests. IOW, cheated in order to get high
scores. If there would be any competition, it would be between private schools
to get new students, not Public Schools to retain them.
Sorry if I have digressed, but I felt it important to discuss all three types
of schools.
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Elisabeth Riba
>>>>> BTW fewer than 0.05% (note that's not 5%, not EVEN 1/2 of 1%) ace the SATS.
>>>>> No matter how / where they are schooled.
>>> Elisabeth Riba:
>>>> .05% means 1 out of 2000. If there are more than 2000 home-schooled kids
>>> georgann wrote:
>>> Lis, the article says only ""541 of the 1,260,278 students"" aced the test
>> Then why did YOU say the odds were less than .05%? I'm merely quoting
>> your own statistics back at you.
> georgann wrote:
> I was being exceedingly generous by saying a number of less than 1/2 or 1%.
> Which is a number people can retain in their head. Not like the actual
> 0.0004292 or 0.04292%.
Fine, that is 1 out of 2330 students who get perfect scores.
It still means that if more than 2330 homeschooled students take the SAT
in one year, one of them getting a perfect score is still normal odds.
David Friedman
jay...@aol.com (JAY1BEE) wrote:
It doesn't demonstrate it, but it is evidence of it. That, after all, is
how sampling normally works.
Suppose you pick a hundred Americans at random and one is a Muslim. It
is possible that there is only one Muslim in the U.S. and you happened
to get him, but it is very unlikely. That particular experiment provides
evidence that something around one percent of the population is
Muslim--although not nearly as good evidence as if you had a much larger
sample.
This case is a little more complicated. The "sample" consists of all
home schooling parents who would report to the media if their child got
1600, and would succeed in getting the story into print. I don't know
how large that sample is, but I know enough about people and the media
to be able to make an informed guess that it is under ten percent. If
so, this story is evidence that there are at least ten home schooled
kids who got 1600--not proof, but evidence. It is possible that there is
only one, but quite unlikely.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
Elisabeth Riba <l...@osmond-riba.org> wrote:
> Fine, that is 1 out of 2330 students who get perfect scores.
> It still means that if more than 2330 homeschooled students take the SAT
> in one year, one of them getting a perfect score is still normal odds.
But one of them getting a perfect score, having parents who want to make
the fact public, and getting the story into print would be considerably
below normal odds if only 2330 home schooled students took the SAT in
one year.
I already posted my approximate calculations, which suggest that if home
schooled students are as likely to take the SAT and get 1600 as other
students, about five or ten should do it each year.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
evedu...@aol.com (Eve) wrote:
> >On the general subject of resources, it is worth noting that between
> >1960 and 1980, real per pupil expenditure in the U.S. public school
> >system roughly doubled--and output measures fell sharply.
> >
> >--
> >David Friedman
> >www.daviddfriedman.com/
>
> You have determined "resources" to mean dollars....where the majority of my
> perks identified as "time".
In the public school system, the time is being put in by people who are
paid to teach, so dollars buy time. I specified real expenditure, which
means that the numbers are adjusted to allow for inflation.
> You must admit not having one's own textbook is
> rather inhibiting when it comes to homework. And not all parents can afford
> or feel required to buy textbooks for the kids to use at home.
Not having a textbook is inhibiting if you are using a textbook to learn
from, which is one approach but not the only one. But I'm not sure I
understand your more general point. Certainly more resources can be used
to provide a better education. But the historical evidence I cited
suggests that resources are not the major factor, since we had a steep
increase in resources spent per student combined with a substantial
decline in how well the students were getting educated.
On the subject of vouchers, of course, I disagree with you. But that
could be a long argument on its own.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
georgann
> Fine, that is 1 out of 2330 students who get perfect scores.
> It still means that if more than 2330 homeschooled students take the SAT
> in one year, one of them getting a perfect score is still normal odds.
georgann wrote:
Fine. But its not so normal odds that the percentage of home-schooled kids
that apply to and are accepted at Stanford is twice that of regular
applicants. You did see the Stanford stats provided here last evening, yes?
Lawrence Garvin
>In article <90B57BC91lga...@207.107.250.114>,
> lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
>
>> dd...@best.com (David Friedman) wrote in
>> <ddfr-D1F031.0...@news.wwc.com>:
>
>> >All news stories are stories--that's an important filter that you
>> >have to take account of. The news media are mainly in the business of
>> >entertaining their readers, so the chance that they will report an
>> >event depends very much on how good a story it makes.
>
>> Exactly. If home schooled kids were achieving perfect scores
>> as a matter of course then a perfect score is hardly newsworthy,
>> right?
>
>If home schooled kids were achieving perfect scores as a matter of
>course, that fact would be very newsworthy indeed, since it would mean
>that they were doing enormously better than kids with ordinary
>schooling.
I give myself ten lashes for being imprecise and you get
five for being too literal.
> When a home schooled kid wins a national spelling bee, which
>I gather has happened a couple of times, that is newsworthy--since there
>is only one winner, and home schooled kids are a tiny minority of all
>kids.
>
>Perhaps what bothers me is your use of "anomaly," which suggests, not
>merely that a random home schooled kid is unlikely to get 1600 (surely
>true), but that for any home schooled kid to get 1600 is anomalous--i.e.
>that we would expect zero to.
It's the old saw about 'what is news - man bites dog'. I'm
not trying to suggest a "correct' percentage (that would be
silly), I'm just replying to your suggestion that one reported
case means X number of unreported cases. I think that you are
on pretty tenuous ground.
>
>> I was just answering your conjecture that perfect scores among
>> the home schooled would naturally fall into one range or
>> another. The fact that on kid who is home schooled managed a
>> perfect score says exactly nothing about the value of home
>> schooling - that's all.
>
>It doesn't say an enormous amount, but it says more than "nothing at
>all." Given the low odds that a particular 1600 will become public, it
>is, in my view, evidence, although weak evidence, that home schooling
>does at least as well as conventional schooling at the upper end of thes
>cale.
It likely does. The problem is what happens in the middle
of the scale which is where the debate should focus IMO.
>
>> It's my opinion that home schooling is
>> something that all kids should get _in addition_ to the
>> education they receive in a good public school.
>
>I agree that parents should educate their children. But it isn't clear
>to me that a conventional school is worth the time it costs the children
>who are in it. That's one reason my children go to a very unconventional
>school.
Well here we get to the nub of the thing. I strongly believe
that it is incumbent on all of us to improve the public
education system rather than abandon it. I believe that you
have the right to go elsewhere but I worry about the kids
who have no other options.
>> The problem with that anecdote is that home schooled kids
>> who had no interest in your topic would not attend. In the
>> public system, your audience -your sample- would not be self
>> selected.
>
>Sure it would be. This wasn't a class, it was a conference for students
>who were engaged in highschool debate; I gather immigration was this
>year's topic. A similar conference for public school students would also
>be self-selected.
I misread. I thought you were comparing one group to another.
I'm sure they were all bright kids. In fact, I suspect that
any home schooled kid who gets to post-secondary education is,
by necessity, a bright and curious kid. It's the average kid
that concerns me. How many of these kids 'flunk out' of home
schooling or private schooling and land back in the dreaded
public school system?
Lawrence
Rick
<90B48A8E5timh...@209.155.56.94>...
>I have no problem with homeschooling, but it needs to be tightly
>regulated. For every homeschooled kid who shines, There are many
>others whose lives are shattered.
What is your evidence of this?
- Rick
Eve
>Date: 6/3/01 11:18 AM Mountain Daylight Time
>Message-id: <ddfr-017605.1...@news.wwc.com>
>
>In article <20010603125519...@ng-bh1.aol.com>,
> evedu...@aol.com (Eve) wrote:
>
>> >On the general subject of resources, it is worth noting that between
>> >1960 and 1980, real per pupil expenditure in the U.S. public school
>> >system roughly doubled--and output measures fell sharply.
>> >
>> >--
>> >David Friedman
>> >www.daviddfriedman.com/
>>
>> You have determined "resources" to mean dollars....where the majority of my
>> perks identified as "time".
>
>In the public school system, the time is being put in by people who are
>paid to teach, so dollars buy time. I specified real expenditure, which
>means that the numbers are adjusted to allow for inflation.
Well and good, but I am citing some of the most identifyable perks of
home-schooling.I am aware that no school, Public or Private could allot the
time to spend one-on-one that home-schooling does for the biggest benefits,
IMO.
The resources in dollars can't be as much as schools need, or they would have
textbooks for each child in every school district. Perhaps the schools are
spending the money in ways that are not advantageous to the pupils. I recently
read an article in the Chron about fact that we are spending about $500.00 less
per student than the national average. That is unconscionable. BTW here's the
article
URL is:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/05
/31/MN114319.DTL
Cash flowing in, but schools fighting to meet standards
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, May 31, 2001
President Bush wants education money tied to better test scores. Gov. Gray
Davis stakes his job on restoring academic prowess to public schools. Never
have Republicans and Democratics agreed so fervently on the need to improve
student performance Ö yet never have so many California classrooms been so
destitute.
Despite billions of dollars flowing to education like coins into slot machines,
the task of helping children meet rigorous new academic standards may be more
than the California budget will bear. And the education plan passed by the
House of Representatives last week may only add to the problem, by offering
money to schools with lots of strings attached. The state spends $50 billion a
year on education. That's the "kitchen sink budget" for everything from books
to buildings.
Yet, as any parent will tell you, educators still plead for books, art classes,
counselors, tutors, good teachers and living wages -- and every parent wonders
why.
By this year's most optimistic interpretation, California will spend $6,500 per
pupil -- below the national average of about $7,000.
And things may soon get tighter. Although Gov. Davis is recommending an
increase in education funding despite the energy crisis, lawmakers could still
cut up to $4.6 billion from the school budget this summer to pay the light
bills.
"Spending at the national average isn't something to be proud of," said Jerry
Hayward, co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education, a think tank
of Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley.
New York and New Jersey -- also with many low-income and immigrant children --
spend about $10,000 per pupil.
A close look at California's school budget offers some answers and many
contradictions:
The state Board of Education adopted arts standards for all pupils in January,
yet fewer than 25 percent of California students are able to take art classes.
The San Francisco school board raised graduation requirements -- only to lower
them again this year when it couldn't pay for tutoring to help students meet
the higher standards.
If parents in Orinda, one of the Bay Area's wealthiest communities, want
librarians, small middle-school classes, art and a lunchroom, they have to pay
for those basics themselves.
And in what may be the greatest incongruity, resources are low but academic
requirements have never been set higher:
-- Beginning with this year's ninth-graders, no student will receive a diploma
without passing a rigorous "exit exam."
-- Schools lose money and hundreds risk a takeover by the state if scores do
not rise sufficiently.
-- States could lose federal dollars if they fail to put a qualified teacher in
every classroom in four years, Congress decided last week. In California,
39,000 teachers -- 13 percent of all teachers -- lack full credentials.
Failure to meet these standards could have long-range consequences for the
state's economy -- and short-range political results.
TRUE TEST OF ACHIEVEMENT
In a now-famous pledge in his 1999 State of the State address, Davis linked his
political fate to that of the schools.
"When an NFL coach has one losing season after another, he gets replaced.
Period. End of subject. I say we should be just as decisive when our children's
future is at stake," Davis said.
Today, after steering more money toward testing, teacher training and reading,
Davis says he is pleased that scores on the state's multiple-choice exam have
crept up.
But Hayward and other analysts say the true test of achievement will be when
the state's 6 million students routinely master the academic standards set out
for them by the state Board of Education and endorsed by Davis.
"We're probably not spending what we need to bring these children up to these
new high standards," Hayward said. "After all, the goal isn't just to have high
standards. It is for students to meet the standards."
State Superintendent Delaine Eastin applauds the "new era of accountability. "
Yet she sees a disconnection between the means and the end.
'MONEY MATTERS'
"Money matters," she said. "In 1965, California was fifth in per-pupil
spending, and we had much better schools. Today, California is dead last in
music teachers. If you want to stop kids from bullying, then you've got to have
counselors. We shouldn't need teachers to help children manage their diabetes.
School nurses should be available to do that."
But these needs come at a time when education is no longer the first "e" word
on state lawmakers' lips. Today, California bleeds $2.1 billion a month just to
pay its energy bills.
"That's a tremendous amount of money, and we don't know when that tap will be
shut off," said Assemblywoman Lynne Leach of Walnut Creek, a Republican who is
asking lawmakers to spend more money in school districts with below-average
funding.
The need for thrift has been hard on all districts, which depend on Sacramento
for most funding.
On average, about 28 percent of education money comes from local property
taxes. Some districts are able to raise money from parents and charitable
groups. That's about 5 percent of funding.
The federal government contributes about another 5 percent, and the state
lottery 2 percent. The remaining 60 percent comes from the state's general
fund.
It wasn't always this way. Before 1973, local property taxes were the engine
that ran education, and schools in rich communities often had three times as
much money as poor ones.
When the state Supreme Court ruled this system unconstitutional 30 years ago,
California tried to equalize funding by giving a higher cost-of-living
adjustment to districts with low property taxes than to those with higher
taxes.
In 1974, a judge told the state to equalize faster and quit only when the
disparity between school districts was $100.
FAIR SHARE FIGHT
Districts are still battling over what is fair. But the biggest blow for
districts came in 1978, when voters passed Proposition 13, the property tax
cap. Local funding dried up so fast the state had to take on the job of paying
for schools. That meant less for all.
Studies show that as money shrank during the 1980s, so did student achievement.
Meanwhile, enrollment and the needs of students rose dramatically.
By 1988, voters were alarmed enough to pass Proposition 98, which reserves at
least 35 percent of the state's general fund for schools.
The education landscape soon changed even more. Districts with rich families no
longer got the most money. Districts with the neediest kids got more. But the
extra funds had to be spent in certain ways: on bilingual classes, "special
education" for disabled students, smaller classes.
"Categorical funds" gave essential services to an increasingly needy student
population. But the select funds also meant that schools had less flexibility
in spending.
"I go back to my high school yearbook and see we had 13 maintenance people, 15
ladies working on the kitchen and six counselors," said Sen. Leach.
"Today, the state has many more kids. And it's a substantially different
population. Back then, almost everyone spoke English. The moms were staying at
home. The children got read to. They got fed, and there was someone waiting
with milk and cookies.
"Today, society expects schools to take up this slack on less money. At times
it feels so hopeless."
CHART (1):
MONEY IN , MONEY OUT
Here is a budget breakdown for the average ia public school - what it gets,
and how it spends the money. Figures are for 1999-2000, the most recent fiscal
year available. How California stacks up
.
-- State's average school revenue
State aid 37.7%
Local property taxes and fees 27%
Local donations and grants 5.4%
Federal government 5.9%
Other state sources 21.9%
Lottery 2.1%
Sources: California Department of Education and Ed-Data
.
-- State's average school expenditures
Services and operating expenses 9.3%
Books and supplies 5.6%
Support staff salaries 16.2%
Employee benefits 15.2%
Certificated teachers &
administrators salaries 53.7%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
CHART (2):
HOW CALIFORNIA STACKS UP
California ranks 40th in spending per pupil, according to the National
Education Association's most recent figures (1997-98). The data lag because
the NEA looks at dollars actually spent - not budgeted - in a given year.
Although California spends more in 2000-01 than it did three years ago,
estimates are that expenditures remain below average.
$10,500-11,000 AK
$10,000-10,500 NJ
$9,500-10,000 NY
$9,000-9,500 CT
$8,000-8,500 RI, DE, DC
$7,500-8,000 VT, MI, MA, PA
$7,000-7,500 OR, WI, MD, ME, MN, WV
$6,500-7,000 IN, WY, NH, VA, KY (U.S. Average)
$6,000-6,500 OH, MT, HI, IL, WA, KS, GA, NE, TX, FL
$5,500-6,000 NC, AR, NM, IA, SC, NY, MO, TN, LA, CO (California)
$5,000-5,500 OK, SD, ID
$4,500-5,000 AZ, AL, MS
$4,000-4,500 ND, UT
.
Source: National education Association Rankings of the States, 1999
Chronicle Graphic
>
>Not having a textbook is inhibiting if you are using a textbook to learn
>from, which is one approach but not the only one.
Are you thinking about working on a home computer vs using a textbook?
But I'm not sure I
>understand your more general
>But I'm not sure I
>understand your more general point. Certainly more resources can be used
>to provide a better education. But the historical evidence I cited
>suggests that resources are not the major factor, since we had a steep
>increase in resources spent per student combined with a substantial
>decline in how well the students were getting educated.
From the figures and national ratings given in the above article, it doesn't
look like our resourses are 1) enough and 2) lag well behind what we used to
allot per student, before prop 13.
On the subject of vouchers, of course, I disagree with you. But that
>could be a long argument on its own.
Oh lordy yes, that is also a subject that has been argued down to bloody
fingernails without anyone changing an iota of what they believe.
>
>--
>David Friedman
>www.daviddfriedman.com/
>
>
>
>
>
>
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Eve
>Date: 6/3/01 11:31 AM Mountain Daylight Time
>Message-id: <B73FECA5.20BF0%chen...@mindspring.com>
>
>Elisabeth Riba:
>> Fine, that is 1 out of 2330 students who get perfect scores.
>> It still means that if more than 2330 homeschooled students take the SAT
>> in one year, one of them getting a perfect score is still normal odds.
>
>georgann wrote:
>Fine. But its not so normal odds that the percentage of home-schooled kids
>that apply to and are accepted at Stanford is twice that of regular
>applicants. You did see the Stanford stats provided here last evening, yes?
I believe that Stanford is a private college, and as such can pick and choose
the students it accepts. It is also very expensive as opposed to a public
college like UC Berkeley. Perhaps home-schooled kids parents have the money to
send them to Standard. Do you know otherwise?
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
GregK
news:ddfr-39B451.1...@news.wwc.com...
> In article <9fdq7o$8ie$1...@news.panix.com>,
> Elisabeth Riba <l...@osmond-riba.org> wrote:
>
> > Fine, that is 1 out of 2330 students who get perfect scores.
> > It still means that if more than 2330 homeschooled students take the SAT
> > in one year, one of them getting a perfect score is still normal odds.
>
> But one of them getting a perfect score, having parents who want to make
> the fact public, and getting the story into print would be considerably
> below normal odds if only 2330 home schooled students took the SAT in
> one year.
Not necessarily. Why do you think so? Perfect SAT scores are reported as
local interest stories all the time. The fact this kid was homeschooled just
made it worthy of the AP picking it up.
> I already posted my approximate calculations, which suggest that if home
> schooled students are as likely to take the SAT and get 1600 as other
> students, about five or ten should do it each year.
Which is why I wonder what the big deal about this story is. It says nothing
about homeschooling in general, just that this one child was taught well by
his parents.
GregK
A homeschooled kid is more likely to get the story in print, simply because
the homeschooling itself is an added interest to the story.
Here's another one, who got perfect scores and was home schooled. Or in this
case, homeless schooled.
http://thekcrachannel.com/sac/news/localnews/stories/news-localnews-57467220
010405-100458.html
Eve
>Date: 6/3/01 11:52 AM Mountain Daylight Time
>Message-id: <9fdt7...@enews1.newsguy.com>
When one considers that this kid outgrew what his mother could teach him in
calculus, I'd say the kid has a Mensa-type IQ. He'd learn if he was kept in a
basement, with no books.
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Rev. Dr. Tim, BsD
>There are many
>>others whose lives are shattered.
>
>What is your evidence of this?
Look at the kids in Northern Idaho. Look at the polygamist
children.
--
"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal
shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's
just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it."
--George W. Bush, May 14, 2001
Cyn
Eve wrote in message <20010603151131...@ng-mf1.aol.com>...*snip*
>>
>>Which is why I wonder what the big deal about this story is. It says
nothing
>>about homeschooling in general, just that this one child was taught well
by
>>his parents.
>
>When one considers that this kid outgrew what his mother could teach him in
>calculus, I'd say the kid has a Mensa-type IQ. He'd learn if he was kept
in a
>basement, with no books.
I still take issue with this idea, that a kid that smart could learn
anywhere you put him. Smarter kids often do poorly in classroom
environments, because they become bored, and I don't know of *any*
homeschoolers who don't seek outside experiences for their kids, beyond what
they themselves can teach. (I don't have much knowlege of the techniques
used by the groups Tim mentioned, however, as our goals were at odds, I
didn't bother checking into that kind of curriculum)
As I have said before, it seems to me there are many schools of thought when
it comes to homeschooling, only one of which is to keep kids away from some
big "bad influence". It's unfair to group them all together, or to suggest
that his mother should have been able to cover every subject herself, when
that isn't even the point. Many parents, like myself, had a different goal
in mind-- to show our kids *more* than schools could show them, or were
showing them.
Saying that this kid could learn anywhere completely disregards the fact
that maybe he *needed* the extra stimulation and outside experiences his mom
was willing to provide, as opposed to a structured classroom environment
where he might have either given up, or settled for mediocrity.
Kids are different. Some need more than others. Dismissing a viable
alternative for helping kids reach their potential out of hand just because
it seems weird and provincial seems a mistake, to me.
Cyn
David Friedman
"GregK" <gre...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > This case is a little more complicated. The "sample" consists of all
> > home schooling parents who would report to the media if their child got
> > 1600, and would succeed in getting the story into print. I don't know
> > how large that sample is, but I know enough about people and the media
> > to be able to make an informed guess that it is under ten percent. If
> > so, this story is evidence that there are at least ten home schooled
> > kids who got 1600--not proof, but evidence. It is possible that there is
> > only one, but quite unlikely.
>
> A homeschooled kid is more likely to get the story in print, simply because
> the homeschooling itself is an added interest to the story.
Probably true. But that assumes he wants to get it in print. My
impression is that most parents would prefer to keep their kids out of
the newspapers, although some have the opposite preference.
> Here's another one, who got perfect scores and was home schooled. Or in this
> case, homeless schooled.
>
> http://thekcrachannel.com/sac/news/localnews/stories/news-localnews-57467220
> 010405-100458.html
Thus demonstrating that two home schooled kids made 1600. It isn't the
house that defines home schooling.
That one is a case where it is clear that the story is newsworthy, hence
if the parents, or anyone else, choose to let the story out it is very
likely to be printed.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
> Well here we get to the nub of the thing. I strongly believe
> that it is incumbent on all of us to improve the public
> education system rather than abandon it. I believe that you
> have the right to go elsewhere but I worry about the kids
> who have no other options.
In this case as in many others, there are two ways of improving
something you are unhappy with. One is to try to influence the existing
institution, the other is to compete with it.
Someone who wants better operating system software can go to work for
Microsoft and try to improve Windows. Or he can do what Linus Torvalds
did.
In the case of the public schooling system, I think improving the
present institution is usually impractical. School districts in most
places are very big, and a single parent, unless extraordinarily good at
manipulating the system, can have very little effect. If you are
sufficiently altruistic so that you care just as much about everyone
else's children as about your own, having a tiny effect on a hundred
thousand kids may be worth the large effort it takes. But the same
effort, spent in home schooling or in a small private school, can have a
very large effect on your kids, which to most of us is more important.
And even from the standpoint of other people's kids, I suspect that
demonstrating alternative models that work better--what Sudbury schools
have been doing now for over thirty years--probably produces a bigger
payoff in the long run than trying to nudge a large government run
industry in the right direction.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
evedu...@aol.com (Eve) wrote:
> >georgann wrote:
> >Fine. But its not so normal odds that the percentage of home-schooled kids
> >that apply to and are accepted at Stanford is twice that of regular
> >applicants. You did see the Stanford stats provided here last evening, yes?
>
> I believe that Stanford is a private college, and as such can pick and choose
> the students it accepts. It is also very expensive as opposed to a public
> college like UC Berkeley. Perhaps home-schooled kids parents have the money
> to send them to Standard. Do you know otherwise?
The statistics were on the percentage of those who applied that were
accepted, not on the percentage of all home schooled kids that went to
Stanford or the percentage of applicants who actually went to Stanford.
So your argument cuts in exactly the wrong direction.
In case that isn't obvious:
Suppose that, on average, home schooling families are richer than public
schooling families. Also suppose that their education is neither better
nor worse. The fact that a larger fraction of home schooling families
can afford Stanford will mean that a larger fraction will apply to
Stanford, which means that the applicants will be going farther down the
applicant pool in terms of quality, which will mean a smaller fraction
accepted. If in fact a larger fraction of home schooling applicants is
accepted, that is then evidence that their schooling is enough better to
outweigh the effect of higher income.
Or were you assuming that Stanford preferentially accepted students with
rich parents? In my experience, the bias of elite schools is in the
other direction.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Cyn
GregK wrote in message <9fcfu...@enews2.newsguy.com>...
>"Cyn" <cardi...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
>news:9fc8dq$4rla$1...@newssvr06-en0.news.prodigy.com...
>>
>> GregK wrote in message <9fc1g...@enews2.newsguy.com>...
>> >"georgann" <chen...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
>> >news:B73E770B.208B7%chen...@mindspring.com...
>> >> Boy aces SAT, credits his parents -- and God
>> >
>> >He should credit his parents, since he went beyond what they could teach
>> >him.
>>
>> Isn't that the goal of every teacher?
>>
>> >Obviously a smart kid who would do well whether homeschooled or not.
>> >
>>
>> Not necessarily. At the time I pulled my son out of public school, I had
>my
>> doubts about whether he'd ever excell in school or not. They'd completely
>> turned him off learning. In two years, he progressed four grade levels,
>and
>> he loves to learn again. *Now* he has a chance where ever he's schooled--
>he
>> knows how to learn, and he wants to.
>>
>> He's an average student at school, but the things homeschooling taught
him
>> to teach *himself* will take him a lot farther than scores on
standardized
>> tests will, which is the whole point of homeschooling.
>
>Cyn, I have absolutely *zero* problem with homeschooling when the parent is
>capable of doing it.
I didn't figure you did, really, that's why I decided to reply to you in
this thread. I'm not really trying to argue the merits of homeschooling vs.
public
schools vs private schools, because I don't think there is one best thing,
something that will bring out the best in every single child.
>In many cases the individualized attention is the best
>thing for the child. I have a problem with anecdotal stories such as these
>being held up as typical of homeschooling though.
I don't really know if there *is* a "typical" homeschooling scenario,
though. I get the feeling that the picture that comes to most minds is a
child at the kitchen table writing furiously as ma n' pa lecture from the
good book. That's not one I've ever seen in practice, although I did know
one woman who came close, with four kids under ten, no less. She just wasn't
very creative, so she mimicked a classroom atmosphere as best she could. I
couldn't figure out why she was homeschooling at all, and that's not what I
believe to be typical. Most of the parents I've talked to are trying to get
*away* from that-- they really want to inspire their kids, often kids who
have not responded well to a classroom setting, and they are trying to find
creative ways to do that.
> For every one of these
>stories we can hold up plenty of stories that are just as impressive about
>kids in the public schools
>
This is very true, but public schools fail many children as well. I will
certainly *not* be saying it's for every family, but stories like this show
that it *can* be a viable alternative, and one that doesn't always deserve
the scorn it gets, one that could help a struggling, discouraged,
disinterested child, like mine was, or a very bright child who is just too
bored to concentrate in regular schools. I'm not saying public school
teachers don't try to inspire kids, but it's a restrictive setting, and kids
who've become soured on it might need to get out of it before they can get
past that block.
If no one ever hears about the success stories, homeschooling is seen as it
usually has been, provincial, isolationist, and even dangerous. Even when we
*do* hear the success stories, "It's a fluke, he would've been just as
successful anywhere else, this is the exception to the rule."
If parents are convinced that homeschooling dooms their children to failure,
that its only a fluke when it works, or that only geniuses can come away
from it unscathed, they are dismissing a possibility that could very well
help some kids
succeed.
>> Some of you guys need to remember that there's more than one way to do
>> things right. I'm with Tim on this one, I think parents ought to be
>willing
>> to seek some kind of certification, I think kids ought to be tested
>> regularly, and I think the fact that the needs of individual children
are
>> going to be different ought to be recognized.
>
>Lots of kids need more individual attention, that is true. Your son
>obviously needed it, and kudos to you for being willing and able to provide
>it.
>
Thankyou. I wish I still had the time and energy for it, actually, but the
toddlers made it hard. Luckily, Nick was ready to try school again, and is
now into his other projects enough that he doesn't mind spending his free
time on them.
>> And, if you don't already, find areas of interest for your kids to study
>> independently from school, things you can't really teach them either.
It's
>> really neat to watch a kid teach himself when you give him the time, the
>> resources, and the space. You'll start to see the real appeal of
>> homeschooling.
>
>My son, in particular, picked up a love of reading during this past school
>year, well beyond what they were teaching him in school (a charter school,
>which they will NOT be returning to next year.) I know exactly what you
are
>talking about.
>
Thats great, if he loves to read, he can learn anything he wants to.
Unfortunately, that was my biggest problem with Nick when we first started--
he hated it. He wasn't reading at a level the books that interested him were
written at, and he couldn't get into the books written at his level of
skill. He wouldn't practice, because he didn't care what Dick and Jane were
doing, so he wasn't improving, so he couldn't read the books that would have
inspired him. I had to *show* him what he was missing. Now he reads.
My favourite thing now, is when Nicky comes to ask me a question about
something he's studying on his own, and I have to tell him "I don't know",
and he
comes back a half hour later and tells me the answer, so we'll both know. I
adore it.
It's gotten kind of expensive to keep up with him lately; he's turned his
whole room into a biology lab, with 2 vivariums (30 & 10 gallon), a 20
gallon long aquarium, a 40 gallon goldfish/turtle tub, a two gallon fry
tank, and a one gallon brine shrimp hatchery, with various other containers
with
godknowswhat in them crammed onto every flat surface. The equipment to run
them, microscopes to examine things he grows, etc, all add up pretty fast,
but it's not so bad if you accumulate them over time. The swamp odour that
emanates from his room is harder to get used to, but what the hell, he's
twelve, his room was prolly going to smell anyway.
He's studying things right now I know nothing about. I love fish, and I
taught him how to set up an aquarium, how to make sure he was keeping
compatible species together, how to establish a ballanced nitrogen cycle in
the system, but he's outstripped me by far, now. He's primarily into native
fish and amphibians, and more specifically, the many microscopic parasites
that can affect them. I know, yech, but I'm impressed with him. He keeps
these incredibly detailed logbooks on each of them, and they just amaze me.
This is a kid who got Ds and Fs in *third grade*, btw. Getting a few As,
mostly Bs and Cs now, that's fine, that's average. But he's not average at
home.
Cyn
Pat
:
: Suppose that, on average, home schooling families are richer than public
: schooling families. Also suppose that their education is neither better
: nor worse. The fact that a larger fraction of home schooling families
: can afford Stanford will mean that a larger fraction will apply to
: Stanford, which means that the applicants will be going farther down the
: applicant pool in terms of quality, which will mean a smaller fraction
: accepted. If in fact a larger fraction of home schooling applicants is
: accepted, that is then evidence that their schooling is enough better to
: outweigh the effect of higher income.
:
: Or were you assuming that Stanford preferentially accepted students with
: rich parents? In my experience, the bias of elite schools is in the
: other direction.
:
: --
: David Friedman
She didn't, but she should have. ALL private college preferentially accept
students who can pay the full tuition with no discounts, no loans, no
scholarships. It's the American Capitalist way, and the original form of
affirmative action.
Pat
Pat
: >georgann wrote:
: >I thought my pet argument was liburulism and the ruin of our nation....
: >
: >My dad was a physician yes. And I went to private schools, yes. Did I
meet
: >or attempt to exceed my potential in that environment, alas no. Do I care
: >yet, no.
: >
: >What's your point?
: You've made it for me, Georgann. Thanks.
:
: Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Yeah, she did. And it's kinda sad, too.
Pat
:
:
Pat
: June 2, 2001
: ASSOCIATED PRESS
:
: BUCHANAN -- A 17-year-old who has been mostly home-schooled earned a
perfect
: score on his Scholastic Assessment Test.
Am I the only one who noticed this story says "MOSTLY" home-schooled? And
yet georgann is assuming that his prowess is the result of his
home-schooling? Look up "mostly" in the dictionary. Where did he study
when he wasn't at home?
Pat
Pat
:
: I think there is a point lots of people are missing in interpreting this
: particular news story.
I agree. I think the part they are missing is the part where it says "mostly
home-schooled". How come nobody is asking where the rest of his education
was held?
Pat
Pat
:
: If home schooled kids were achieving perfect scores as a matter of
: course, that fact would be very newsworthy indeed, since it would mean
: that they were doing enormously better than kids with ordinary
: I gather has happened a couple of times, that is newsworthy--since there
: is only one winner, and home schooled kids are a tiny minority of all
: kids.
:
: Perhaps what bothers me is your use of "anomaly," which suggests, not
: merely that a random home schooled kid is unlikely to get 1600 (surely
: true), but that for any home schooled kid to get 1600 is anomalous--i.e.
: that we would expect zero to.
Wouldn't all the proud parents of home-schooled kids be calling the
newspapers around the country as well as this one child's parents? They--in
my experience---always feel that they are on the defensive and so would jump
at a chance to brag about their kid's scores. But, where are all of these
proud parents?
: But since I haven't spoken at any public school debate conferences, what
: I am actually comparing that audience to is my experience of students
: coming into higher education. That is a pretty highly selected sample as
: well, both because only about a quarter of the population goes through a
: four year college and because my teaching has mostly been at pretty good
: schools (I have taught freshmen at UCLA, Santa Clara, and I think VPI).
: The home schooled kids seemed brighter and more interested than most of
: those.
:
: --
: David Friedman
And, they are also somewhat crippled in social ways, in my experience.
Pat
David Friedman
evedu...@aol.com (Eve) wrote:
> Well and good, but I am citing some of the most identifyable perks of
> home-schooling.I am aware that no school, Public or Private could allot the
> time to spend one-on-one that home-schooling does for the biggest benefits,
> IMO.
They could, if they chose to spend most of their resources on teaching
and much less on other things. I'm not sure of the exact current figure
for California, but including everything eight thousand per pupil isn't
a bad guess. If all of that went to teachers, and you could hire them
for forty thousand dollars, you would have five students for every
teacher, which would give you considerably more one to one time than
most home schooling parents can afford to spend. Even with half going to
teachers, you might well get as much as a parent with two or three home
schooled kids actually spends in school hours with each. And according
to the figures you posted, just over half does go to teachers plus
administrators (although that is leaving out an important element in
cost, as pointed out below).
..
> >Not having a textbook is inhibiting if you are using a textbook to learn
> >from, which is one approach but not the only one.
>
> Are you thinking about working on a home computer vs using a textbook?
That's one alternative. But I was actually thinking about reading real
books rather than a textbooks. Given how dumbed down textbooks have
become, it might be a more useful investment of time.
_The Selfish Gene_ or _How to Lie With Statistics_, or _King Solomon's
Ring_ or, for that matter, my _Hidden Order_, should be readable by a
reasonably intelligent teenager, and each of those books would give a
much more sophisticated and interesting picture of its field than a high
school textbook. Have you read the section of _You Must be Joking, Mr.
Feynman_ that includes his horror stories about the selection of
textbooks in California?
> From the figures and national ratings given in the above article, it doesn't
> look like our resourses are 1) enough and 2) lag well behind what we used to
> allot per student, before prop 13.
I don't believe anything in the article you posted conveys any hard
information about how expenditure per student has changed. Read it again
and see if I'm not right. There's lots of handwaving, and an assertion
that "money shrank" during the 1980's, but no actual numbers comparing
the situation in 1965 to the situation at present.
I don't think I have a fully suitable data source ready to hand, but
here are some relevant numbers:
From 1980 to 1996, average per pupil expenditure (for the U.S., not
California) rose from 2,230 to 5,949. The figure for California in 1996
was 4,977. (table 262 of my 1997 stat abstracts--it doesn't give
individual state figures for 1980, unfortunately.).
There is nothing to suggest that those numbers are inflation adjusted.
Assuming they are not, and using the producer price index, we should
multiply the later figures by .67 to make them comparable to the earlier
(calculated from table 751). Doing that, we have the national average
going from 2,230 (in 1980 dollars) to 3990 (in 1980 dollars), with
California's figure in 1996 equal to about 3335.
So California's per pupil figure for 1996 is much higher than the 1980
national average. The 1980 average is (I'm going now by memory of an
article by Sam Peltzman in the JPE that I wrote the comment on) about
twice the 1960 average, inflation adjusted. So it looks as though the
1996 figure for California is close to three times as high--per pupil
and inflation adjusted--as the 1960 figure for the U.S. as a whole. I
would be astonished if California in the early 1960's was spending
anything like three time the national average. So I think I can say with
some confidence that real per pupil expenditure currently in California
is much higher than it was in 1965. I suspect it is also higher than it
was just before Prop 13, but that would take more work to confirm.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Pat
:
: I misread. I thought you were comparing one group to another.
: I'm sure they were all bright kids. In fact, I suspect that
: any home schooled kid who gets to post-secondary education is,
: by necessity, a bright and curious kid. It's the average kid
: that concerns me. How many of these kids 'flunk out' of home
: schooling or private schooling and land back in the dreaded
: public school system?
:
: Lawrence
Lawrence, how many drop out entirely? Most of the home-school parents that
I know also believe that children do not need much education. They have
tended to educate them only through the 8th grade here in Texas and then the
kids "go out and get a job". The boys work alongside their father in
construction or some type of manual labor. I have only known one family
that home-schools who also thought a college education was desirable, and
they wanted their son to go to their church college so that he "wouldn't
have to mix" with outsiders.
Pat
:
David Friedman
evedu...@aol.com (Eve) wrote:
> When one considers that this kid outgrew what his mother could teach him in
> calculus, I'd say the kid has a Mensa-type IQ. He'd learn if he was kept in a
> basement, with no books.
He may well have a high IQ, but I don't think the fact he went past what
his mother could teach him tells us very much. Any bright kid who is
mathematically inclined can learn more math, from books, than most
adults know.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
"GregK" <gre...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > But one of them getting a perfect score, having parents who want to make
> > the fact public, and getting the story into print would be considerably
> > below normal odds if only 2330 home schooled students took the SAT in
> > one year.
>
> Not necessarily. Why do you think so? Perfect SAT scores are reported as
> local interest stories all the time. The fact this kid was homeschooled just
> made it worthy of the AP picking it up.
My understanding of the process is that SAT scores are not public
information. So in order for it to make it into the press, someone,
probably the parents or someone with the parents' permission, has to
tell the press. I would have guessed that that would fail to happen more
often than it happened, although I could be wrong.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Pat
:
: In the case of the public schooling system, I think improving the
: present institution is usually impractical. School districts in most
: places are very big, and a single parent, unless extraordinarily good at
: manipulating the system, can have very little effect. If you are
: sufficiently altruistic so that you care just as much about everyone
: else's children as about your own, having a tiny effect on a hundred
: thousand kids may be worth the large effort it takes. But the same
: effort, spent in home schooling or in a small private school, can have a
: very large effect on your kids, which to most of us is more important.
:
: And even from the standpoint of other people's kids, I suspect that
: demonstrating alternative models that work better--what Sudbury schools
: have been doing now for over thirty years--probably produces a bigger
: payoff in the long run than trying to nudge a large government run
: industry in the right direction.
:
: --
: David Friedman
David, I think you have fallen prey to the "big city" way of thinking.
There are far more rural areas of this country than there are big cities.
You said "school districts in most places are very big." and that is not
true in many, many states. Leave out the comparative handful of large cities
and there are scads of small communities and towns around the US which do
not have unwieldy school districts. They are in small to medium sized towns
such as Burleson, Cleburne, Weatherford, Granbury, Tolar, Crowley, Denton,
Pilot Point, Sanger, Valleyview, Gainesville, Wautauga, and tons of other
such little places in the US that you have never heard of. Just because
Boston and Chicago and Los Angeles and Dallas have problems does not mean
that they are anywhere near the majority of school districts.
And these little places are doing just fine while everybody is doing the
hand-wringing over the large cities.
Pat
Pat
":
: You are putting it in terms of additional things that public schools
: don't provide and implying that the problem is lack of resources. While
: that is one possible interpretation, I don't think it is the most
: plausible. In my view, the major problem with conventional schools,
: especially but not exclusively public schools, is not what they don't do
: but what they do.
You mean what the private schools do such as ignore the disabled, the
handicapped, and the mentally deficient? Show me a private school that has
to spend resources for handicapped buses, attendant nurses and
all of the other unfunded government mandates.
:
: So far as resources are concerned, tuition at our school is less than
: per pupil expenditure in the public system. That's a little misleading,
: because we also get donations of money and time--one of the staff
: members, who was a central figure in starting the school and has a kid
: in it, is willing to work for IOU's when the school is short of money.
: But even allowing for all of that, our expenditure per pupil is probably
: comparable to that of the public schools--and because we are so small,
: many of our costs are higher than they would be at a larger scale. And
: our students, although self-selected to want (and have parents who want)
: an unconventional education, are not a particularly select group
: academically--out of about twenty we have one with TS and another who is
: significantly retarded.
:
: On the general subject of resources, it is worth noting that between
: 1960 and 1980, real per pupil expenditure in the U.S. public school
: system roughly doubled--and output measures fell sharply.
:
: --
: David Friedman
And, tell us how much your private school spends on the above topics. You
can't just ignore that these type of people exist. My next door neighbor's
child has brain damage from a traumatic birth, yet the school system took
him everyday in a special bus until he reached 23 years old. Does your
private school have this type of expenditure?
Let's compare apples to apples, please.
Pat
Pat
:
: This case is a little more complicated. The "sample" consists of all
: home schooling parents who would report to the media if their child got
: 1600, and would succeed in getting the story into print. I don't know
: how large that sample is, but I know enough about people and the media
: so, this story is evidence that there are at least ten home schooled
: kids who got 1600--not proof, but evidence. It is possible that there is
: only one, but quite unlikely.
: --
: David Friedman
It would be very easy to get the story into print in our city because it
would be a "man bites dog" story. After all, that is how the original story
about the kid got in the paper. I don't understand why you would think that
any and all parents of home-schooled kids would not be calling the paper to
report their child's achievement. They ALL would!
Pat
Pat
:
:
:
: That's crazy! Why would you want to regulate home schooling!!! If we can
: save a few children by getting them out of the public schools, then that's
: great! Too many millions of children's lives are shattered in the
: government school system. We must put an end to it.
:
Your post says it all. Nobody will take you seriously now.
Pat
Cyn
Pat wrote in message ...
I disagree. Why would homeschooled parents be so different from other
parents? Do most parents in your city attempt to get their children's scores
on various standardized tests into the local newspapers?
While I'm extremely proud of the progress my son has made, it never once
crossed my mind to contact the press about it. It's our business, just as
your kids scores are yours.
Cyn
David Friedman
"Pat" <sylda...@SPAMyahoo.com> wrote:
> Most of the home-school parents that
> I know also believe that children do not need much education. They have
> tended to educate them only through the 8th grade here in Texas and then the
> kids "go out and get a job". The boys work alongside their father in
> construction or some type of manual labor. I have only known one family
> that home-schools who also thought a college education was desirable, and
> they wanted their son to go to their church college so that he "wouldn't
> have to mix" with outsiders.
>
> Pat
Obviously one's impression depends a lot on the particular sample one
encounters. The first home schooling family I knew had two sons. Both of
them went to Yale.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
"Pat" <sylda...@SPAMyahoo.com> wrote:
> : The home schooled kids seemed brighter and more interested than most of
> : those.
> :
> : --
> : David Friedman
>
> And, they are also somewhat crippled in social ways, in my experience.
That was true of the first two home schooled kids I knew, thirty-some
years ago. But they might have had social problems in school, too. It
was a rather odd household--a house that had run out of wall space for
books, and parents and children who kept a schedule about six hours out
of sync with the rest of the world. But both of them seem to have turned
out fine.
I didn't have that impression talking to the kids at the debate
conference, although obviously my contact with them was rather limited.
My impression is that modern home schoolers have created a pretty
substantial social network for getting their kids together with other
home schooled kids. But the social problem is one of the reasons our
kids go to a very unconventional school rather than being home schooled.
And of course for some kids, in particular ones who don't fit in very
well, going to a public school can also be socially crippling.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
"Pat" <sylda...@SPAMyahoo.com> wrote:
> David, I think you have fallen prey to the "big city" way of thinking.
> There are far more rural areas of this country than there are big cities.
> You said "school districts in most places are very big." and that is not
> true in many, many states.
I agree that if the district is small enough, public schooling becomes a
more viable system, precisely because an individual parent can affect
things enough for his kid to make it worth the effort.
The U.S. as a whole has about 15,000 school districts and about
45,000,000 kids enrolled. That gives an average size of 3000 kids per
district. Changing anything in a district with thousands of kids
enrolled is hard. So while the argument I offered may not apply
everywhere, I think it is more nearly the rule than the exception.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Rick
>
>:
http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/facts/undergraduate.html
"Stanford is committed to a need-blind admission policy--admitting qualified
students without regard to their ability to pay--and to providing a
comprehensive financial aid program for admitted students who have computed
need as determined by the university and who meet other requisite conditions
for financial aid. Financial aid was provided to about 72.5 percent of
undergraduate students from a variety of internal and external sources in
1999-2000."
How that works out in reality, I don't know.
- Rick
David Friedman
"Pat" <sylda...@SPAMyahoo.com> wrote:
> ":
> : You are putting it in terms of additional things that public schools
> : don't provide and implying that the problem is lack of resources. While
> : that is one possible interpretation, I don't think it is the most
> : plausible. In my view, the major problem with conventional schools,
> : especially but not exclusively public schools, is not what they don't do
> : but what they do.
>
> You mean what the private schools do such as ignore the disabled, the
> handicapped, and the mentally deficient? Show me a private school that has
> to spend resources for handicapped buses, attendant nurses and
> all of the other unfunded government mandates.
You are conflating two very different questions--whether one ignores the
handicapped and whether one spends money on them in the particular ways
that public schools do.
My children goes to a very small private school, with about twenty
students (completely age mixed). One of them has Tourette Syndrome,
another is significantly retarded. That makes ten percent of our
enrollment handicapped.
I don't know a lot about the more retarded child, but I do know the one
with TS. He functions fine in the school. His parents had been told by
the local public school that he could never learn arithmetic. At our
school he ended up with a job (the school is, to a significant degree,
run by the students) that involved counting money. He kept doing it till
he got it right. He is a visibly happy child, living as a functional
part of a community, with friends. He wasn't that in the public school.
Now to get past that particular response ... .
If you had actually read my post, instead of using it for an excuse to
attack private schools, you would have noticed that my comment was about
"conventional schools, especially but not exclusively public schools."
> And, tell us how much your private school spends on the above topics. You
> can't just ignore that these type of people exist. My next door neighbor's
> child has brain damage from a traumatic birth, yet the school system took
> him everyday in a special bus until he reached 23 years old. Does your
> private school have this type of expenditure?
> Let's compare apples to apples, please.
As I said, ten percent of the children in our school are handicapped.
Judging by the figures in my stat abstract, that is higher than the
national average. Judging by what I can see, and by what their parents
do, we also provide a better environment for them than the public
schools do.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Rick
<90B57804Dtimh...@209.155.56.95>...
>pl1_alp...@juNOSPAM.com (Rick) posted:
>
>>There are many
>>>others whose lives are shattered.
>>
>>What is your evidence of this?
>
>Look at the kids in Northern Idaho. Look at the polygamist
>children.
Typical Conservo cite. I want real data.
- Rick
georgann
> My favourite thing now, is when Nicky comes to ask me a question about
> something he's studying on his own, and I have to tell him "I don't know", and
> he comes back a half hour later and tells me the answer, so we'll both know. I
> adore it.
> It's gotten kind of expensive to keep up with him lately; he's turned his
> whole room into a biology lab, with 2 vivariums (30 & 10 gallon), a 20 gallon
> long aquarium, a 40 gallon goldfish/turtle tub, a two gallon fry tank, and a
> one gallon brine shrimp hatchery, with various other containers with
> godknowswhat in them crammed onto every flat surface. The equipment to run
> them, microscopes to examine things he grows, etc, all add up pretty fast, but
> it's not so bad if you accumulate them over time. The swamp odour that
> emanates from his room is harder to get used to, but what the hell, he's
> twelve, his room was prolly going to smell anyway.
> He's studying things right now I know nothing about. I love fish, and I taught
> him how to set up an aquarium, how to make sure he was keeping compatible
> species together, how to establish a ballanced nitrogen cycle in the system,
> but he's outstripped me by far, now. He's primarily into native fish and
> amphibians, and more specifically, the many microscopic parasites that can
> affect them. I know, yech, but I'm impressed with him. He keeps these
> incredibly detailed logbooks on each of them, and they just amaze me.
>
> This is a kid who got Ds and Fs in *third grade*, btw. Getting a few As,
> mostly Bs and Cs now, that's fine, that's average. But he's not average at
> home.
georgann wrote:
Cyn, I just gotta say, you've just described one thing about motherhood that
could _possibly_ have gotten my attention years ago. Unfortunately it wasn't
the right environment for me or that then. And if I had proceeded on my own
within that environment I would have ended up with a kid that was privately
plucking the wings off of butterflies while I was wondering why he wasn't
more interested in aquariums and stuff that made his room smell funny.
You have a very wonderful family I think.
--
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'
Daniel 2:20 Daniel said, ""Let the name
of God be blessed forever and ever, For
wisdom and power belong to Him. 21 It is
He who changes the times and the epochs;
He removes kings and establishes kings;
He gives wisdom to wise men And knowledge
to men of understanding.
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'
georgann
> : >I thought my pet argument was liburulism and the ruin of our nation.... : >
> : >My dad was a physician yes. And I went to private schools, yes. Did I meet
> : >or attempt to exceed my potential in that environment, alas no. Do I care :
> >yet, no. : > : >What's your point?
> : You've made it for me, Georgann. Thanks.
> : Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Pat:
> Yeah, she did. And it's kinda sad, too.
georgann wrote:
Its not at all sad Pat. Not excelling academically wasn't a loss in any way.
I wasn't a left brain thinker and tried to be creative on testing. Big
mistake.
Actually I'm well adjusted psychologically (as much as the next person),
assertive in the things that interest me, happily married, career fulfilled
and saved by the Grace of God.
What more of worth is there in life, I ask you??
Cyn
*snip*
>
>You have a very wonderful family I think.
>
Well, thankyou, Georgann. I think they're pretty great, too. Nicky is a
challenging kid, but he's interesting, to say the least. The other two
promise just as much fun.
Cyn
Lawrence Garvin
9E6066.140...@news.wwc.com>:
>In article <90B5804F8lga...@207.107.250.114>,
> lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
>
>> Well here we get to the nub of the thing. I strongly believe
>> that it is incumbent on all of us to improve the public
>> education system rather than abandon it. I believe that you
>> have the right to go elsewhere but I worry about the kids
>> who have no other options.
>
>In this case as in many others, there are two ways of improving
>something you are unhappy with. One is to try to influence the existing
>institution, the other is to compete with it.
Competition is fine if you are talking about a level
playing field. In the present case, the competitors
(be they private or home-schools) have the distinct
advantage of choosing their students.
>
>Someone who wants better operating system software can go to work for
>Microsoft and try to improve Windows. Or he can do what Linus Torvalds
>did.
I think it's a little bit of a stretch to compare expensive
and exclusive private schools with a free, open-source operating
system. If you like operating system analogies - and who among us
doesn't? - you should compare private schools to the early
Apple computers. Elegant, expensive and rather too pleased with
themselves. (Do I know how to troll, or what?)
>In the case of the public schooling system, I think improving the
>present institution is usually impractical. School districts in most
>places are very big, and a single parent, unless extraordinarily good at
>manipulating the system, can have very little effect. If you are
>sufficiently altruistic so that you care just as much about everyone
>else's children as about your own, having a tiny effect on a hundred
>thousand kids may be worth the large effort it takes. But the same
>effort, spent in home schooling or in a small private school, can have a
>very large effect on your kids, which to most of us is more important.
>
>And even from the standpoint of other people's kids, I suspect that
>demonstrating alternative models that work better--what Sudbury schools
>have been doing now for over thirty years--probably produces a bigger
>payoff in the long run than trying to nudge a large government run
>industry in the right direction.
I should prolly point out that I am looking at this topic
from a Canadian perspective. We are just now starting down
the path which, I gather, has been rather extensively traveled
in the US. The province of Ontario has introduced a tax credit
of $3500 for private schooling and many people, myself included,
feel that this is the next blow in a continuing campaign against
the public school system. I am not familiar with 'Sudbury' schools
so I will try to find out a little bit about that before I tell
you why they are absolutely unworkable and repressive and some
kind of fascist plot.
Lawrence
to work, to work...
Lawrence Garvin
<CmyS6.17591$651.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>:
I really haven't had a lot of first hand experience with
home-schoolers to be honest. I did talk to one lady in a
very remote area one day who had six children she was
home schooling. My first reaction was alarm, to be honest,
These people were very isolated physically and had made
the decision to isolate their children even further by
keeping them apart from the few neighbours they had. It
seems to me that this whole home schooling thing is driven
more by vanity than anything else. _My_ children are too
valuable to be trusted to that imperfect society outside
these walls. It's a withdrawl from the community no matter
how you look at it. Perhaps it's the right decision in
some cases, I don't know. I just find it rather sad to
think of those kids who will not have the opportunity
to cut school on a surprise spring day and do something
"unauthorized" for a few hours. Sneak off to the bowling
alley and play pinball and smoke cigarettes and feel up
a girl. When do the home schooled kids get to be free and
who do they get to be free with?
Lawrence
Brennan07
>who do they get to be free with?
Do you imagine homeschooled kids never leave the confines of the compound?
I have been homeschooling for ten years. My kids participate in the community,
with people of all ages. They do projects for social justice, play in bands,
visit neighbors, go on trips with other kids, get mentored by people who have
jobs and hobbies they find interesting - in other words, they have real lives,
and are not confined to an institution 8 hours a day five days a week.
Lawrence Garvin
<20010603225041...@ng-xb1.aol.com>:
>>When do the home schooled kids get to be free and
>>who do they get to be free with?
>
>Do you imagine homeschooled kids never leave the confines of the
>compound?
I don't know. I guess it depends on how literal you
are in defining the compound and, of course, it depends
on the parent, doesn't it? I think kids need the company
of other kids and I think that, increasingly, we parents
spend far too much time and effort trying to act as
intermediaries and facilitators for our children.
Kids do not have to be literally 'confined' to be constrained.
>I have been homeschooling for ten years. My kids participate in the
>community, with people of all ages. They do projects for social
>justice, play in bands, visit neighbors, go on trips with other kids,
>get mentored by people who have jobs and hobbies they find interesting -
>in other words, they have real lives, and are not confined to an
>institution 8 hours a day five days a week.
I don't mean to second guess your educating your children.
If it works well for you then I congratulate you. I guess
it is just a sign of aging when you start to mythologize
your own childhood. I enjoyed a lot of freedom as a kid
(some given, more stolen) and I worry that our kids are
simply too carefully watched for their own good. When do
kids play with firecrackers these days? You never hear of
kids going pool-hopping anymore, or bumper-skiing or even
playing bicycle tag (there was a game to teach you practical
physics in a hurry). Anyway, before I start telling you about
how far we walked to school in the winter, I will let it go.
Lawrence
David Friedman
lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
> It
> seems to me that this whole home schooling thing is driven
> more by vanity than anything else. _My_ children are too
> valuable to be trusted to that imperfect society outside
> these walls.
Do you regard that attitude as vain in other contexts? Do you think it
is perfectly normal to tell your children to trust all other adults?
My children are enormously valuable to me, and I expect other people
feel the same way about theirs. That isn't vanity--it's normal human
behavior.
And the issue isn't "that imperfect society outside these walls." It's a
particular set of institutions--the public schools--which many people
don't want in control of their children for a variety of reasons. Those
include:
1. Most public schools do a very poor job of educating people. If you
don't believe me, read a few textbooks in a field you know something
about. Or ask a few recent graduates to explain to you a subject you
know something about.
2. One of the most important intellectual skills is the ability to judge
sources of information on internal evidence--to read a book, or an
article, or a Usenet post, and figure out whether the author is an
honest and competent person making a reasonable attempt to tell the
truth. Not only does the conventional school not teach that skill, it
unteaches it. In most classrooms, there are two sources of authority,
the textbook and the teacher. The child's job is to learn what those
sources say, believe it and remember it. And, much of the time, what
those sources say isn't true--or at least, isn't accompanied by any good
reason for belief. There are, of course, exceptions--but they are
exceptional teachers.
3. The schools choose a particular, largely arbitrary, subset of
knowledge, insist that everyone learn it well enough to pass an
exam--and in in practice do not insist that anyone learn it well enough
to be of use in later life. That probably isn't true of reading, but it
is true of most other things.
4. In order to teach children, one must hold a set of views about what
the world is like. In practice, that means (among other things) holding
views about religion. For example, in order to do a competent job of
teaching modern biology, you have to explain the theory of
evolution--not as a conjecture that played a role in intellectual
history but as our best guess about why living things have the
characteristics they do.
But the theory of evolution directly contradicts the teachings of a fair
number of religions. I would be unhappy to have my children taught in
school that (say) Catholicism or Islam was true, and it seems perfectly
reasonable to me that parents who really believe in a religion are
unhappy to have their children taught that it is false.
> It's a withdrawl from the community no matter
> how you look at it.
Neither I nor my children belong to "the community." Nor is there a
single community for them to belong to. Each human being, at least in a
society like ours, creates his own community--the set of people with
whom he associates. That's true within a public school and it is true of
home schoolers. Homeschoolers aren't withrawing from "the community,"
they are choosing not trust the government to educate their children. In
some cases they are also choosing not to trust a private school to
educate their children, in other cases a private school isn't a
practical option for them.
> Perhaps it's the right decision in
> some cases, I don't know. I just find it rather sad to
> think of those kids who will not have the opportunity
> to cut school on a surprise spring day and do something
> "unauthorized" for a few hours. Sneak off to the bowling
> alley and play pinball and smoke cigarettes and feel up
> a girl. When do the home schooled kids get to be free and
> who do they get to be free with?
It surely depends on the homeschooling. Some of them get to be free all
of the time, instead of being under someone else's orders for six or
seven hours a day, five days a week for twelve years.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Rev. Dr. Tim, BsD
I'd be interested in seeing it too.
--
"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal
shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's
just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it."
--George W. Bush, May 14, 2001
David Friedman
lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
> dd...@best.com (David Friedman) wrote in <ddfr-
> 9E6066.140...@news.wwc.com>:
> >In this case as in many others, there are two ways of improving
> >something you are unhappy with. One is to try to influence the existing
> >institution, the other is to compete with it.
>
> Competition is fine if you are talking about a level
> playing field. In the present case, the competitors
> (be they private or home-schools) have the distinct
> advantage of choosing their students.
And the distinct disadvantage that anyone who sends his kids to them has
to pay twice for schooling--once in taxes, once in tuition.
Suppose we were talking about restaurants. Restaurant A has to be open
to all customers--and has a government subsidy that covers its expenses.
Restaurant B can choose its customers and has no subsidy. I agree that
that isn't a level playing field, but I think you have the tilt
backwards.
> >Someone who wants better operating system software can go to work for
> >Microsoft and try to improve Windows. Or he can do what Linus Torvalds
> >did.
>
> I think it's a little bit of a stretch to compare expensive
> and exclusive private schools with a free, open-source operating
> system. If you like operating system analogies - and who among us
> doesn't? - you should compare private schools to the early
> Apple computers. Elegant, expensive and rather too pleased with
> themselves. (Do I know how to troll, or what?)
1. Private schools vary a lot. Our school's tuition is just about equal
to the amount California claims to spend per pupil--and I believe that
claim ignores the fact that the public schools have land and buildings
bought by the state and don't include any imputed rent in their
accounts. Lots of private schools charge less than the state spends--I
gather our tuition is high for a Sudbury school, in part because we are
in Silicon Valley where land and rent are very high and there is a lot
of government regulation raising our costs.
Checking my 1997 Statistical Abstract, I find the following numbers:
Public school expenditures, elementary and secondary, 1996 (est): 285
billion $/year
Private school: 24 billion $/year
Public School enrollment, K-12, 1996 proj.: 46 million
Private school: 4.8 million
Looking at those number, you will observe that expenditure per pupil is
about $6,200 in the public system and about $5,000 in the private system.
1996 was the latest year for which it gave data, and that involved
estimates and projections; you are welcome to check a more recent Stat
Abstract if you wish. You might also want to rethink your stereotypes.
2. But I don't object to your Apple analogy--save that it should include
the Xerox Star and the Amiga and Atari. If you thought that a graphic
user interface would be a better solution to controlling an OS, you had
two choices. You could go to work for Microsoft and try to push them
towards a GUI. Or you could start a competitor using a GUI. The latter
method not only succeeded, it succeeded in eventually getting Microsoft
to produce what I gather is by now a halfway decent GUI interface.
> I should prolly point out that I am looking at this topic
> from a Canadian perspective. We are just now starting down
> the path which, I gather, has been rather extensively traveled
> in the US. The province of Ontario has introduced a tax credit
> of $3500 for private schooling and many people, myself included,
> feel that this is the next blow in a continuing campaign against
> the public school system.
You have it backwards. If Ontario has a $3500 tax credit for private
schooling, it has gone farther towards a voucher system than any state
in the U.S. We have had repeated attempts to create voucher systems at
the state level, usually at well below the public school per pupil
expenditure, but they have all been defeated--at least in part because
their supporters are heavily outspent by the teachers unions.
> I am not familiar with 'Sudbury' schools
> so I will try to find out a little bit about that before I tell
> you why they are absolutely unworkable and repressive and some
> kind of fascist plot.
Do that. One might claim they are a hippy plot, or a libertarian plot,
or an anarchist plot, or even a democracy run mad plot (the kids get to
vote on next year's teachers), but fascist, no. Imagine Summerhill with
Neil replaced by democracy.
If you go to my web site you will find a link to our school's web page
(I used to be webmaster, but was displaced by a student; I think he was
twelve at the time, and certainly knew HTML better than I did). On that
you will find links to other material about other Sudbury schools.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
> I enjoyed a lot of freedom as a kid
> (some given, more stolen) and I worry that our kids are
> simply too carefully watched for their own good. When do
> kids play with firecrackers these days? You never hear of
> kids going pool-hopping anymore, or bumper-skiing or even
> playing bicycle tag (there was a game to teach you practical
> physics in a hurry). Anyway, before I start telling you about
> how far we walked to school in the winter, I will let it go.
I agree with you that kids are too much monitored and regulated, but the
public school system is a prime offender--as is government intervention
more generally.
Let me tell you a true story about one of the families in our school.
The parents made a practice of taking as foster children children who
had problems--Tourette's syndrome, retardation, etc.--and thus had a
hard time finding foster parents. Eventually the regulations on foster
parents became so severe as to be intolerable to them. For example,
under the rules the husband of the couple was not permitted to be alone
with his foster daughters--presumably because someone thought he might
abuse them and the authorities would be blamed.
They informed the relevant authorities that they would take no more
foster children--and adopted all of the foster children they had.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Lawrence Garvin
>In article <90B5E59E4lga...@207.107.250.114>,
> lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
>
>> It
>> seems to me that this whole home schooling thing is driven
>> more by vanity than anything else. _My_ children are too
>> valuable to be trusted to that imperfect society outside
>> these walls.
>
>Do you regard that attitude as vain in other contexts? Do you think it
>is perfectly normal to tell your children to trust all other adults?
That's a bit of a leap. Perhaps our experiences differ but
I expect that the worst thing that will happen to my
children in the public school system is that they will
receive an education that is less than ideal; just as I
did and just as you did as well. Does that mean I have no
concern for their education? Not at all. It may just be
that I define education a little more broadly than you do.
>My children are enormously valuable to me, and I expect other people
>feel the same way about theirs. That isn't vanity--it's normal human
>behavior.
Well, it is vanity of a type. It's hardly a sin.
>And the issue isn't "that imperfect society outside these walls." It's a
>particular set of institutions--the public schools--which many people
>don't want in control of their children for a variety of reasons. Those
>include:
>
>1. Most public schools do a very poor job of educating people. If you
>don't believe me, read a few textbooks in a field you know something
>about. Or ask a few recent graduates to explain to you a subject you
>know something about.
>
>2. One of the most important intellectual skills is the ability to judge
>sources of information on internal evidence--to read a book, or an
>article, or a Usenet post, and figure out whether the author is an
>honest and competent person making a reasonable attempt to tell the
>truth. Not only does the conventional school not teach that skill, it
>unteaches it. In most classrooms, there are two sources of authority,
>the textbook and the teacher. The child's job is to learn what those
>sources say, believe it and remember it. And, much of the time, what
>those sources say isn't true--or at least, isn't accompanied by any good
>reason for belief. There are, of course, exceptions--but they are
>exceptional teachers.
I'm a product of the public education system and I can think
of at least a dozen exceptional teachers I had throughout
my schooling. Dedicated, inspired, humourous and genuine every
single one of them. I learned a lot from them. I also had some
really bad teachers; burnt-out, spiteful, unhappy people who
hated their jobs and hated us students and I learned from them
too. I learned how to cope with difficult people, how to defend
myself against injustices and how to express distain politely (don't
knock it, that's important). I don't think the majority of
learning takes place under ideal conditions and I think there
is a lot that's learned that's not on the curriculum and it is
important too.
>3. The schools choose a particular, largely arbitrary, subset of
>knowledge, insist that everyone learn it well enough to pass an
>exam--and in in practice do not insist that anyone learn it well enough
>to be of use in later life. That probably isn't true of reading, but it
>is true of most other things.
I take the approach that education is continuous and
that far too much of what we call education is simply
job training. If my kids grow up with the ability to
find and understand the information they want/need then
I'll be pretty happy. If one of them wins a Nobel or a
Pulitzer I'll consider it a bonus.
<snipped the rest cause it's getting late>
<but I will come back to it>
Lawrence
<overdoing the parenthisis's <parenthithi?>>
Eve
>From: David Friedman dd...@best.com
>Date: 6/3/01 3:12 PM Mountain Daylight Time
>Message-id: <ddfr-B1918A.1...@news.wwc.com>
>
>In article <20010603143634...@ng-mf1.aol.com>,
> evedu...@aol.com (Eve) wrote:
>
>> >georgann wrote:
>> >Fine. But its not so normal odds that the percentage of home-schooled kids
>> >that apply to and are accepted at Stanford is twice that of regular
>> >applicants. You did see the Stanford stats provided here last evening,
>yes?
>>
>> I believe that Stanford is a private college, and as such can pick and
>choose
>> the students it accepts. It is also very expensive as opposed to a public
>> college like UC Berkeley. Perhaps home-schooled kids parents have the
>money
>> to send them to Standard. Do you know otherwise?
>
>The statistics were on the percentage of those who applied that were
>accepted, not on the percentage of all home schooled kids that went to
>Stanford or the percentage of applicants who actually went to Stanford.
>So your argument cuts in exactly the wrong direction.
>
>In case that isn't obvious:
>
>Suppose that, on average, home schooling families are richer than public
>schooling families. Also suppose that their education is neither better
>nor worse. The fact that a larger fraction of home schooling families
>can afford Stanford will mean that a larger fraction will apply to
>Stanford, which means that the applicants will be going farther down the
>applicant pool in terms of quality, which will mean a smaller fraction
>accepted. If in fact a larger fraction of home schooling applicants is
>accepted, that is then evidence that their schooling is enough better to
>outweigh the effect of higher income.
>
>Or were you assuming that Stanford preferentially accepted students with
>rich parents? In my experience, the bias of elite schools is in the
>other direction.
Now you've got it. In my experience, it cuts exactly the opposite way.
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
David Friedman
lga...@sprint.ca (Lawrence Garvin) wrote:
(responding to me)
> That's a bit of a leap. Perhaps our experiences differ but
> I expect that the worst thing that will happen to my
> children in the public school system is that they will
> receive an education that is less than ideal; just as I
> did and just as you did as well.
How about their spending thirty five hours a week for twelve years being
bored most of the time, when they could spend that time reading
interesting books, and talking with people, and making things, ... ?
That strikes me as a pretty bad thing to happen to someone--and avoiding
it for my kids is one reason I have them in the school they are in. My
wife learned, in school, how to read a book hidden under her desk
without the teacher noticing. That's a skill our daughter doesn't need.
> Does that mean I have no
> concern for their education? Not at all. It may just be
> that I define education a little more broadly than you do.
Perhaps, but I doubt it. My kids are learning, among other things, how
to organize political action to change school rules they disapprove of
and how to defend their views on such issues in order to persuade other
kids and staff. When we voted a few years back on changing the school's
name, my vote got changed from "no" to "abstain" by an argument made by
one of the kids. And my daughter's vote counted equally with mine.
> >My children are enormously valuable to me, and I expect other people
> >feel the same way about theirs. That isn't vanity--it's normal human
> >behavior.
> Well, it is vanity of a type. It's hardly a sin.
It isn't even vanity. My belief that my children are smarter, more
affectionate, and in every way more wonderful than other people's
children may be vanity (or merely the product of objective judgement).
But my caring more about my children isn't vanity--it's a predictable
outcome of natural selection for reproductive success.
> I'm a product of the public education system and I can think
> of at least a dozen exceptional teachers I had throughout
> my schooling. Dedicated, inspired, humourous and genuine every
> single one of them. I learned a lot from them.
How many of them were more inspired and genuine than the authors of the
books you could have been learning from--Dawkins and Konrad Lorentz, for
example? And with books, or with teachers in a non-standard system, you
have the option of avoiding the bad ones.
> I also had some
> really bad teachers; burnt-out, spiteful, unhappy people who
> hated their jobs and hated us students and I learned from them
> too. I learned how to cope with difficult people, how to defend
> myself against injustices and how to express distain politely (don't
> knock it, that's important).
I don't think there is much risk that my children, or yours, will go
through life without learning the necessity to cope with difficult
people and defend themselves against injustices. Deliberately choosing
an environment in order to make sure they encounter an adequate number
of difficult people and injustices strikes me as overkill.
> If my kids grow up with the ability to
> find and understand the information they want/need then
> I'll be pretty happy.
And they are more likely to achieve that ability if the normal setting
of their education is "There is something I want to find out" than if it
is "Teacher says I have to answer the following questions."
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Eve
>Date: 6/3/01 4:04 PM Mountain Daylight Time
>Message-id: <uvyS6.17606$651.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>
Have you been following this whole thread, Pat? If not, David is on the side
of school vouchers, therefore, he is not a particularly
avid booster of Public Schools.
Also, "in" among the anti-public schools group, is beating the drum for
home-schooling; i.e., "Look, anything is better than Public Schools."
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve
Eve
>From: "Rick" pl1_alp...@juNOSPAM.com
>Date: 6/3/01 4:58 PM Mountain Daylight Time
>Message-id: <9feffr$62a$1...@sshuraaa-i-1.production.compuserve.com>
That's odd, coming from one of the Conservative persuasion.
Your Faithful Serpent, Eve