CATO, Friedman and the Privatisation of Public Schools
igon...@my-dejanews.com
"janice" <jan...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
MK. Discussion deleted...
>
> Surely the corporate agenda of libertarianism now speaks for itself...
>
> janice
>
> CATO INSTITUTE
>
> Briefing Paper No. 23 June 23, 1995
>
> PUBLIC SCHOOLS: MAKE THEM PRIVATE
> by Milton Friedman
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MK. Discussion deleted (Backtrack if you're curious)...
>
> j.
> "If you think education is expensive,try ignorance"
> --Derek Bok attributed
>
MK. "If you think education's expensive, try the State school cartel".
School is expensive. Education is potentially cheap.
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janice
igon...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<78uf0u$7si$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <78smjk$llc$1...@newsource.ihug.co.nz>,
> "janice" <jan...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>>
>MK. Discussion deleted...
>>
>> Surely the corporate agenda of libertarianism now speaks for
itself...
>>
>> janice
>>
>> CATO INSTITUTE
>>
>> Briefing Paper No. 23 June 23, 1995
>>
>> PUBLIC SCHOOLS: MAKE THEM PRIVATE
>> by Milton Friedman
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------
>MK. Discussion deleted (Backtrack if you're curious)...
>>
>> j.
>> "If you think education is expensive,try ignorance"
>> --Derek Bok attributed
>>
>MK. "If you think education's expensive, try the State school
cartel".
>School is expensive. Education is potentially cheap.
Sure, if you want monkeys.
janice
E. Barry Bruyea
wrote:
>
>igon...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
><78uf0u$7si$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>>In article <78smjk$llc$1...@newsource.ihug.co.nz>,
>> "janice" <jan...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>>>
>>MK. Discussion deleted...
>>>
>>> Surely the corporate agenda of libertarianism now speaks for
>itself...
>>>
>>> janice
And just what is your Agenda, Janice? And what size will the Gulags
be and where will they be located, just so we can prepare properly for
the trip?
E. Barry Bruyea
wrote:
>
>E. Barry Bruyea wrote in message
><36b2efdc...@news1.sympatico.ca>...
>Were you wanting to discuss the article or did you want to simply
>revert
>as usual to a lot of outdated slogans. What is your problem, cant
>you face the truth--that the great right wing economic dream is
>nothing
>more than a cheap scam?
>
>janice
Ok, Janice, for the sake of debate, what is your alternative. There
are certainly enough detractors of capitalism around, and some of them
have even expressed some alternatives. Let's hear yours.
igon...@my-dejanews.com
"janice" <jan...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
> igon...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
> <78uf0u$7si$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> >In article <78smjk$llc$1...@newsource.ihug.co.nz>,
> > "janice" <jan...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> >>
> >MK. Discussion deleted...
> >>
> >> Surely the corporate agenda of libertarianism now speaks for
> itself...
> >>
> >> janice
> >>
> >>
> >> Briefing Paper No. 23 June 23, 1995
> >>
> >> PUBLIC SCHOOLS: MAKE THEM PRIVATE
> >> by Milton Friedman
> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------
> >MK. Discussion deleted (Backtrack if you're curious)...
> >>
> >> j.
> >> "If you think education is expensive,try ignorance"
> >> --Derek Bok attributed
> >>
> >MK. "If you think education's expensive, try the State school
> cartel".
> >School is expensive. Education is potentially cheap.
>
> Sure, if you want monkeys.
>
> janice
>
>
MK. It is much harder to train animals to perform counter to their
instincts. Humans are gregarious. Man is the political animal, according to
Aristotle. Evidence from modern bushmen and from ancient dwelling sites
suggests that people lived in small groups for 100,000+ years. We may now
unite the threads on indoctrination (Why Gary Can't Think) and school
structure (vouchers). The current structure of the school industry, with (in
extreme cases like Hawaii), massive bureaucracy, compels youngsters to abide
passively in a very unnatural, age segregated environment. I am not alone in
the supposition that ADD, CAPD, dyslexia and other, similar problems are a
normal consequence of an abnormal situation.
>
MK. People and other animals will work for rewards. If students do not
perform for us, either we ask too much (not likely), or we give them no
reason to do what we require. The structure of incentives in compulsory
schools is strictly negative, especially for children who do not expect to
attend college. School is designed by academics, by people who are good at
school, by people who have spent their entire lives in school. They imagine
that the Professor of Education is the highest form of life on Earth. The
goals they proclaim, and the incentives they offer, are foreign to many
normal children. Training a mechanically or artistically inclined child for
an academic career, using a transcript as the incentive, is like teaching a
cat to swim, using carrots as the reward. Additionally, as C.smith or Bob
LeChavalier observed, 70% of your typical school district budget is salaries
for staff. We might get greater performance if we paid the people who
actually do the work, the students, or their legal representatives, the
parents.
>
MK. In the school voucher discussion I offered a definition: "Government is
the major dealer in force in a given locality." My purpose is to move away
from abstractions like "representation", and to indicate the people (whose
motives we will not know and might infer) who operate State schools. If you
suppose that their motives are pretty much normal human motives, adjusted for
the fact that they chose to work for a heavily armed employer, you can then
place schools in the context of other enterprises. There is no reason to
suppose that this industry is a natural monopoly. Some form of early (8-14
?) "education" may be a public good, but mostly school looks like a jobs
program for teachers. The abuse heaped upon voucher advocates, and the
advocates of separation of School and State looks like aggressive PR from a
frightened cartel, from this perspective.
>
Take care. Homeschool if you can.
>
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
>
PS. The government of Singapore does not compel attendance at school.
Singapore has a rate of attendance as high as US, and vastly higher TIMSS
scores.
Beth Clarkson
> igon...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
> >MK. "If you think education's expensive, try the State school
> cartel".
> >School is expensive. Education is potentially cheap.
>
> Sure, if you want monkeys.
>
> janice
I don't understand this comment. Are you saying that inexpensive
education can only produce humans no smarter than trained monkeys? That we
must spend huge sums of money on formal schooling in order to produce an
educated adult?
If so, how do you explain the enormous success of the homeschooling
movement, with individual parents (often without any formal credentials)
educating their children and producing good results at a very low cost?
Beth Clarkson
janice
E. Barry Bruyea wrote in message
<36b2efdc...@news1.sympatico.ca>...
>On Sat, 30 Jan 1999 22:54:02 +1300, "janice" <jan...@ihug.co.nz>
>>>In article <78smjk$llc$1...@newsource.ihug.co.nz>,
>>> "janice" <jan...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>>>>
>>>MK. Discussion deleted...
>>>>
>>>> Surely the corporate agenda of libertarianism now speaks for
>>itself...
>>>>
>>>> janice
>
>
tho...@my-dejanews.com
Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
<snip>
>
> If so, how do you explain the enormous success of the homeschooling
> movement, with individual parents (often without any formal credentials)
> educating their children and producing good results at a very low cost?
>
> Beth Clarkson
>
>
Ah, an opening!
Could you please tell me the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? How much do you
spend on computers, materials, books, etc.? Please make sure that you include
the cost of your time. I know that they are your children, but what is the
cost of your labor (how much time do you spend, total, on homeschooling)? Do
you consult with other adults? What is the cost of their time? I am curious
as to just how much homeschooling actually costs.
James Powell
Dorothy Sacks
tho...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<791rb8$sl6$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <36B36021...@feist.com>,
> Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
><snip>
>>
>> If so, how do you explain the enormous success of the homeschooling
>> movement, with individual parents (often without any formal credentials)
>> educating their children and producing good results at a very low cost?
>>
>> Beth Clarkson
>>
>>
>
>Ah, an opening!
>
>Could you please tell me the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? How much do you
>spend on computers, materials, books, etc.? Please make sure that you
include
>the cost of your time. I know that they are your children, but what is the
>cost of your labor (how much time do you spend, total, on homeschooling)?
Do
>you consult with other adults? What is the cost of their time? I am curious
>as to just how much homeschooling actually costs.
Actually, James since parents have to raise the children anyway and would
probably spend money on books, computers and other educational materials
even if they were in a traditional school, I'm not sure you can separate
this out.
You would have to figure out how much would be spent if the child were in
school and how much additional money you would spend it you homeschooled.
Cost of the parents time would also depend on how much time they spent with
the child normally vs how much additional time was spent due to the home
schooling process. As for consulting with other adults, my kids were in
public
schools, but we still discussed educational and parenting issues with other
parents as the need arose.
Dorothy
Michael Moy
>
> In article <36B36021...@feist.com>,
> Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> > If so, how do you explain the enormous success of the homeschooling
> > movement, with individual parents (often without any formal credentials)
> > educating their children and producing good results at a very low cost?
> >
> > Beth Clarkson
> >
> >
>
> Ah, an opening!
>
> Could you please tell me the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? How much do you
> spend on computers, materials, books, etc.? Please make sure that you include
> the cost of your time. I know that they are your children, but what is the
> cost of your labor (how much time do you spend, total, on homeschooling)? Do
> you consult with other adults? What is the cost of their time? I am curious
> as to just how much homeschooling actually costs.
Materials are typically $500 though these vary widely and you can save
materials
for use with other children. You can't really put a dollar figure on
labor
costs as you would then have to find an average estimted wage and
subtract
out all of the expenses and taxes associated with working.
If more adults put the efforts that home schoolers do towards their kids
education (whether in schools or in helping their kids), then the direct
taxpayer costs could go down.
Beth Clarkson
situation, the resources they have available to them, and the priorities they
place on various subjects. We have one daughter we are homeschooling. Our
family spends approx. $500 to $1000 annually on books, instructional materials,
and private lessons of various sorts, but please bear in mind that many of these
costs would be incurred whether we homeschooled or not.
For example, our daughter is currently taking private guitar lessons at $50
month. I think that even were she attending school, if she wanted to take those
lessons, we would provide them for her. Few of the books we purchase for her
education are standard textbooks or workbooks, and even if she were attending
school, we would try to provide her with books of interest to her in addition to
whatever books she used in school. I don't consider most of these expenses to be
a cost of homeschooling but rather a cost of her education regardless of how we
chose to approach it.
You mentioned the cost of our time/labor, but I really don't know how to
calculate that. My husband and I both work, so the time spent homeschooling is
in addition to, rather than instead of, time spent earning money. It does cut
into time spent doing other things, but how does one assess the cost of only
managing to mop the kitchen floor once or twice a month? It simply isn't as
important to me (or as much fun) as spending time with my daughter. The amount
of time we spend varies considerably day to day and week to week depending on our
schedules, but as a rough estimate, combined we total around 1 to 2 hours a day,
five days a week. We don't take summers off, other than family vacation time.
Some homeschoolers spend more time at it, some less.
We do consult with other adults, but the only time they are paid is when we sign
her up for lessons of some type, such as the guitar lessons mentioned above. The
cost for that generally runs about $10 to $25 per hour, depending whether she's
taking private or group lessons. Our daughter does have her own computer, but we
were able to keep the cost of that very low (a few hundred $'s) by building it
from her father's old system when he upgraded his and only purchasing the
additional components needed to complete her system.
If you want to know more, I suggest you post to
misc.education.home-schooling.misc where you can hear from a variety of people
who homeschool using different approachs.
Beth Clarkson
tho...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article <36B36021...@feist.com>,
> Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> > If so, how do you explain the enormous success of the homeschooling
> > movement, with individual parents (often without any formal credentials)
> > educating their children and producing good results at a very low cost?
> >
> > Beth Clarkson
> >
> >
>
> Ah, an opening!
>
> Could you please tell me the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? How much do you
> spend on computers, materials, books, etc.? Please make sure that you include
> the cost of your time. I know that they are your children, but what is the
> cost of your labor (how much time do you spend, total, on homeschooling)? Do
> you consult with other adults? What is the cost of their time? I am curious
> as to just how much homeschooling actually costs.
>
> James Powell
gwen hill
a public school. The total costs for their books this year was $350.00
I already had a computer. You can spend alot more or alot less just
depends what you do .
As for the time , I don't count that , that's something you shouldn't
put a price on . Money can't buy love and shouldn't take time away
from children.
Gwen in MS
God loves us all!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bob LeChevalier
>tho...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
><791rb8$sl6$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>> Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> If so, how do you explain the enormous success of the homeschooling
>>> movement, with individual parents (often without any formal credentials)
>>> educating their children and producing good results at a very low cost?
>>>
>>> Beth Clarkson
>>
>>Ah, an opening!
>>
>>Could you please tell me the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? How much do you
>>spend on computers, materials, books, etc.? Please make sure that you
>include
>>the cost of your time. I know that they are your children, but what is the
>>cost of your labor (how much time do you spend, total, on homeschooling)?
>Do
>>you consult with other adults? What is the cost of their time? I am curious
>>as to just how much homeschooling actually costs.
>Actually, James since parents have to raise the children anyway and would
>probably spend money on books, computers and other educational materials
>even if they were in a traditional school, I'm not sure you can separate
>this out.
>You would have to figure out how much would be spent if the child were in
>school and how much additional money you would spend it you homeschooled.
>Cost of the parents time would also depend on how much time they spent with
>the child normally vs how much additional time was spent due to the home
>schooling process.
An economic model must include the opportunity cost for all people
involved or no comparisons can be made. The time you spend with your
kids is time that could be spent earning money if you had no kids. At
the very least a parent with no particular skills should have their
time evaluated as a noneducative day care worker, while an
homeschoolers' time might be evaluated at that rate except when
actually teaching their child, in which case tutoring costs seem
applicable.
While the classical nuclear family can work with one working parent,
such families are a minority these days. As many as half of all kids
are living with a single parent, and here in the DC area for example
something like 75% of all dual parent families have both spouses
working. Dual workers support the conomy and pay higher taxes.
Single parents who work keep themselves off welfare and also pay
taxes.
Out of pocket expenses simply are too simple a model for education
costs. (For one thing, parents of kids in school also spend money for
education - my kids are getting private music instruction that
homeschoolers would call education expenses, I buy lots of books for
the kids to read just as I presume homeschoolers do).
The same thing must apply when discussing the cost of public
education. If the kids were not in public schools then the parents of
those kids would be out of work managing their kids and/or hiring
child care or paying private tuitions. Each of these is a serious
drain on the family finances, probably greater than the cost of the
public schools, and in an economy geared around most adults working,
removing a lagrenumber of adults from the work force in order to
homeschool their children would have serious economic consequences for
the country at large.
>As for consulting with other adults, my kids were in public
>schools, but we still discussed educational and parenting issues with other
>parents as the need arose.
Agreed.
lojbab
----
lojbab ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS*** loj...@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.
Craig
>Were you wanting to discuss the article or did you want to simply
>revert
>as usual to a lot of outdated slogans. What is your problem, cant
>you face the truth--that the great right wing economic dream is
>nothing
>more than a cheap scam?
As opposed to the great left wing economic dream?? The dream that somebody
else is suppose to pay for everything. Show me a country that has prospered
with a large wealth redistribution sheme.
Michael Moy
As in business and economics, opportunity cost is usually a crapshoot.
You pick a number and hope that it's right. The variables in hsing
families are so wide as to make it quite difficult to come up with
a useful number.
> The time you spend with your
> kids is time that could be spent earning money if you had no kids.
Or watching soap operas.
> At
> the very least a parent with no particular skills should have their
> time evaluated as a noneducative day care worker, while an
> homeschoolers' time might be evaluated at that rate except when
> actually teaching their child, in which case tutoring costs seem
> applicable.
Would you include opportunity cost for kids that were old enough
to self-educate? One of the aims of hsing is to get kids to the point
where they don't need much supervision when it comes to their own
education.
> While the classical nuclear family can work with one working parent,
> such families are a minority these days. As many as half of all kids
> are living with a single parent, and here in the DC area for example
> something like 75% of all dual parent families have both spouses
> working. Dual workers support the conomy and pay higher taxes.
They also raise prices for others. I've seen lots of articles that
question the marginal benefit of dual-income families in certain
circumstances.
> Out of pocket expenses simply are too simple a model for education
> costs. (For one thing, parents of kids in school also spend money for
> education - my kids are getting private music instruction that
> homeschoolers would call education expenses, I buy lots of books for
> the kids to read just as I presume homeschoolers do).
Some hsers include private lessons in their estimate of expenses though
we do not. Our amount would triple if we did that.
> The same thing must apply when discussing the cost of public
> education. If the kids were not in public schools then the parents of
> those kids would be out of work managing their kids and/or hiring
> child care or paying private tuitions. Each of these is a serious
> drain on the family finances, probably greater than the cost of the
> public schools, and in an economy geared around most adults working,
> removing a lagrenumber of adults from the work force in order to
> homeschool their children would have serious economic consequences for
> the country at large.
It would have consequences but it's hard to say what they would be.
Dos
Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands just to name a few.
Of course you wouldn't know my good man since you seem to be stuck
reading the NZBR and other propaganda pamphlets.
Get yourself a ticket out of Aotearoa, learn some new languages and
customs, explore the planet and then come back.
E. Barry Bruyea
>
>
>--
>"If you think education is expensive,try ignorance"
>--Derek Bok attributed
>Craig wrote in message <794q4o$rpe$1...@remarQ.com>...
>>
>>>Were you wanting to discuss the article or did you want to simply
>>>revert
>>>as usual to a lot of outdated slogans. What is your problem, cant
>>>you face the truth--that the great right wing economic dream is
>>>nothing
>>>more than a cheap scam?
>>
>>
>>As opposed to the great left wing economic dream?? The dream that somebody
>>else is suppose to pay for everything. Show me a country that has prospered
>>with a large wealth redistribution sheme.\
>
>I posted an article on here called the definition of Liberalism, you might like
>to
>read it , and maybe you will recognise that a nice balance between left and
>right is be preferred rather than extremes of either. I dont like extremes do
>you? If the left is too extreme then we end up with dictators and if the left is
>too extreme we end up with dictators. We have had capitalism then a social
>democracy, now we have captialism perhaps the next thing will be democratic
>socialism, another blend of capitalism
>and socialism. who knows
>
>janice
Those of us on the right really appreciate your Freudian slip in the
posting. It's good to know what you *really* think. Thanks for the
honesty.
Barry Bruyea
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
Andrew P Boulton
: you? If the left is too extreme then we end up with dictators and if the left is
: too extreme we end up with dictators. We have had capitalism then a social
Yep.
--
=======================================================
| Andrew P. Boulton |
| com...@idirect.com -or- yu21...@yorku.ca |
| http://webhome.idirect.com/~cometx |
| Crush labor monopolies -- right-to-work laws _now!_ |
=======================================================
to pay for everything. Show me a country that has prospered
: >with a large wealth redistribution sheme.\
: I posted an article on here called the definition of Liberalism, you might like
: to
: read it , and maybe you will recognise that a nice balance between left and
: right is be preferred rather than extremes of either. I dont like extremes do
: you? If the left is too extreme then we end up with dictators and if the left is
: too extreme we end up with dictators. We have had capitalism then a social
: democracy, now we have captialism perhaps the next thing will be democratic
: socialism, another blend of capitalism
: and socialism. who knows
: janice
: >
: >
: >
: >
--
=======================================================
| Andrew P. Boulton |
| com...@idirect.com -or- yu21...@yorku.ca |
| http://webhome.idirect.com/~cometx |
| Crush labor monopolies -- right-to-work laws _now!_ |
=======================================================
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Bob LeChevalier
>You mentioned the cost of our time/labor, but I really don't know how to
>calculate that. My husband and I both work, so the time spent homeschooling is
>in addition to, rather than instead of, time spent earning money.
Who takes care of your child when you are at work. Public schools
come with de facto child care which in turn has enabled mothers to
enter the workplace that would not have otherwise been able to.
>The amount
>of time we spend varies considerably day to day and week to week depending on our
>schedules, but as a rough estimate, combined we total around 1 to 2 hours a day,
>five days a week. We don't take summers off, other than family vacation time.
>Some homeschoolers spend more time at it, some less.
Someone is spending time with your daughter during the hours when she
might have been at the public school (I hope). That someone is
providing child care, even if no education is taking place.
Bob LeChevalier
>Everything but misc.education chopped.
>Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>> An economic model must include the opportunity cost for all people
>> involved or no comparisons can be made.
>As in business and economics, opportunity cost is usually a crapshoot.
>You pick a number and hope that it's right.
The opportunity cost should be the mean salary for a person working
full time given the parent's training and experience. If this is
unknown, it should at least be the pay of full time daycare workers,
since that is the minimum that a responsible parent is doing.
> The variables in hsing
>families are so wide as to make it quite difficult to come up with
>a useful number.
>> The time you spend with your
>> kids is time that could be spent earning money if you had no kids.
>Or watching soap operas.
It could be, but that again is your choice to lose an opportunity to
make money.
>> At
>> the very least a parent with no particular skills should have their
>> time evaluated as a noneducative day care worker, while an
>> homeschoolers' time might be evaluated at that rate except when
>> actually teaching their child, in which case tutoring costs seem
>> applicable.
>Would you include opportunity cost for kids that were old enough
>to self-educate?
Are they adults? If not, then they should not be unsupervised for
indefinite periods of time.
> One of the aims of hsing is to get kids to the point
>where they don't need much supervision when it comes to their own
>education.
But a kid who is not in school still should have an adult around.
>> While the classical nuclear family can work with one working parent,
>> such families are a minority these days. As many as half of all kids
>> are living with a single parent, and here in the DC area for example
>> something like 75% of all dual parent families have both spouses
>> working. Dual workers support the conomy and pay higher taxes.
>They also raise prices for others.
But the opportunity cost is to the individual.
> I've seen lots of articles that
>question the marginal benefit of dual-income families in certain
>circumstances.
Benefit to whom. To the parent who is sitting at home?
Look, I know that some people consider it a high value to spend time
with their kids rather than work. I'm not hsing, but I am an at home
parent, and I have much more time to give my kids than my
professionally employed wife does (I'm here with the kids tonight
while she is enroute to Chicago on a business trip).
But I also know that I would be making over $80K if I had continued in
my previous field. I don't begrudge the lost income and lower
lifestyle for my kids, but I also realize that my time is worth money.
>> The same thing must apply when discussing the cost of public
>> education. If the kids were not in public schools then the parents of
>> those kids would be out of work managing their kids and/or hiring
>> child care or paying private tuitions. Each of these is a serious
>> drain on the family finances, probably greater than the cost of the
>> public schools, and in an economy geared around most adults working,
>> removing a large number of adults from the work force in order to
>> homeschool their children would have serious economic consequences for
>> the country at large.
>It would have consequences but it's hard to say what they would be.
Well on other threads, Alberto among others comments about the
shortage of highly skilled workers in the US. Take a few tens of
millions out of the work force and imagine the shortages.
Michael Moy
>
> Michael Moy <m_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> >Everything but misc.education chopped.
> >Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> >> An economic model must include the opportunity cost for all people
> >> involved or no comparisons can be made.
>
> >As in business and economics, opportunity cost is usually a crapshoot.
> >You pick a number and hope that it's right.
>
> The opportunity cost should be the mean salary for a person working
> full time given the parent's training and experience. If this is
> unknown, it should at least be the pay of full time daycare workers,
> since that is the minimum that a responsible parent is doing.
We're talking about macro numbers here. It may be easier to come up
with an opportunity cost for a single event but it's a lot harder for a
large heterogeneous group. You would also have to adjust for the
additional
expenses (money and time) that one incurs in keeping down a job.
> > The variables in hsing
> >families are so wide as to make it quite difficult to come up with
> >a useful number.
>
> >> The time you spend with your
> >> kids is time that could be spent earning money if you had no kids.
>
> >Or watching soap operas.
>
> It could be, but that again is your choice to lose an opportunity to
> make money.
But then it doesn't make sense to come up with a statistic for
opportunity.
One could always work three jobs. One could always talk about the
opportunity
cost of working 24 hours per day but it wouldn't be realistic to
consider this.
> >> At
> >> the very least a parent with no particular skills should have their
> >> time evaluated as a noneducative day care worker, while an
> >> homeschoolers' time might be evaluated at that rate except when
> >> actually teaching their child, in which case tutoring costs seem
> >> applicable.
>
> >Would you include opportunity cost for kids that were old enough
> >to self-educate?
>
> Are they adults? If not, then they should not be unsupervised for
> indefinite periods of time.
Why? Most states will not give you an age when you can leave children
alone but they talk vaguely about 11-13 as the starting point.
> > One of the aims of hsing is to get kids to the point
> >where they don't need much supervision when it comes to their own
> >education.
>
> But a kid who is not in school still should have an adult around.
Why? Have you read Dan Riley's book?
> >> While the classical nuclear family can work with one working parent,
> >> such families are a minority these days. As many as half of all kids
> >> are living with a single parent, and here in the DC area for example
> >> something like 75% of all dual parent families have both spouses
> >> working. Dual workers support the conomy and pay higher taxes.
>
> >They also raise prices for others.
>
> But the opportunity cost is to the individual.
The increase of prices decreases the opportunity costs by raising
the expenses of the opportunity costs.
> > I've seen lots of articles that
> >question the marginal benefit of dual-income families in certain
> >circumstances.
>
> Benefit to whom. To the parent who is sitting at home?
No.
> Look, I know that some people consider it a high value to spend time
> with their kids rather than work. I'm not hsing, but I am an at home
> parent, and I have much more time to give my kids than my
> professionally employed wife does (I'm here with the kids tonight
> while she is enroute to Chicago on a business trip).
>
> But I also know that I would be making over $80K if I had continued in
> my previous field. I don't begrudge the lost income and lower
> lifestyle for my kids, but I also realize that my time is worth money.
I think that people understand that their time is worth money. But it
may not be worth as much as it's made out to be. If you were making $6
per hour and you had to pay transportation and clothing expenses and you
lost out on some sleep, then you might have a net loss. I've seen many
articles about people in situations where there is little, if any,
marginal
benefit in working two jobs.
> >> The same thing must apply when discussing the cost of public
> >> education. If the kids were not in public schools then the parents of
> >> those kids would be out of work managing their kids and/or hiring
> >> child care or paying private tuitions. Each of these is a serious
> >> drain on the family finances, probably greater than the cost of the
> >> public schools, and in an economy geared around most adults working,
> >> removing a large number of adults from the work force in order to
> >> homeschool their children would have serious economic consequences for
> >> the country at large.
>
> >It would have consequences but it's hard to say what they would be.
>
> Well on other threads, Alberto among others comments about the
> shortage of highly skilled workers in the US. Take a few tens of
> millions out of the work force and imagine the shortages.
1) Where do you get a figure of tens of millions of highly skilled
workers?
2) I'm sure that there wouldn't be any problem finding people willing
to move to the US if these jobs materialized. What do you think
companies do now when they have a shortage?
afshort
Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> Who takes care of your child when you are at work. Public schools
> come with de facto child care which in turn has enabled mothers to
> enter the workplace that would not have otherwise been able to.
>
Hi my name is Andrew and I am new to the newsgroups, I hope you do not mind if I join
this thread.
In my area the notion of teachers as babysitters has gained a lot of ground. The
teachers went on strike and both the governement and the parents were putting
tremendous pressure on the teachers. The message the teachers were trying to send was
that they are professionals.
My point is that issues like the one you have written about can be very tricky in a
political way. I agree that if the teachers are at least taking care of the children,
then this is a positive. The problem is when teachers are viewed solely in this role.
As a teacher I feel that many roles need attention including the child care aspect.
Political issues can make an issue like this mistakenly definitive of a teacher's
role.
Beth Clarkson
> Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
> >You mentioned the cost of our time/labor, but I really don't know how to
> >calculate that. My husband and I both work, so the time spent homeschooling is
> >in addition to, rather than instead of, time spent earning money.
>
> Who takes care of your child when you are at work. Public schools
> come with de facto child care which in turn has enabled mothers to
> enter the workplace that would not have otherwise been able to.
> >The amount
> >of time we spend varies considerably day to day and week to week depending on our
> >schedules, but as a rough estimate, combined we total around 1 to 2 hours a day,
> >five days a week. We don't take summers off, other than family vacation time.
> >Some homeschoolers spend more time at it, some less.
>
> Someone is spending time with your daughter during the hours when she
> might have been at the public school (I hope). That someone is
> providing child care, even if no education is taking place.
My husband and I have arranged our work schedules so that one of us can be with our
child nearly all the time. When that isn't possible, we make other arrangements -
usually with a family member. I don't deny that schools provide de-facto child care,
but I don't equate child-care expenses to educational expenses.
I entered this conversation because someone stated "School is expensive. Education is
potentially cheap."
and someone else responded "Sure, if you want monkeys."
Child care is often expensive, and schools provide childcare. That's one reason for
schools to be expensive, but no support for the contention that if you don't provide
an expensive education, you'll only get monkeys. Homeschooling, which is often done
at a much lower cost than schooling, provides evidence that a good education need not
be expensive.
Child care costs are another matter, but many working parents homeschool and make
other arrangements for childcare. In addition, some people turn to homeschooling as
an alternative to the high price of private schools - particularly likely for families
with several children and one parent already staying at home. (After all, even
families that send their children to school sometimes have a non-working parent at
home.) Thus they incur no additional opportunity loss due to a parent not working
outside the home for income.
Education need not be expensive. As many on this newsgroup have pointed out before,
much of the money that goes towards public schools is eaten up by mandates and
requirements that are not directly associated with education. I agree with the
original poster in his contention that schools are expensive, although I differ in
that I see much of what is provided by schools as being valuable, even if it is not an
educational expense. But I don't think we should count those costs as being necessary
to education, but instead as being necessary to meet the expanded goals of our school
system in order to provide such things as child-care and meals for the children of
low-income families.
Beth Clarkson
C. Smith
(big snip because I'm developing a different point)
> Education need not be expensive. As many on this newsgroup have pointed
out before,
> much of the money that goes towards public schools is eaten up by mandates and
> requirements that are not directly associated with education.
A number may have "pointed this out," but none have yet to prove it. To
be clear here, I'm not contending that their are neither any mandates nor
any costs associated with them, I am merely questioning the assertion
above about "much of the money..."
In California, adminstrative expenses of all kinds and at all levels
(district, county and state) amount to only 6% of K-12 expenditures in the
state. Even if we assume that every dime of that expense is caused by
mandates and is never "directly associated with education," the much of
the money" assertion comes up way short.
Let us also recognize that some of those mandates come with the money to
pay for them (school lunches for low-income families).
Better yet, what of the mandate to educate special needs children? These
are far more expensive children to educate and while the state and federal
government may pick up most of the tab, the overall per pupil expense for
the local school district rises. So is public education more expensive
than it was 30 years ago? Absolutely. But where were those special needs
children 30 years ago?
C. Smith
janice
--
"If you think education is expensive,try ignorance"
--Derek Bok attributed
Craig wrote in message <794q4o$rpe$1...@remarQ.com>...
>
>>Were you wanting to discuss the article or did you want to simply
>>revert
>>as usual to a lot of outdated slogans. What is your problem, cant
>>you face the truth--that the great right wing economic dream is
>>nothing
>>more than a cheap scam?
>
>
>As opposed to the great left wing economic dream?? The dream that somebody
>else is suppose to pay for everything. Show me a country that has prospered
>with a large wealth redistribution sheme.
Oh dear.
janice
>
>
>
>
janice
>with a large wealth redistribution sheme.\
Owen McShane
>
> Craig wrote:
> Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands just to name a few.
> Of course you wouldn't know my good man since you seem to be stuck
> reading the NZBR and other propaganda pamphlets.
> Get yourself a ticket out of Aotearoa, learn some new languages and
> customs, explore the planet and then come back.
None of these countries has generated any net new jobs in the private
sector over the last decade.
Dos
Proof please.
Anyway, all of these counties have a better health and education system
than the US and NZ.
Wages and living standards are high and the workforce is well educated.
Bob LeChevalier
>Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>> The opportunity cost should be the mean salary for a person working
>> full time given the parent's training and experience. If this is
>> unknown, it should at least be the pay of full time daycare workers,
>> since that is the minimum that a responsible parent is doing.
>We're talking about macro numbers here. It may be easier to come up
>with an opportunity cost for a single event but it's a lot harder for a
>large heterogeneous group. You would also have to adjust for the
>additional expenses (money and time) that one incurs in keeping down a job.
Certainly.
>> > The variables in hsing
>> >families are so wide as to make it quite difficult to come up with
>> >a useful number.
>>
>> >> The time you spend with your
>> >> kids is time that could be spent earning money if you had no kids.
>>
>> >Or watching soap operas.
>>
>> It could be, but that again is your choice to lose an opportunity to
>> make money.
>But then it doesn't make sense to come up with a statistic for
>opportunity. One could always work three jobs. One could always talk about the
>opportunity cost of working 24 hours per day but it wouldn't be realistic to
>consider this.
The norm in our society is that adults work an 8 hour day job to
support themselves. Married couples have a chance to alter this norm,
and parents often have to alter it. I think it would be easiest to
start from such a norm, find the offset lost earnings, savings and
expenses of parenting with hsing and the offset for parenting w/o
hsing, both for single and for married parents.
>> >Would you include opportunity cost for kids that were old enough
>> >to self-educate?
>>
>> Are they adults? If not, then they should not be unsupervised for
>> indefinite periods of time.
>Why? Most states will not give you an age when you can leave children
>alone but they talk vaguely about 11-13 as the starting point.
That may be the age they can be left alone, but not for an indefinite
time. The responsibility remains with the adults until the child
comes of age.
>> But a kid who is not in school still should have an adult around.
>Why?
They are not and cannot be legally responsible for themselves. (I
knwo parents who successfully raised latchkey kids, but those parents
were regularly checking up on their kid and/or had a backup when they
couldn't)
>> Have you read Dan Riley's book?
No.
>> >> While the classical nuclear family can work with one working parent,
>> >> such families are a minority these days. As many as half of all kids
>> >> are living with a single parent, and here in the DC area for example
>> >> something like 75% of all dual parent families have both spouses
>> >> working. Dual workers support the conomy and pay higher taxes.
>>
>> >They also raise prices for others.
>>
>> But the opportunity cost is to the individual.
>The increase of prices decreases the opportunity costs by raising
>the expenses of the opportunity costs.
One person choosing to work or not has no significant effect on
prices. We can thus talk about the cost for an individual
homeschooler, in which such price changes are too insignificant to
bother with, or the cost to our entire society of having working
parents and public schooling vs. home schooling, in which case prices
can be significant, but you also need a complex predictive economic
model because there are too many unknown variables.
>> > I've seen lots of articles that
>> >question the marginal benefit of dual-income families in certain
>> >circumstances.
>>
>> Benefit to whom. To the parent who is sitting at home?
>No.
In general, when the question is ask about the cost of homeschooling,
it is asked in terms of the parents who must make the decisions.
>> Look, I know that some people consider it a high value to spend time
>> with their kids rather than work. I'm not hsing, but I am an at home
>> parent, and I have much more time to give my kids than my
>> professionally employed wife does (I'm here with the kids tonight
>> while she is enroute to Chicago on a business trip).
>>
>> But I also know that I would be making over $80K if I had continued in
>> my previous field. I don't begrudge the lost income and lower
>> lifestyle for my kids, but I also realize that my time is worth money.
>I think that people understand that their time is worth money. But it
>may not be worth as much as it's made out to be. If you were making $6
>per hour and you had to pay transportation and clothing expenses and you
>lost out on some sleep, then you might have a net loss. I've seen many
>articles about people in situations where there is little, if any,
>marginal benefit in working two jobs.
I happen to agree with you on this, but I didn't ask the question, and
people who ask the questiomn usually do not want these factors
included, or at least want them clearly quantified so that they can
count or discount them as they choose.
>> >> The same thing must apply when discussing the cost of public
>> >> education. If the kids were not in public schools then the parents of
>> >> those kids would be out of work managing their kids and/or hiring
>> >> child care or paying private tuitions. Each of these is a serious
>> >> drain on the family finances, probably greater than the cost of the
>> >> public schools, and in an economy geared around most adults working,
>> >> removing a large number of adults from the work force in order to
>> >> homeschool their children would have serious economic consequences for
>> >> the country at large.
>>
>> >It would have consequences but it's hard to say what they would be.
>>
>> Well on other threads, Alberto among others comments about the
>> shortage of highly skilled workers in the US. Take a few tens of
>> millions out of the work force and imagine the shortages.
>1) Where do you get a figure of tens of millions of highly skilled
> workers?
Misreading of what I wrote. We might have a shortage of 1 million
workers in the highly skilled category. But if all public school kids
were homeschooled, with a parent staying at home, that might withdraw
maybe 30-50 million parents from the workforce, some of which would be
among the highly skilled.
>2) I'm sure that there wouldn't be any problem finding people willing
> to move to the US if these jobs materialized. What do you think
> companies do now when they have a shortage?
Fine, but we already have people who are upset with our high
immigration rate and who condemn our education system for not
producing the high tech workers we need. We would produce fewer.
Beth Clarkson
> In article <36B785F1...@feist.com>, Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
>
> (big snip because I'm developing a different point)
>
> > Education need not be expensive. As many on this newsgroup have pointed out
> before,
> > much of the money that goes towards public schools is eaten up by mandates and
> > requirements that are not directly associated with education.
>
> A number may have "pointed this out," but none have yet to prove it. To
> be clear here, I'm not contending that their are neither any mandates nor
> any costs associated with them, I am merely questioning the assertion
> above about "much of the money..."
Whether you count as educational costs the fact that schools are providing
non-educational services or not, it doesn't change the fact that schools are
expensive and education need not be. Homeschoolers are able to provide a good
education at a much lower cost.
> Better yet, what of the mandate to educate special needs children? These
> are far more expensive children to educate and while the state and federal
> government may pick up most of the tab, the overall per pupil expense for
> the local school district rises.
Certainly, it costs more money to school special needs children. I'm not so certain
of how much more it costs to educate them. Obviously, different types of needs
would have different costs and the expenses involved in educating a physically
handicapped child would be different from the expenses involved in educating one who
is developmentally delayed or one who suffers from severe ADD.
My suspicion would be that home-schooling parents are able to provide an education
to special needs children at a much lower cost than public schools do, again
providing support to MK's contention that school is expensive, but education is
potentially cheap.
Further, I would suspect that for certain types of special needs such as
developmentally delayed, ADD, and ADHD, the cost of homeschooling them is very
comparable to the cost of homeschooling 'normal' children. I would suspect that
the main additional expense to the school is the fact that these children have to be
dealt with as individuals. When individualized education is the norm, as in
home-schooling, the additional cost for some special needs children may be minimal.
In another thread the benefits of standardized curriculum are being debated, so I
shan't belabor the point here, but one cost of such standardization is that
educating 'non-standard' or special needs children become more expensive.
I don't have any direct knowledge of the education costs of special needs children
though, so I'll cross-post this to home-schooling newsgroups in the hopes of getting
some anecdotal evidence on that point. I would appreciate it if those who respond
indicate what kind of special needs their child has.
1) - Are special needs children more expensive to home-educate than 'normal'
children?
2) - Is the cost of home-educating a special needs child greater than, less than, or
about the same as the amount allocated by the public school system to educate a
child with similar special needs?
Beth Clarkson
Michael Moy
>
> Michael Moy <m_...@juno.com> wrote:
> >> It could be, but that again is your choice to lose an opportunity to
> >> make money.
>
> >But then it doesn't make sense to come up with a statistic for
> >opportunity. One could always work three jobs. One could always talk about the
> >opportunity cost of working 24 hours per day but it wouldn't be realistic to
> >consider this.
>
> The norm in our society is that adults work an 8 hour day job to
> support themselves.
1) How many people here work 8-hour workdays? For the last ten years
I've heard of people working 50, 60, 70 and 80 hour workweeks. I
read about how much time teachers spend before and after school and
on weekends. My industry (software engineering) is certainly
well-known
for working long hours.
2) A lot of people could work fewer than 8 hours per day to support
themselves. A lot of people need to work more than 8 hours per
day to support themselves.
> Married couples have a chance to alter this norm,
> and parents often have to alter it. I think it would be easiest to
> start from such a norm, find the offset lost earnings, savings and
> expenses of parenting with hsing and the offset for parenting w/o
> hsing, both for single and for married parents.
You still have the problem with the huge variance.
> >> >Would you include opportunity cost for kids that were old enough
> >> >to self-educate?
> >>
> >> Are they adults? If not, then they should not be unsupervised for
> >> indefinite periods of time.
>
> >Why? Most states will not give you an age when you can leave children
> >alone but they talk vaguely about 11-13 as the starting point.
>
> That may be the age they can be left alone, but not for an indefinite
> time. The responsibility remains with the adults until the child
> comes of age.
There's no definition of _comes of age_. I certainly didn't have any
parents around as my mother worked two jobs to support our family.
We were left home alone much earlier than our teens.
> >> But a kid who is not in school still should have an adult around.
>
> >Why?
>
> They are not and cannot be legally responsible for themselves. (I
> knwo parents who successfully raised latchkey kids, but those parents
> were regularly checking up on their kid and/or had a backup when they
> couldn't)
Works for some and perhaps maybe not others. We all had jobs fairly
early and this took up some of the time. Perhaps kids were more
responsible
when I grew up.
> >> Have you read Dan Riley's book?
>
> No.
>
> >> >> While the classical nuclear family can work with one working parent,
> >> >> such families are a minority these days. As many as half of all kids
> >> >> are living with a single parent, and here in the DC area for example
> >> >> something like 75% of all dual parent families have both spouses
> >> >> working. Dual workers support the conomy and pay higher taxes.
> >>
> >> >They also raise prices for others.
> >>
> >> But the opportunity cost is to the individual.
>
> >The increase of prices decreases the opportunity costs by raising
> >the expenses of the opportunity costs.
>
> One person choosing to work or not has no significant effect on
> prices. We can thus talk about the cost for an individual
> homeschooler, in which such price changes are too insignificant to
> bother with, or the cost to our entire society of having working
> parents and public schooling vs. home schooling, in which case prices
> can be significant, but you also need a complex predictive economic
> model because there are too many unknown variables.
The aggregate of lots of additional workers provides a lot more money
into the economy which has the result of raising prices on certain goods
and reducing the production of lower-priced goods.
> >> > I've seen lots of articles that
> >> >question the marginal benefit of dual-income families in certain
> >> >circumstances.
> >>
> >> Benefit to whom. To the parent who is sitting at home?
>
> >No.
>
> In general, when the question is ask about the cost of homeschooling,
> it is asked in terms of the parents who must make the decisions.
In general, the context doesn't include labor cost. I've seen the
question
asked a lot more than you have unless you routinely deal with a lot of
home schoolers.
> >> Look, I know that some people consider it a high value to spend time
> >> with their kids rather than work. I'm not hsing, but I am an at home
> >> parent, and I have much more time to give my kids than my
> >> professionally employed wife does (I'm here with the kids tonight
> >> while she is enroute to Chicago on a business trip).
> >>
> >> But I also know that I would be making over $80K if I had continued in
> >> my previous field. I don't begrudge the lost income and lower
> >> lifestyle for my kids, but I also realize that my time is worth money.
>
> >I think that people understand that their time is worth money. But it
> >may not be worth as much as it's made out to be. If you were making $6
> >per hour and you had to pay transportation and clothing expenses and you
> >lost out on some sleep, then you might have a net loss. I've seen many
> >articles about people in situations where there is little, if any,
> >marginal benefit in working two jobs.
>
> I happen to agree with you on this, but I didn't ask the question, and
> people who ask the questiomn usually do not want these factors
> included,
It goes the other way for me.
> or at least want them clearly quantified so that they can
> count or discount them as they choose.
I don't think that it's useful to quantify this due to the large and
uneven variation. As has been pointed out, there are also expense
incurred
that are normal for people choosing other options.
> >> >> The same thing must apply when discussing the cost of public
> >> >> education. If the kids were not in public schools then the parents of
> >> >> those kids would be out of work managing their kids and/or hiring
> >> >> child care or paying private tuitions. Each of these is a serious
> >> >> drain on the family finances, probably greater than the cost of the
> >> >> public schools, and in an economy geared around most adults working,
> >> >> removing a large number of adults from the work force in order to
> >> >> homeschool their children would have serious economic consequences for
> >> >> the country at large.
> >>
> >> >It would have consequences but it's hard to say what they would be.
> >>
> >> Well on other threads, Alberto among others comments about the
> >> shortage of highly skilled workers in the US. Take a few tens of
> >> millions out of the work force and imagine the shortages.
>
> >1) Where do you get a figure of tens of millions of highly skilled
> > workers?
>
> Misreading of what I wrote. We might have a shortage of 1 million
> workers in the highly skilled category. But if all public school kids
> were homeschooled, with a parent staying at home, that might withdraw
> maybe 30-50 million parents from the workforce, some of which would be
> among the highly skilled.
Okay. That might be an improvement or it might not be. I don't think
that
we should consider this an automatic negative for the country.
> >2) I'm sure that there wouldn't be any problem finding people willing
> > to move to the US if these jobs materialized. What do you think
> > companies do now when they have a shortage?
>
> Fine, but we already have people who are upset with our high
> immigration rate and who condemn our education system for not
> producing the high tech workers we need. We would produce fewer.
- I think complaints with immigration needed to be analyzed with respect
to the contribution of the immigrant. I don't think that anyone minds
the immigrant that brings along a few million to start a compnay that
employs people already here.
- I don't think that people mind when we bring people with critical
skills.
- The problem is more with immigrants that are a net cost to society.
- Perhaps we could produce more high-tech workers if 1) there were more
home schooling, 2) one parent didn't have a job so that they could
spend
more time helping their kids in school or helping out in the physical
school or working with their kids so that they didn't become problems
in their schools.
Elaine Harvey
welcome the conversation. Perhaps you could join us here in
misc.education.home-school.christian to continue? More below...
Beth Clarkson wrote:
I have 2 boys homeschooling at the moment. A 14 year old with profound ADD, LD in writen
language arts, gifted in math and science, IEP maintained with the ps system, medicated
and doing better in homeschooling. A 9 year old with moderate ADD, on grade level
academically, medicated and doing very well at home.
The only added expense I see in my home from the 'average' homeschooler (whoever that
might be) is that I do maintain a greater variety of materials, workbooks, manipulatives
and museum memberships. I do this to provide as much variety as possible to keep such
busy, adaptable minds focused. Rather than just reading about a subject, we exhaust it.
Do I feel this is absolutely necessary to their homeschooling? No, I could do as well
with much less, but it does make life so much more fun and exciting and I think we do
learn more than we would with a minimum of materials. But ultimately I could have all
the materials in the world but if I don't invest MY TIME to use them, they might as well
be in public school.
> 2) - Is the cost of home-educating a special needs child greater than, less than, or
> about the same as the amount allocated by the public school system to educate a
> child with similar special needs?
When my boys were in public school, special ed classrooms, they had 1 regular teacher, 1
spec ed teacher and 1 teaching assistant. This was the ONLY difference between their
classroom and any other. In fact, the teachers tended to travel to other classrooms
rather than the students. The classrooms did not have even basic accomodation materials
such as computer, manipulatives, graphic materials, quiet places, tape recorders,
NOTHING! despite the extra money recieved for spec ed kids. This is ultimately the
reason why I brought my son home. I have all of these things and they have none. Do I
think that schools should recieve more money to provide these things? Not until I see
where the money goes now, NO. If I can provide these simple things on my measly income,
then where is the money going in public schools?
Elaine Harvey
>
>
> Beth Clarkson
tho...@my-dejanews.com
tho...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
<snip>
> Could you please tell me the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? How much do you
> spend on computers, materials, books, etc.? Please make sure that you include
> the cost of your time. I know that they are your children, but what is the
> cost of your labor (how much time do you spend, total, on homeschooling)? Do
> you consult with other adults? What is the cost of their time? I am curious
> as to just how much homeschooling actually costs.
>
> James Powell
1. Sorry for not getting back sooner, work is a pain this week!
2. I know it is bad form to reply to your own post, but I am not sure this
reply applies to any of the posted replies.
Let me clarify the reasons for making the above request.
1. There have been many posts concerning the cost of education.
2. There have been many posts stating that it is cheaper to homeschool.
3. Herman insists that individualized instruction is the only way for good
educational quality.
4. There is much debate over vouchers, tax credits, etc.
Being of a scientific mind, I wanted to collect data. Let's put some numbers
where we can. Hence: What is the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? We need to
quantify the labor costs as well as the materials. Otherwise, how do you know
how much voucher/tax credit you should receive? Is homeschooling really
cheaper than the present educational system? How much of that is perceived
savings from overlooking the hidden costs (like labor)? Is Herman's idea
economically easible at all?
Let's leave political rhetoric behind and try to understand and state the true
cost of education in America. Are we really paying too much, or are we not
paying enough? Once we have figures for homeschooling (data for public and
private school expenditures can be taken from public databases), we might be
able to see if costs can be cut.
Beth Clarkson
> I am cross posting (against my normal preference) because I like the topic and would
> welcome the conversation. Perhaps you could join us here in
> misc.education.home-school.christian to continue? More below...
>
Thanks for responding with your additional information. I've eliminated most of the groups
from this follow-up.
There's a bit of a debate going on in misc.education regarding the cost of education vs. the
cost of schooling. One poster even went so far as to respond "Only if you want monkeys" in
regard to the idea that education need not be expensive. As a homeschooler, I found the
comment offensive and expressed disagreement. Of course, the subject of 'special needs'
kids and their commensurate additional cost to the public education system comes up. Since
I have no actual experience with educating a special needs child, I don't really know the
facts though your post does support my suspicions.
Thanks for sharing some real world experiences regarding educating your kids.
Beth Clarkson
Beth Clarkson
otherwise you will receive very many responses regarding the subject and questions
you have. Hopefully, some of the home-schoolers there will be kind enough to
provide more information.
tho...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article <791rb8$sl6$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
> tho...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Could you please tell me the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? How much do you
> > spend on computers, materials, books, etc.? Please make sure that you include
> > the cost of your time. I know that they are your children, but what is the
> > cost of your labor (how much time do you spend, total, on homeschooling)? Do
> > you consult with other adults? What is the cost of their time? I am curious
> > as to just how much homeschooling actually costs.
> >
> > James Powell
>
> 1. Sorry for not getting back sooner, work is a pain this week!
>
> 2. I know it is bad form to reply to your own post, but I am not sure this
> reply applies to any of the posted replies.
>
> Let me clarify the reasons for making the above request.
>
> 1. There have been many posts concerning the cost of education.
>
> 2. There have been many posts stating that it is cheaper to homeschool.
>
> 3. Herman insists that individualized instruction is the only way for good
> educational quality.
>
> 4. There is much debate over vouchers, tax credits, etc.
>
> Being of a scientific mind, I wanted to collect data. Let's put some numbers
> where we can. Hence: What is the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? We need to
> quantify the labor costs as well as the materials.
I'm still not sure how you expect to go about doing this? As I stated earlier, how
do you quantify labor costs - or even time spent homeschooling? Do you view it as
the time spent actively working with the children? Per day, per week, per month?
Do you calculate it per child (and do you include children under school age who are
also being educated), per adult, or per family? Do you include the time spent
giving your children proper supervision during traditional school hours? Even if
you could compute an accurate average for the time spent home-schooling, it would
still have enormous variation, so I'm not sure how much help an average will be
without a corresponding understanding of the distribution of the time spent.
And how will you compute the cost of that time/labor? Do you price it at minimum
wage? Free? The going rate for a certified teacher? A teacher's aide? Is it
based on the parent's educational background and credentials? On what the parent
could be making if they were working instead? Or do you arbitrarily choose a value
that will be applied across the board.
> how much voucher/tax credit you should receive?
Believe it or not, not all homeschoolers are anxious to recieve vouchers or tax
credits for doing so. On the other hand, such a proposal could provide the
economic means for many who like to homeschool, but feel that they cannot afford to
do so in our current system.
> Is homeschooling really cheaper than the present educational system? How much of
> that is perceived
> savings from overlooking the hidden costs (like labor)? Is Herman's idea
> economically easible at all?
Is it truly a hidden cost to provide one's labor freely to one's children without
consideration of the economic payback? In addition, what about the hidden labor
cost of teachers who work many more hours than they are paid for to the benefit of
their students? Should we not also take that into consideration as well in
computing the cost of education? How could we measure that?
There are numerous additional costs in addition to labor that home-schoolers must
supply, and they do so without consideration of the cost as being part of the cost
of education.
Do you want to consider one-time expenditures such as furniture - desks, tables,
etc?
Do you want to include the cost of providing a space to study - a schoolroom so to
speak?
Do you want to include the costs of 'field trips' which can be anything from a day
at the park to a trip to the grocery store?
What about the costs of heating/air-conditioning the home-school? What about
maintence on the building we teach in? Facilities for preparing meals?
All of these things are costs that are born by schools, and must also be provided
by homeschoolers, but are not typically included in an estimate of a home-schoolers
costs. Nor should they be in my opinion. Most are expenses that would be incurred
by parents whether their children are home-schooled or not.
> Let's leave political rhetoric behind and try to understand and state the true
> cost of education in America. Are we really paying too much, or are we not
> paying enough? Once we have figures for homeschooling (data for public and
> private school expenditures can be taken from public databases), we might be
> able to see if costs can be cut.
I don't think the important question really revolves around are we paying too much
or too little, but rather are we providing a sufficiently high quality education
for the children in our society? And I don't think more money is the solution to
improving the quality of education.
There is an inverse relationship between cost and quality. If you concentrate on
cutting costs, quality will go down. On the other hand, if you concentrate on
improving quality, costs will go down. Homeschoolers concentrate on providing a
high-quality education; they end up with low costs.
Beth Clarkson
Neil Tupper
Beth Clarkson wrote in message
>
>There is an inverse relationship between cost and quality. If you
concentrate on
>cutting costs, quality will go down. On the other hand, if you concentrate
on
>improving quality, costs will go down. Homeschoolers concentrate on
providing a
>high-quality education; they end up with low costs.
>
This is a peculiar leap in logic. While I will concede that increased
expenditure on education will not necessarily improve the quality, to claim
an inverse relation is patently ludicrous. Following this logic, if no money
at all were spent on education, the highest possible quality would result. I
don't think so.
Neil
Owen McShane
>
> Owen McShane wrote:
> >
> > Dos wrote:
> > >
> > > Craig wrote:
> > None of these countries has generated any net new jobs in the private
> > sector over the last decade.
>
> Proof please.
To be more precise the EU as a whole has not generated any net jobs in
the last decade. This was reported in a recent Enconomist but is only an
update of the McKinsey report on Employment which I have in my
possession. This major report compares employment in the EU countries,
the US and Japan and analyses seven sectors within each to try to
understand why employment performance is so different in each country
and from sector to sector.
The US of course easily leads in job creation and incidentally while
most of the jobs are in the service sector these jobs have a wage/income
profile which is no different from manufacturing. The idea that service
jobs are McJobs of low income is a nonsense. But then any lawyer can
tell you that.
The main message is a simple one. The way to destroy employment within a
sector is for government to try to protect the jobs in that sector.
France is the classic. It loves retail and film and entertainment so
much that it actually destroyed jobs and reduced incomes in both those
sectors while the US economy created thousands of new jobs and increased
the wages in the same sectors.
The Germans had ground their construction sector to a halt and hence has
heaps of unskilled young males who are Nazi foddder.
And so it goes on.
Actually if the German education system is so good how come the German
economy is losing ground to America in all the high tech areas and even
to countries like Spain and Italy in machine tools.
I can assure you that Germany and France are not at all happy with the
education system and are concerned that so many are going to the US for
their ph ds and so one and are not coming back.
> Anyway, all of these counties have a better health and education system
> than the US and NZ.
> Wages and living standards are high and the workforce is well educated.
I never said we were as wealthy in income terms but we have decades of
mismanagement to blame for that and it will take a long time to catch up
and indeed the latest figures show that we are once again slipping
behind.
tho...@my-dejanews.com
That is one of the things that I would like to try and quantify. What value do
we put on the cost of labor? If we want to make homeschooling a viable option
to everybody, what would we need to do to support it?
> > how much voucher/tax credit you should receive?
>
> Believe it or not, not all homeschoolers are anxious to recieve vouchers or
tax
> credits for doing so. On the other hand, such a proposal could provide the
> economic means for many who like to homeschool, but feel that they cannot
afford to
> do so in our current system.
>
One of the running battles in the newsgroups revolves around the
voucher/credit issue. That is why I brought it up.
Which is one of the points that I am trying to make! To say it is less
expensive to homeschool than to use a public school ignores all of the
'hidden' costs on both sides. I am happy to only compare the costs of
homeschooling that are above and beyond what would be provided if the child
was in public school. For example, many schools have begun charging for
extracurricular activities (sports, band, etc.). Those costs would occur for
an interested child regardless of where they went to school. We can ignore
those expenses as a 'wash' between public and homeschool.
> > Let's leave political rhetoric behind and try to understand and state the
true
> > cost of education in America. Are we really paying too much, or are we not
> > paying enough? Once we have figures for homeschooling (data for public and
> > private school expenditures can be taken from public databases), we might be
> > able to see if costs can be cut.
>
> I don't think the important question really revolves around are we paying
too much
> or too little, but rather are we providing a sufficiently high quality
education
> for the children in our society? And I don't think more money is the
solution to
> improving the quality of education.
>
Agreed. But the arguments have centered on cost. As for more money, it depends
on how you define 'more.' In my opinion, we need a better control on how the
money is spent. The amount spent per student that is reported for most schools
ususally do not reflect the amount actually spent on the student (too much
overhead expense).
Example: When I taught in Los Angeles, I was told that the school wanted to
implement a hands-on, high quality program. When I asked about our
departmental budget, I discovered that it was barely adequate to supply the
consumables for a normal school year. There was no money for student
enrichment available. In fact, buying new textbooks had to be scheduled years
in advance due to the cost and the amount budgeted.
> There is an inverse relationship between cost and quality. If you
concentrate on
> cutting costs, quality will go down. On the other hand, if you concentrate on
> improving quality, costs will go down. Homeschoolers concentrate on
providing a
> high-quality education; they end up with low costs.
>
> Beth Clarkson
But the question remains, do you really end up with lower costs? Would it be
more beneficial to improve the existing schools and get more 'bang for the
buck' there (and improve everyone's education)?
I have no particular axe to grind. I just think that the question should be
explored from a broader perspective. We have all already invested heavily in
the development of the present system (capital investments, school buildings,
transportation, etc.). Is it not in our best interest to either improve that
system or dismantle it if we can prove there is a more cost-effective way?
Elaine Harvey
Beth Clarkson wrote:
> I am cross-posting this to the home-school newsgroups because I don't think that
> otherwise you will receive very many responses regarding the subject and questions
> you have. Hopefully, some of the home-schoolers there will be kind enough to
> provide more information.
As much as I hate cross-posting, this seems to be going OK, but if anyone gets bothered
by the cross posting PLEASE let me know and it stops right here! OK?
> tho...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
>
> I'm still not sure how you expect to go about doing this? As I stated earlier, how
> do you quantify labor costs - or even time spent homeschooling?
I won't even try. I can't imagine how one would do this. As my children's mother, I
can't quantify my time with them, and since homeschooling is a 24/7 proposition, I
can't even imagine trying. Besides, even when my kids were in public schools, I still
spent the rest of the time 'homeschooling' of a sort. I think you would have to settle
with eliminating labor costs from the equation and assuming that they were equal. This
is not truly the case, but what else can you do?
> > how much voucher/tax credit you should receive?
>
> Believe it or not, not all homeschoolers are anxious to recieve vouchers or tax
> credits for doing so. On the other hand, such a proposal could provide the
> economic means for many who like to homeschool, but feel that they cannot afford to
> do so in our current system.
IME ONLY! It's been my observation that the homeschoolers who are in it for more
religious or idealistic reasons abhore the idea of any intrusion into their
homeschooling environment by the government. If one recieves any money from the
government, one can expect some intrusion, be it additional testing, inspections,
reporting, required curriculum. Then again, those who homeschool for more secular
reasons tend to be a little more forgiving of gov't assistance. I think the choice
should still be offered to accept assistance and the increased interferance, or not to
accept. My personal opinion is that the religious exemption that we have here in VA is
a good answer, but it should not be so subject to denial by the school board.
>
> Do you want to consider one-time expenditures such as furniture - desks, tables,
> etc?
> Do you want to include the cost of providing a space to study - a schoolroom so to
> speak?
> Do you want to include the costs of 'field trips' which can be anything from a day
> at the park to a trip to the grocery store?
> What about the costs of heating/air-conditioning the home-school? What about
> maintence on the building we teach in? Facilities for preparing meals?
The vast majority of homeschoolers that I know don't spend any more on furniture,
school rooms, or utilities in order to school. Most work from the kitchen table (or
EVERYWHERE else in the house :-) and consider the cost of utilities and food as part
of parenting. When the kids were in public school I still heated the house and fixed
their breakfast and lunch. I happen to have a school room with some 'school' furniture.
I am blessed to be able to do that. But please don't make me add up those costs, denial
is much easier ;-).
> > Let's leave political rhetoric behind and try to understand and state the true
> > cost of education in America. Are we really paying too much, or are we not
> > paying enough? Once we have figures for homeschooling (data for public and
> > private school expenditures can be taken from public databases), we might be
> > able to see if costs can be cut.
>
> I don't think the important question really revolves around are we paying too much
> or too little, but rather are we providing a sufficiently high quality education
> for the children in our society? And I don't think more money is the solution to
> improving the quality of education.
I agree. You can keep throwing money at the schools and still see no improvement in the
quality of education. I see the changes needed from two parties; the teachers and the
parents. Teachers need to be commited to the success of every child in the room and
parents need to be commited to the success of every child in their homes. Sounds easy
eh? Not by a long shot! As long as parents thrive on an entitlement mentality and
consider the kids 'taken care of' by the government schools then they will 1. send kids
to school whom teachers can't reach with a 10 foot pole and 2. will raise adults who
will grow up into teachers who expect no better than what they themselves recieved.
>
> There is an inverse relationship between cost and quality. If you concentrate on
> cutting costs, quality will go down. On the other hand, if you concentrate on
> improving quality, costs will go down. Homeschoolers concentrate on providing a
> high-quality education; they end up with low costs.
I would say that my experience bears that out also.
Elaine
>
>
> Beth Clarkson
Michael Moy
> But the question remains, do you really end up with lower costs? Would it be
> more beneficial to improve the existing schools and get more 'bang for the
> buck' there (and improve everyone's education)?
It depends on your priorities. If you want to improve the aggregate
education
level for the least money, then a mass-production model may be more
efficient.
If you want something tailored to the child or something better than a
mass-production model, then you may spend more or less as the case may
be
to get something different.
Parents tend to want the best that they can provide for their kids in
the
universe of what they think is available.
You're dealing with differing priorities, values and market
understandings
of what's available. Along with different funding methods for different
choices.
> I have no particular axe to grind. I just think that the question should be
> explored from a broader perspective. We have all already invested heavily in
> the development of the present system (capital investments, school buildings,
> transportation, etc.). Is it not in our best interest to either improve that
> system or dismantle it if we can prove there is a more cost-effective way?
The current system isn't homogeneous nor are the alternatives.
gap...@my-dejanews.com
the "I-don't-like-extremes" attitude of undetermined ideals. Like in Germany,
a tyranny necessarily follows a liberal democracy such as our own. Plato said
it first. Otherwise, it is the end of history and we are the last men. I
would hate to see history end not with a bang but with a whimper. But have no
fear! If you educate yourself, you too can have a valid opinion. I don't mean
any O-ffense, but please stop riding THE fence.
GAP Man
Beth Clarkson
> Beth Clarkson wrote in message
> >
> >There is an inverse relationship between cost and quality. If you
> concentrate on
> >cutting costs, quality will go down. On the other hand, if you concentrate
> on
> >improving quality, costs will go down. Homeschoolers concentrate on
> providing a
> >high-quality education; they end up with low costs.
> >
>
> This is a peculiar leap in logic. While I will concede that increased
> expenditure on education will not necessarily improve the quality, to claim
> an inverse relation is patently ludicrous. Following this logic, if no money
> at all were spent on education, the highest possible quality would result. I
> don't think so.
No, that's not the logical conclusion, although the concept does seem
counter-intuitive to many people at first. It is, however, an accepted truism in
the Quality Improvement profession.
If you concentrate on improving quality, your costs will be lower as a result.
It doesn't imply that the costs will go to zero, just that high quality ends up
costing less than poor quality. Think of it this way: when you produce poor
quality, you end up having to spend a lot of money to correct the problem. It
costs more to fix something that wasn't done right in the first place than it
does to do the thing right to begin with.
Beth Clarkson
Pk2222
>the Quality Improvement profession.
For verification, read about the Six Sigma program or any of the writings of W.
Edwards Deming. You can peruse:
http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/pub/den/
for more inforamtion.
>If you concentrate on improving quality, your costs will be lower as a
>result.
>It doesn't imply that the costs will go to zero, just that high quality ends
>up
>costing less than poor quality.
This is absolutely correct.
pk
Neil Tupper
Beth Clarkson wrote in message <36B9CF2C...@feist.com>...
>
>
>If you concentrate on improving quality, your costs will be lower as a
result.
>It doesn't imply that the costs will go to zero, just that high quality
ends up
poor
>quality, you end up having to spend a lot of money to correct the problem.
It
>costs more to fix something that wasn't done right in the first place than
it
>does to do the thing right to begin with.
>
relation between cost and quality" means. I don't want to sound pedantic,
but claiming an inverse relation from the above paragraph does not follow.
Neil
Bob LeChevalier
>When my boys were in public school, special ed classrooms, they had 1 regular teacher, 1
>spec ed teacher and 1 teaching assistant. This was the ONLY difference between their
>classroom and any other. In fact, the teachers tended to travel to other classrooms
>rather than the students. The classrooms did not have even basic accomodation materials
>such as computer, manipulatives, graphic materials, quiet places, tape recorders,
>NOTHING! despite the extra money recieved for spec ed kids. This is ultimately the
>reason why I brought my son home. I have all of these things and they have none. Do I
>think that schools should recieve more money to provide these things? Not until I see
>where the money goes now, NO. If I can provide these simple things on my measly income,
>then where is the money going in public schools?
For those teachers and assistants and the support structure to back
them up.
Look at some rough numbers. If you figure that regular kids have one
teacher for 24 kids, special ed kids have one teacher and an assistant
for, say 8 kids to make the numbers even, then 24 special ed kids
require 6 times the personnel of 24 regular kids (although maybe only
5 times the cost since assistants are cheaper employees). Now given
that labor costs are 70% of school budgets, multiply that 70% times 5,
and you get the special ed kids costing 380% of the cost for regular
kids only.
Bob LeChevalier
has little to do with non-US politics.
Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
>"C. Smith" wrote:
>> > Education need not be expensive. As many on this newsgroup have pointed out
>> before,
>> > much of the money that goes towards public schools is eaten up by mandates and
>> > requirements that are not directly associated with education.
>>
>> A number may have "pointed this out," but none have yet to prove it. To
>> be clear here, I'm not contending that their are neither any mandates nor
>> any costs associated with them, I am merely questioning the assertion
>> above about "much of the money..."
>Whether you count as educational costs the fact that schools are providing
>non-educational services or not, it doesn't change the fact that schools are
>expensive and education need not be.
The question is as to what services are "educational", which is not
identical in meaning to "academic". To a kid in public schools,
physical education is considered by many to be part of "education"
whereas the closest hs school equivalent I presume would be membership
in a gym club, which costs would be part of the "cost of hsing"
whereas the same costs would be an extra non-education expense for a
public schooler. We have already discussed the accounting of music
lesson costs, which may or may not be "education expenses".
>Homeschoolers are able to provide a good
>education at a much lower cost.
We can agree that the out of pocket costs are lower, and maybe for
people who would not be working anyway, you can pretend to ignore
oppiortunity costs (but even though I was not working, I got a heck of
a lot more done in the years before we had kids than I do now).
>> Better yet, what of the mandate to educate special needs children? These
>> are far more expensive children to educate and while the state and federal
>> government may pick up most of the tab, the overall per pupil expense for
>> the local school district rises.
>Certainly, it costs more money to school special needs children. I'm not so certain
>of how much more it costs to educate them. Obviously, different types of needs
>would have different costs and the expenses involved in educating a physically
>handicapped child would be different from the expenses involved in educating one who
>is developmentally delayed or one who suffers from severe ADD.
>My suspicion would be that home-schooling parents are able to provide an education
>to special needs children at a much lower cost than public schools do, again
>providing support to MK's contention that school is expensive, but education is
>potentially cheap.
>Further, I would suspect that for certain types of special needs such as
>developmentally delayed, ADD, and ADHD, the cost of homeschooling them is very
>comparable to the cost of homeschooling 'normal' children. I would suspect that
>the main additional expense to the school is the fact that these children have to be
>dealt with as individuals. When individualized education is the norm, as in
>home-schooling, the additional cost for some special needs children may be minimal.
I think SOME may be able to educate their special needs children more
cheaply. But while I could probably do pretty good with my son who
fits in this category (ADHD and developmentally delayed) I am not sure
that I could do as good a job, and I am quite sure that I would go
stark raving mad, since my son is almost totally dependent on constant
attention from others when attempting to do work. If the public
schools have been unable to wean him if the need for massive
one-on-one time, I certainly would not be able to teaching him myself.
And this doesn't account for my daughter, who often needs hours of
attention on top of public schooling in order to keep up with the
educational pace.
From what I gather, homeschooling might work and be easier/cheaper if
you have the ability to teach your kids early on to work
independently, so that you can indeed keep the hschooling to a couple
hours a day. But I think few parents, even if they have the time,
have the parenting and the teaching skill. I don't - I would need 4
hours time with each kid and someone extra to keep tabs on the other
kid while I was helping one (or else the kid would end up parked in
front of the TV or on the phone).
>In another thread the benefits of standardized curriculum are being debated, so I
>shan't belabor the point here, but one cost of such standardization is that
>educating 'non-standard' or special needs children become more expensive.
I disagree. It would be easier because if the curriculum were
completely standardized then there would be less penalty if one gets
out-of-sync, changes schools, or is pulled out for extra work. You
always know what is being missed. An IEP could be a real PLAN and not
merely an adhoc coping method as too many seem to be, because even in
3rd grade, you could see where the child needs to get to by the
equivalent of 12th grade or age 18.
The cost of special needs kids is mostly the student teacher ratio, so
I agree that if parents have the knowledge and coping power to home
educate, then the 1 on 1 that theoretically can be provided is a real
benefit. There is nothing about nonstandardization that would make
this get more or less expensive. Standardization allows some measure
of accomodation in the classroom for some activities.
>1) - Are special needs children more expensive to home-educate than 'normal'
>children?
>2) - Is the cost of home-educating a special needs child greater than, less than, or
>about the same as the amount allocated by the public school system to educate a
>child with similar special needs?
Again, the true costs cannot be measured. If I were hschooling my
kids, I would properly have to add in the cost of therapy for myself
as an extra cost.
Becky Jaxon
>
> It's been my observation that the homeschoolers who are in it for more
> religious or idealistic reasons abhore the idea of any intrusion into their
> homeschooling environment by the government. If one recieves any money from the
> government, one can expect some intrusion, be it additional testing, inspections,
> reporting, required curriculum. Then again, those who homeschool for more secular
> reasons tend to be a little more forgiving of gov't assistance.
Please don't make such generalizations. I am part of a non-sectarian organization in a
state with almost no restrictions (IL). We are extremely happy with our independence and
are vehemently opposed to giving up any of it. To my mind, religion is not at all
relevant when evaluating the value of our freedom from governmental interference. In fact
many of us oppose vouchers for that exact reason. We do not wish to give the government a
reason to think they should regulate us.
Becky Jaxon
igon...@my-dejanews.com
Dos <dosm...@usa.net> wrote:
>
>
> Craig wrote:
> >
> > >Were you wanting to discuss the article or did you want to simply
> > >revert
> > >as usual to a lot of outdated slogans. What is your problem, cant
> > >you face the truth--that the great right wing economic dream is
> > >nothing
> > >more than a cheap scam?
> >
> > As opposed to the great left wing economic dream?? The dream that somebody
> > with a large wealth redistribution sheme.
>
> Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands just to name a few.
> Of course you wouldn't know my good man since you seem to be stuck
> reading the NZBR and other propaganda pamphlets.
> Get yourself a ticket out of Aotearoa, learn some new languages and
> customs, explore the planet and then come back.
>
vouchers, it may be appropriate to observe that Denmark and the Netherlands
support with tax dollars parents in their choice of school for their children.
Most countries with high-performance school systems subsidize a market in
education.
>
Take care. Homeschool if you can.
Owen McShane
> MK. Since the inspiration for this discussion was the Friedman article on
> vouchers, it may be appropriate to observe that Denmark and the Netherlands
> support with tax dollars parents in their choice of school for their children.
> Most countries with high-performance school systems subsidize a market in
> education.
> >
> Take care. Homeschool if you can.
> >
Seden has a voucher system too.
It gave a huge boost to rural schools which had been closing. And
benefited the poor who exercise choice more.
Scott Higham
Owen McShane wrote:
> Seden has a voucher system too.
> It gave a huge boost to rural schools which had been closing. And
> benefited the poor who exercise choice more.
Gosh, this 'Seden' place sounds great. I think I'll migrate.
Scott.
Dos
Owen McShane wrote:
>
> Dos wrote:
> >
> > Owen McShane wrote:
> > >
> > > Dos wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Craig wrote:
>
> > > None of these countries has generated any net new jobs in the private
> > > sector over the last decade.
> >
> > Proof please.
>
> To be more precise the EU as a whole has not generated any net jobs in
> the last decade. This was reported in a recent Enconomist but is only an
> update of the McKinsey report on Employment which I have in my
> possession. This major report compares employment in the EU countries,
> the US and Japan and analyses seven sectors within each to try to
> understand why employment performance is so different in each country
> and from sector to sector.
I'd like to read that McKinsey report. ISBN ? What issue of the
Enconomist ?
> The US of course easily leads in job creation and incidentally while
> most of the jobs are in the service sector these jobs have a wage/income
> profile which is no different from manufacturing.
So the wages in manufacturing have decreased?
> The idea that service
> jobs are McJobs of low income is a nonsense. But then any lawyer can
> tell you that.
Or any heart surgeon.
> The main message is a simple one. The way to destroy employment within a
> sector is for government to try to protect the jobs in that sector.
> France is the classic. It loves retail and film and entertainment so
> much that it actually destroyed jobs and reduced incomes in both those
> sectors while the US economy created thousands of new jobs and increased
> the wages in the same sectors.
I don't think that wages in the retail sector of the US have increased.
> The Germans had ground their construction sector to a halt and hence has
> heaps of unskilled young males who are Nazi foddder.
Relax, this is not 1933.....
The Germans voted centre-left last year.
1.221 million employed in the construction industry 1997.
A real problem in the sector is the increased influx of cheap labour
from eastern Europe.
Russian construction workers in Berlin for instance work for 3 dollars
an hour on contracts that
don't require them to pay into the health and unemployment insurance
scheme.
> And so it goes on.
>
> Actually if the German education system is so good how come the German
> economy is losing ground to America in all the high tech areas and even
> to countries like Spain and Italy in machine tools.
Still a very significant exporting nation.
Export surplus 1997 was DM 130,9 billion. Up by DM 28,0 billion from
1996.
Total export volume was DM 886,8 billion. DM 147,3 billion in machines
alone.
The key for Germany's performance is efficiency, requiring a well
educated workforce......
I don't know about Spain, but Italy has been manufacturing excellent
machine tools for a long time.
> I can assure you that Germany and France are not at all happy with the
> education system and are concerned that so many are going to the US for
> their ph ds and so one and are not coming back.
If one can afford it, going to the US is an option since it's much
easier to obtain a degree
and takes less time.
> > Anyway, all of these counties have a better health and education system
> > than the US and NZ.
> > Wages and living standards are high and the workforce is well educated.
> I never said we were as wealthy in income terms but we have decades of
> mismanagement to blame for that and it will take a long time to catch up
> and indeed the latest figures show that we are once again slipping
> behind.
Funny, isn't it.
NZ did all the "right" things as described in the neoliberal book and
didn't get ahead at all.
Beth Clarkson
> In article <36B8D4F6...@feist.com>,
> Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
> > > > Could you please tell me the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? How much do you
> > > > spend on computers, materials, books, etc.? Please make sure that you
> include
> > > > the cost of your time. I know that they are your children, but what is the
> > > > cost of your labor (how much time do you spend, total, on homeschooling)? Do
>
> > > > you consult with other adults? What is the cost of their time? I am curious
> > > > as to just how much homeschooling actually costs.
> > > >
> > > Being of a scientific mind, I wanted to collect data. Let's put some numbers
> > > where we can. Hence: What is the ACTUAL cost of homeschooling? We need to
> > > quantify the labor costs as well as the materials.
> >
> That is one of the things that I would like to try and quantify. What value do
> we put on the cost of labor?
Before you can quantify it, you have to decide how you will measure it. There are a
lot of different ways to do this, but you have to decide what approach will best fit
your goals.
For example, if you want to quantify the cost of transportation, you have to decide
on a lot of variables involved and which ones you wish to collect data on. Some
costs are per mile, some are per vehicle, some are per destination. In addition,
you have to determine whether you want to collect data on cost of transporting goods
or people. If you are interested in transporting people, you need to decide
whether the costs will be collected per passenger or per trip. i.e – the cost of
transporting 4 people is different if they all go in the same car vs they all take
separate vehicles. Which way of looking at the data makes sense for your purpose?
If you are interested in transporting goods, other factors have to be considered.
Are you looking at those goods by pound or by volume. You need to consider whether
the goods require environmental controls or special handling, etc. What seems a
straightforward question – ‘What is the cost?’ involves a great deal of up front
planning and effort to get the data necessary for an accurate assessment.
With homeschooling, you have put forth a relatively vague question in on open forum
– which is okay for the early stages of research. You can collect anecdotal
evidence regarding how much time parents devote to homeschooling their kids and what
sort of impact it has. This can be very helpful in making decisions about the sorts
of things I’ve mentioned before. But you can’t collect the kind of rigorous data
needed to base policy or decisions upon.
> If we want to make homeschooling a viable option
> to everybody, what would we need to do to support it?
Ah! This is a different question. Cost is not the only factor in making that
choice. To answer this question, you need to know why people homeschool, and why
people who would like to do so, do not. In some cases, economics may be the reason,
but it would be a serious mistake to assume that is always the case. I would
suggest asking this question directly in a forum such as
misc.kids to get answers from parents who have considered homeschooling, but decided
against it. People who have made the decision to homeschool are unlikely to
provide good data about why others chose differently.
> To say it is less
> expensive to homeschool than to use a public school ignores all of the
> 'hidden' costs on both sides. I am happy to only compare the costs of
> homeschooling that are above and beyond what would be provided if the child
> was in public school. For example, many schools have begun charging for
> extracurricular activities (sports, band, etc.). Those costs would occur for
> an interested child regardless of where they went to school. We can ignore
> those expenses as a 'wash' between public and homeschool.
Then why the emphasis on labor costs? Involved parents provide
help/assistance/tutoring to their child in public schools as well. There are some
parents who spend more time helping their kids with their school work that other
parents do homeschooling their child.
In addition, parents with children in school often spend time doing volunteer work
at the school, attending PTA meetings, etc. None of these labor costs are
considered to be part of the cost of education, but simply part of being a good
parent. I don’t see, and other homeschooling parents agree (Thanks for the great
posts Elaine and Kangamaroo!), how to separate out the labor of parenting from the
labor of education. I don’t think it’s necessary to evaluate the cost of
homeschooling
either.
I tend to consider the labor costs as a ‘wash’ for parents who are deeply involved
in their children’s education. The difference is that a homeschooler can’t be
uninvolved, while a parent who sends their child to school can.
> > I don't think the important question really revolves around are we paying too
> much
> > or too little, but rather are we providing a sufficiently high quality education
>
> > for the children in our society? And I don't think more money is the solution
> to
> > improving the quality of education.
>
> Agreed. But the arguments have centered on cost.
Yes. I see that as a poor approach. I think your statement - If we want to make
homeschooling a viable option to everybody, what would we need to do to support it?
Is a much better way to state the problem, and it allows for a larger variety of
possible solutions.
If we approach vouchers or tax credits as a way to reduce costs, I fear we will end
up with many of the problems that the opponents of such ideas discuss. On the other
hand, if we approach the idea of vouchers or tax credits as a way to improve the
quality of education for children in our society, I think they hold great promise.
Homeschoolers are generally involved parents who work very hard to provide a good
education for their children. This is what we want to facilitate. If we simply
were to institute a plan to pay parents to educate their children, I don’t think
that this would be the behavior we would end up encouraging.
If we want to make homeschooling a viable option to everybody, what are the reasons
that some people decide against it. Is cost the determining factor? Is it the
child care issue? Is it some other reason?
I know some people who don’t homeschool because they don’t feel qualified. Perhaps
support and assistance from the public school system in developing curriculum, study
guides, etc. would be an effective way to make homeschooling a viable option for
more parents. At any rate, the question of why people do or do not homeschool is a
very different one from the question of how much does it really cost. It’s also a
far more important question to answer prior to making any major changes in policy.
> But the question remains, do you really end up with lower costs? Would it be
> more beneficial to improve the existing schools and get more 'bang for the
> buck' there (and improve everyone's education)?
As I stated above, I think that if we approach education from the mindset of
reducing costs, we are moving toward lower and lower quality of education for our
children. If we concentrate on improving the quality – and the single factor that
reliably makes the most difference in the quality of a child’s education is their
parent’s involvement in that education – then we will end up with lower costs. How
much lower, I can’t say. How much does NOT educating our children well cost us as a
society?
The path to educational improvement clearly lies with increasing the involvement of
parents in their children’s education. What can our society do to facilitate more
parental involvement? Figuring out how to make homeschooling a viable option for
anyone who chooses is a step in the right direction, but is the cost what prevents
parents from doing so?
What other changes might we make to our school system to facilite more parental
involvement in their children's education? Apathy and uninvolvement often result
when people feel that they have little or no control. I think that increasing
choices and parental control of education will result in more parental involvement
and hence a higher quality of education for our children - whether they choose to
homeschool or not.
Beth Clarkson
Beth Clarkson
Neil Tupper wrote:
Your correct. It is not an 'inverse relationship' in a strict linear sense. I
apologize for not being clearer in my first post.
Aaron Kuperman
incurred by at least one parent. Most home schooling parents are fairly
well educated and fairly creative, and would probably be earning at least
$50000 or more. Even if they live in a big city with many opportunities to
spend money on special resources, the labor cost is the big item. Assuming
four children, that means a budget of probably $13,000 per child, which is
more than even the most affluent school districts, equal to elite prive
schools, and several times what poorer public schools spend per child.
[posted from home, not on company time]
Michael Oberle
Aaron Kuperman wrote in message <79j57k$7a9a$2...@rs7.loc.gov>...
No body here takes that into consideration except to make lifestyle changes
to permit Hsing. Hsing is still a far more economical way to educate our
children than either Gs or private schools. Also when you consider all of
the expenses that are associated with two incomes. It becomes a downright
bargain.
>
>[posted from home, not on company time]
I own the company. :-)
Thanks
Michael Oberle
NT...@ix.netcom.com
Minnesota The state where absolutely nothing is allowed
Jeff & Traci De
Man, I wanna know who you think would hire me at $50 thou...
Before I had my baby I was teaching Pre-school. I didn't make 20 thousand a
year. I'm not all that sure I made 15 thousand a year. Okay, I just checked on
it. I was the Head Teacher and assistant director of a pre-school and daycare
center. As such, I was one of the highest paid pre-school teachers in the area,
which averages minimum wage. Assuming a 40 hour work week, which was usual, I
grossed just over 13 thousand dollars. Lovely pay for all my education, don't
you think? LOL
Traci
--
From who I was to who I'll be
His love and grace has delivered me
C. Smith
> "C. Smith" wrote:
>
> > In article <36B785F1...@feist.com>, Beth Clarkson
<be...@feist.com> wrote:
> >
> > (big snip because I'm developing a different point)
> >
> > > Education need not be expensive. As many on this newsgroup have
pointed out
> > before,
> > > much of the money that goes towards public schools is eaten up by
mandates and
> > > requirements that are not directly associated with education.
> >
> > A number may have "pointed this out," but none have yet to prove it. To
> > be clear here, I'm not contending that their are neither any mandates nor
> > any costs associated with them, I am merely questioning the assertion
> > above about "much of the money..."
>
> Whether you count as educational costs the fact that schools are providing
> non-educational services or not, it doesn't change the fact that schools are
> expensive and education need not be.
This is not a fact, but an opinion. Merely stating that schools are
expensive without qualify it, much less quantify it, does not produce a
factual statement. Given that widespread education (mind you, I said
education, not schooling) did not occure until the rise of the industrial
revolution, it is pretty much a historical fact that education has been
expensive for most of human history.
> Homeschoolers are able to provide a good education at a much lower cost.
Pretty much the point of this thread was to debate whether in fact this is
true. Yet, you take it as a given.
Folks here have been having an earnest give and take about opportunity
cost and the like. I think we've got a long way to go before your claim
becomes fact.
> > Better yet, what of the mandate to educate special needs children? These
> > are far more expensive children to educate and while the state and federal
> > government may pick up most of the tab, the overall per pupil expense for
> > the local school district rises.
>
> Certainly, it costs more money to school special needs children. I'm
not so certain
> of how much more it costs to educate them. Obviously, different types
of needs
> would have different costs and the expenses involved in educating a physically
> handicapped child would be different from the expenses involved in
educating one who
> is developmentally delayed or one who suffers from severe ADD.
>
> My suspicion would be that home-schooling parents are able to provide an
education
> to special needs children at a much lower cost than public schools do, again
> providing support to MK's contention that school is expensive, but
education is
> potentially cheap.
Alas, your suspicion is not a sufficent basis for determining public
policy. So far all you have is a slogan ("school is expensive, but
education is potentially cheap") and nothing more.
Let's look at it another way. While most children have been attending
public schools for about 150 years, most disabled/special education
children have been attending public schools for only 20-30 years. Once
federal and state laws opened up public schools to these children in the
70's, why did most parents elect to send their children to public schools
and no longer keep them at home? Opportunity cost, perceived better
education, whatever the reasons, these parents voted with their feet, if
you will.
> Further, I would suspect that for certain types of special needs such as
> developmentally delayed, ADD, and ADHD, the cost of homeschooling them is very
> comparable to the cost of homeschooling 'normal' children. I would
suspect that
> the main additional expense to the school is the fact that these
children have to be
> dealt with as individuals. When individualized education is the norm, as in
> home-schooling, the additional cost for some special needs children may
be minimal.
I think you've missed the target by a wide margin. Whether in a school or
at home, an ADD or ADHD child is going to require more time and energy
than an average child. The average child can have much longer period of
self directed study/activity than the ADD/ADHD child. While the average
child can have half an hour or even an hour of self directed reading, the
ADD child is going to require constant attention. While both are
receiving "individualized education," in their home schooling, the
similarity ends there.
The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
experience or money required.
> In another thread the benefits of standardized curriculum are being
debated, so I
> shan't belabor the point here, but one cost of such standardization is that
> educating 'non-standard' or special needs children become more expensive.
>
> I don't have any direct knowledge of the education costs of special
needs children
> though, so I'll cross-post this to home-schooling newsgroups in the
hopes of getting
> some anecdotal evidence on that point. I would appreciate it if those
who respond
> indicate what kind of special needs their child has.
>
> 1) - Are special needs children more expensive to home-educate than 'normal'
> children?
See above.
> 2) - Is the cost of home-educating a special needs child greater than,
less than, or
> about the same as the amount allocated by the public school system to
educate a
> child with similar special needs?
Good, this at least quatifies part of the question and gets us away from
what we may or may not suspect is the case.
C. Smith
> Beth Clarkson
Michael Moy
> > My suspicion would be that home-schooling parents are able to provide an
> education
> > to special needs children at a much lower cost than public schools do, again
> > providing support to MK's contention that school is expensive, but
> education is
> > potentially cheap.
>
> Alas, your suspicion is not a sufficent basis for determining public
> policy. So far all you have is a slogan ("school is expensive, but
> education is potentially cheap") and nothing more.
>
> Let's look at it another way. While most children have been attending
> public schools for about 150 years, most disabled/special education
> children have been attending public schools for only 20-30 years. Once
> federal and state laws opened up public schools to these children in the
> 70's, why did most parents elect to send their children to public schools
> and no longer keep them at home? Opportunity cost, perceived better
> education, whatever the reasons, these parents voted with their feet, if
> you will.
Do a DejaNews lookup on home schooling and childhood disabilities and
you'll see a lot of matches. Home schooling is certainly discussed a
lot in the disabilities forums. I know that there are lots of home
schoolers with kids with disabilities from the hsing forums that I'm
on. The usual trigger, though, is that the school system isn't providing
something for their kids.
> > Further, I would suspect that for certain types of special needs such as
> > developmentally delayed, ADD, and ADHD, the cost of homeschooling them is very
> > comparable to the cost of homeschooling 'normal' children. I would
> suspect that
> > the main additional expense to the school is the fact that these
> children have to be
> > dealt with as individuals. When individualized education is the norm, as in
> > home-schooling, the additional cost for some special needs children may
> be minimal.
>
> I think you've missed the target by a wide margin. Whether in a school or
> at home, an ADD or ADHD child is going to require more time and energy
> than an average child. The average child can have much longer period of
> self directed study/activity than the ADD/ADHD child. While the average
> child can have half an hour or even an hour of self directed reading, the
> ADD child is going to require constant attention. While both are
> receiving "individualized education," in their home schooling, the
> similarity ends there.
The ADD child doesn't require constant attention. Neither does the ADHD
child. When you find something that the ADD/ADHD child is intensely
interested
in, you'll find it hard to tear them away from it. You just have to do a
good
selling job as to making things interesting. It also helps to have an
environment
where the child can work without distractions.
> The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
> effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
> parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
> experience or money required.
This depends on the disability. But electronic forums are providing a
lot of
ways for parents and specialists to collaborate on finding ways to solve
problems.
Elaine Harvey
Becky Jaxon wrote:
> Elaine Harvey wrote:
> >
> > It's been my observation that the homeschoolers who are in it for more
> > religious or idealistic reasons abhore the idea of any intrusion into their
> > homeschooling environment by the government. If one recieves any money from the
> > government, one can expect some intrusion, be it additional testing, inspections,
> > reporting, required curriculum. Then again, those who homeschool for more secular
> > reasons tend to be a little more forgiving of gov't assistance.
>
> Please don't make such generalizations. I am part of a non-sectarian organization in a
> state with almost no restrictions (IL). We are extremely happy with our independence and
> are vehemently opposed to giving up any of it. To my mind, religion is not at all
> relevant when evaluating the value of our freedom from governmental interference. In fact
> many of us oppose vouchers for that exact reason. We do not wish to give the government a
> reason to think they should regulate us.
I'm sorry if that came across as a sweeping generalization Becky. I truly didn't mean it that
way. It's just the way I've seen the groups in this area respond. I am also a 'secular'
homeschooler and oppose ANY govt interferance. Another reason I tend to hang out with the
Christian hs'rs rather than secular.
For further info, I would suggest consulting HSLDA. What I found in talking with them is that
1. they will not accept anyone who accepts money or assistance from the ps system AT ALL for
any reason including SSI benefits for a disabled child, and 2. it's mostly religious hs'rs who
rely on them the most. That is not to say that secular hs'rs are not there, but it's a
Christian based legal association folks, that's very clear. OK, but clear.
Elaine
>
>
> Becky Jaxon
Beth Clarkson
> The largest cost of home schooling is the opportunity cost (lost income)
> incurred by at least one parent. Most home schooling parents are fairly
> well educated and fairly creative, and would probably be earning at least
> $50000 or more. Even if they live in a big city with many opportunities to
> spend money on special resources, the labor cost is the big item.
You are making a lot of assumptions here that do not correlate well with
reality. Yes, some homeschoolers give up a second income in order to do so,
but I am not convinced that it is a majority, or even a plurality. Many who
homeschool also work to generate income, whether in single parent families or
dual-income families. Further, many family who send their children to school
have one parent who does not work. I haven't seen any statistics on the
difference in % of two-income vs. one-income families between the two groups.
Further, I think that presuming that most homeschoolers would be earning at
least $50,000 or more if they choose to work instead of homeschooling (which
presumes that they aren't already working) is ludicrous. What data do you
have to support such a contention?
Glen Appleby
Kuperman) wrote:
>The largest cost of home schooling is the opportunity cost (lost income)
>incurred by at least one parent. Most home schooling parents are fairly
>well educated and fairly creative, and would probably be earning at least
>$50000 or more. Even if they live in a big city with many opportunities to
>spend money on special resources, the labor cost is the big item. Assuming
>four children, that means a budget of probably $13,000 per child, which is
>more than even the most affluent school districts, equal to elite prive
>schools, and several times what poorer public schools spend per child.
From where do you draw this information?
See, I know hundreds of homeschoolers. Now there *are* some who
make good money. The majority, though, seem to be just middle
class folks (I'm guessing in the range of $20k - $30k per year
for the combined household income) and there is one heck of a lot
of them who are at the poverty line who are doing an amazing job.
Now, if what you are attempting to do is to associate a cost with
a parent trying to do the best that they can for their children,
in order to say that costs more than a publik skool education,
then you might be missing something *pretty* important.
--
Do not underestimate your abilities. That is your boss's job.
It is your job to find ways around your boss's roadblocks.
______________________________________________________________
Glen Appleby gl...@got.net <http://www.armory.com/~glena/>
Glen Appleby
On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 01:54:24 -0800, in
misc.education,cla...@nospamccnet.com (C. Smith) wrote:
>Let's look at it another way. While most children have been attending
>public schools for about 150 years, most disabled/special education
>children have been attending public schools for only 20-30 years. Once
>federal and state laws opened up public schools to these children in the
>70's, why did most parents elect to send their children to public schools
>and no longer keep them at home? Opportunity cost, perceived better
>education, whatever the reasons, these parents voted with their feet, if
>you will.
<snip>
>I think you've missed the target by a wide margin. Whether in a school or
>at home, an ADD or ADHD child is going to require more time and energy
>than an average child. The average child can have much longer period of
>self directed study/activity than the ADD/ADHD child. While the average
>child can have half an hour or even an hour of self directed reading, the
>ADD child is going to require constant attention. While both are
>receiving "individualized education," in their home schooling, the
>similarity ends there.
>
>The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
>effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
>parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
>experience or money required.
Is the "ADD/ADHD" your "special needs" argument?
Oh, *please*! Many of the kids that I know that are homeschooled
were classified by the skools as "ADD/ADHD" and the skools'
solution was to drug them into mediocracy so that they would "fit
in". The homeschooling parent pulled them out of skool and began
unschooling. After between a few months and a year, these kids
took off like rockets!
The problem was that they were *bored* by skool. They wanted to
do everything at once and the skool system was holding them back
from doing that.
Once they were put in charge of their own learning, they were
able to organize their lives so that they *could* learn all of
the tings that they wanted to learn. Heck, there is one of these
kids that, every time that I am around him, he both fires me up
and exhausts me with all that he has learned and all that he
wants to learn.
Beth Clarkson
> In article <36B85989...@feist.com>, Beth Clarkson <be...@feist.com> wrote:
>
> > "C. Smith" wrote:
>
> > Whether you count as educational costs the fact that schools are providing
> > non-educational services or not, it doesn't change the fact that schools are
> > expensive and education need not be.
>
> This is not a fact, but an opinion. Merely stating that schools are
> expensive without qualify it, much less quantify it, does not produce a
> factual statement.
It only takes one counter-example to disprove the conjecture that education must be
expensive. Many homeschoolers have provided a good education for their
child/children at a very low cost. Thus the 'fact' that education need not be
expensive.
> Given that widespread education (mind you, I said
> education, not schooling) did not occure until the rise of the industrial
> revolution, it is pretty much a historical fact that education has been
> expensive for most of human history.
Widespread education did not occur until the rise of the industrial revolution? I
find that difficult to believe. Do you not consider, for example, apprenticeship in
a trade to be education? While there was perhaps, not widespread literacy, college
educations, etc. I don't agree that education did not occur. It was simply a
different form of education, suited for the society of that time. I agree that it
wouldn't meet the definition of education in our current society, but then I
wouldn't claim to be well-educated in theirs despite my college degrees.
> > Homeschoolers are able to provide a good education at a much lower cost.
>
> Pretty much the point of this thread was to debate whether in fact this is
> true. Yet, you take it as a given.
Yes. I take it as given. The only real argument I seen against it is the so-called
'opportunity cost' which has not been established in any way. Given that many
homeschool without any loss of income whether because both parents continue to work,
because it is a single working parent who homeschools, or because there would be a
non-working parent at home full-time anyway, I don't think that you can claim
'opportunity cost' as a major factor in the cost of providing an education by
homeschooling.
Beth Clarkson
Beth Clarkson
Beth Clarkson
Cotter1225 wrote:
> > If we want to make homeschooling a viable option
> > to everybody, what would we need to do to support it?
>
> Build a strong, clear foundation in law. Right now the laws
> vary tremendously from state to state and are often poorly
> known. Laws in some states are quite restrictive. One problem
> with this goal is that many homeschoolers don't want
> to rock the boat for fear than any new law will be worse than
> the one they've got. The easiest way to solve all these problems
> would be to eliminate compulsory education. Then there would
> be no need to put exceptions into the education law to make
> homeschooling legal.
>
> Cindy Cotter
tho...@my-dejanews.com
gl...@got.net (Glen Appleby) wrote:
> On 7 Feb 1999 04:36:04 GMT, in misc.education,ak...@loc.gov (Aaron
> Kuperman) wrote:
>
> >The largest cost of home schooling is the opportunity cost (lost income)
> >incurred by at least one parent. Most home schooling parents are fairly
> >well educated and fairly creative, and would probably be earning at least
> >$50000 or more. Even if they live in a big city with many opportunities to
> >spend money on special resources, the labor cost is the big item. Assuming
> >four children, that means a budget of probably $13,000 per child, which is
> >more than even the most affluent school districts, equal to elite prive
> >schools, and several times what poorer public schools spend per child.
>
> From where do you draw this information?
>
> See, I know hundreds of homeschoolers. Now there *are* some who
> make good money. The majority, though, seem to be just middle
> class folks (I'm guessing in the range of $20k - $30k per year
> for the combined household income) and there is one heck of a lot
> of them who are at the poverty line who are doing an amazing job.
>
> Now, if what you are attempting to do is to associate a cost with
> a parent trying to do the best that they can for their children,
> in order to say that costs more than a publik skool education,
> then you might be missing something *pretty* important.
>
> Do not underestimate your abilities. That is your boss's job.
> It is your job to find ways around your boss's roadblocks.
> ______________________________________________________________
> Glen Appleby gl...@got.net <http://www.armory.com/~glena/>
>
Actually, I am not sure if this should be looked at from a 'lost opportunity'
point of view. The point that I have been driving at is that when
homeschoolers state that 'homeschooling is less expensive than public
schools', they are not taking into account those hidden costs that are part
of the published costs of public education.
Public education must supply teachers. What is the labor cost for the
homeschooler? Use minimum wage, if you prefer to minimize it, but at least
consider the costs involved. These are the costs incurred by you, as a home
schooler, that are not incurred by the average (or above average) parent with
a child in public school.
Quality of education is a completely different matter. The cost of developing
and utilizing a curriculum can be calculated. The use of that curriculum in a
classroom (public school) versus its use in a one-on-one situation will
greatly influence the overall cost to the end-user. Who is going to be the
final arbiter of curricula quality? We already have evidence that what is
used in the classroom is often inadequate.
This brings us back to a set of national standards against which any student
can be measured. (But lets stick to costs in this thread).
Donna Metler
Michael Moy wrote:
> C. Smith wrote:
>
> > > My suspicion would be that home-schooling parents are able to provide an
> > education
> > > to special needs children at a much lower cost than public schools do, again
> > > providing support to MK's contention that school is expensive, but
> > education is
> > > potentially cheap.
> >
> > Alas, your suspicion is not a sufficent basis for determining public
> > policy. So far all you have is a slogan ("school is expensive, but
> > education is potentially cheap") and nothing more.
> >
> > Let's look at it another way. While most children have been attending
> > public schools for about 150 years, most disabled/special education
> > children have been attending public schools for only 20-30 years. Once
> > federal and state laws opened up public schools to these children in the
> > 70's, why did most parents elect to send their children to public schools
> > and no longer keep them at home? Opportunity cost, perceived better
> > education, whatever the reasons, these parents voted with their feet, if
> > you will.
>
> Do a DejaNews lookup on home schooling and childhood disabilities and
> you'll see a lot of matches. Home schooling is certainly discussed a
> lot in the disabilities forums. I know that there are lots of home
> schoolers with kids with disabilities from the hsing forums that I'm
> on. The usual trigger, though, is that the school system isn't providing
> something for their kids.
>
However, often children who are in alternative school settings, including
home-schooled who have special needs, at least in the US, are still recieving
therapies and services from the local school district and/or other governmentally
funded services. The only children I have seen mentioned who are not doing so are
those whose disabilities require compensation only in learning environment, such as
children with ADHD, LD, and some forms of mental retardation. Since generally he only
accomodation these children need is additional, one-on-one or small group instruction,
and since homeschooling provides this innately, naturally these children can be well
served in the homeschooling setting PROVIDED:
1)The parent has the patience needed to educate a child with these needs. Not all
parents have this. My parents raised two children with special needs-I have cerebral
palsy, and my brother is ADHD. My mother, who is a homeschooling advocate, has made
the comment repeatedly that while she probably could have homeschooled me, she
probably would have ended up abusing my brother if she hadn't had that break-she
needed all the patience she had just for the afternoon and evening hours.
>
For children with other disabilities, the difference in progress which can be made
with appropriate therapies can't be overstated. It is much more efficent for a speech
therapist to see children at school, where many brief sessions can be done, throughout
the week (which is often what is needed) then for the therapist to go to the children
or for the children to come to the therapist, necessitating transportation. It's
simply not a cost-effective solution for parents to drive a child to therapy for, say
15 minute sessions daily, and it's not as good in many forms of therapy for the child
to have only one longer session a week. While parents can do a great deal of teaching
themselves, and often have to learn a great deal with a special needs child, they
cannot and should not try to be the speech therapist, physical therapist, occupational
therapist etc. Until the early '70's, the only children who got these services were
those who had parents who put out the money, out of pocket, for them. Look at the
employment rates now for those with disabilites compared to previous generations. Look
at the kid of jobs held. The reason why the ADA wasn't passed until 1990 is that until
then, there weren't enough persons with disabilites in the general population for
discrimination to be noticable.
>
>
> > > Further, I would suspect that for certain types of special needs such as
> > > developmentally delayed, ADD, and ADHD, the cost of homeschooling them is very
> > > comparable to the cost of homeschooling 'normal' children. I would
> > suspect that
> > > the main additional expense to the school is the fact that these
> > children have to be
> > > dealt with as individuals. When individualized education is the norm, as in
> > > home-schooling, the additional cost for some special needs children may
> > be minimal.
> >
> > I think you've missed the target by a wide margin. Whether in a school or
> > at home, an ADD or ADHD child is going to require more time and energy
> > than an average child. The average child can have much longer period of
> > self directed study/activity than the ADD/ADHD child. While the average
> > child can have half an hour or even an hour of self directed reading, the
> > ADD child is going to require constant attention. While both are
> > receiving "individualized education," in their home schooling, the
> > similarity ends there.
>
> The ADD child doesn't require constant attention. Neither does the ADHD
> child. When you find something that the ADD/ADHD child is intensely
> interested
> in, you'll find it hard to tear them away from it. You just have to do a
> good
> selling job as to making things interesting. It also helps to have an
> environment
> where the child can work without distractions.
>
Again, it depends on the parent. The big advantage a classroom teacher has is
respite-there are other adults around to call on, immediately, if the stress level is
too high. There is a really interesting book called _When children invite child abuse_
(I don't have a copy here, and don't recall the author) which looked at statistics and
found that children with mild disabilities are the most likely to get abused, once
socio-economic factors are controlled for, and the most typical situation was the
parent who was really trying to work with and help this child, and got frustrated.
These were children who were generally out of the house for at least part of the day.
Parents who home-school have to have some form of respite as well, and that is a even
greater need for the parent of the high-need child.
>
> > The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
> > effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
> > parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
> > experience or money required.
>
> This depends on the disability. But electronic forums are providing a
> lot of
> ways for parents and specialists to collaborate on finding ways to solve
> problems.
Agreed-however, I can tell you that I have had cerebral palsy my entire life, and have
read and studied more about it then many professionals. I do not, however, have the
specific knowledge needed to set up the type of comprehensive therapy/education plan
needed to help a child reach their full potential. This takes more than occasional
collaboration-it takes a group of knowledgable adults working with the child.
I had the opportunity (which I was unable to take, due to outside reasons) to be
involved with a charter school focused on inclusion, which was attempting to create a
completely individualized program for all of their students, while still providing
needed support services. So far, the experiment appears to be a success, and I hope
that other schools are able to follow this example, because it seems to create the
best of both worlds.
Donna Metler
Jeff & Traci De wrote:
> Aaron Kuperman wrote:
> >
> > The largest cost of home schooling is the opportunity cost (lost income)
> > incurred by at least one parent. Most home schooling parents are fairly
> > well educated and fairly creative, and would probably be earning at least
> > $50000 or more. Even if they live in a big city with many opportunities to
> > spend money on special resources, the labor cost is the big item. Assuming
> > four children, that means a budget of probably $13,000 per child, which is
> > more than even the most affluent school districts, equal to elite prive
> > schools, and several times what poorer public schools spend per child.
> >
> > [posted from home, not on company time]
>
> Man, I wanna know who you think would hire me at $50 thou...
>
> Before I had my baby I was teaching Pre-school. I didn't make 20 thousand a
> year. I'm not all that sure I made 15 thousand a year. Okay, I just checked on
> it. I was the Head Teacher and assistant director of a pre-school and daycare
> center. As such, I was one of the highest paid pre-school teachers in the area,
> which averages minimum wage. Assuming a 40 hour work week, which was usual, I
> grossed just over 13 thousand dollars. Lovely pay for all my education, don't
> you think? LOL
>
> Traci
>
And this just shows how poorly education is regarded in this society. Given all the
studies which show that the first years are the most important in a child's life,
you'd think that those who choose to work with young children would make a living
wage!
(I used to teach Head Start, and literally doubled my salary by moving to a public
school system-which still is considerably less than I could make with my level of
education in just about any other field. The company my husband works for employs
several former school teachers, who could make more money answering tech-support
phone calls (company trains, only basic computer knowledge required) than teaching.
Sad, isn't it!)
C. Smith
> C. Smith wrote:
>
> > > My suspicion would be that home-schooling parents are able to provide an
> > education
> > > to special needs children at a much lower cost than public schools
do, again
> > > providing support to MK's contention that school is expensive, but
> > education is
> > > potentially cheap.
> >
> > Alas, your suspicion is not a sufficent basis for determining public
> > policy. So far all you have is a slogan ("school is expensive, but
> > education is potentially cheap") and nothing more.
> >
> > Let's look at it another way. While most children have been attending
> > public schools for about 150 years, most disabled/special education
> > children have been attending public schools for only 20-30 years. Once
> > federal and state laws opened up public schools to these children in the
> > 70's, why did most parents elect to send their children to public schools
> > and no longer keep them at home? Opportunity cost, perceived better
> > education, whatever the reasons, these parents voted with their feet, if
> > you will.
>
> Do a DejaNews lookup on home schooling and childhood disabilities and
> you'll see a lot of matches. Home schooling is certainly discussed a
> lot in the disabilities forums. I know that there are lots of home
> schoolers with kids with disabilities from the hsing forums that I'm
> on. The usual trigger, though, is that the school system isn't providing
> something for their kids.
I don't doubt for a moment that there are many disabled children being
home schooled. That wasn't my point. Would you agree with me that there
are many more disabled children in public school now than there were 20-30
years ago (which was my point). When finally given a real choice in the
70's, the parents of disabled children elected to put their children in a
public school setting. For whatever reasons, they found this to be a
better answer than home schooling.
> > > Further, I would suspect that for certain types of special needs such as
> > > developmentally delayed, ADD, and ADHD, the cost of homeschooling
them is very
> > > comparable to the cost of homeschooling 'normal' children. I would
suspect that
> > > the main additional expense to the school is the fact that these
children have to be
> > > dealt with as individuals. When individualized education is the
norm, as in
> > > home-schooling, the additional cost for some special needs children may
> > be minimal.
> >
> > I think you've missed the target by a wide margin. Whether in a school or
> > at home, an ADD or ADHD child is going to require more time and energy
> > than an average child. The average child can have much longer period of
> > self directed study/activity than the ADD/ADHD child. While the average
> > child can have half an hour or even an hour of self directed reading, the
> > ADD child is going to require constant attention. While both are
> > receiving "individualized education," in their home schooling, the
> > similarity ends there.
>
> The ADD child doesn't require constant attention. Neither does the ADHD
> child. When you find something that the ADD/ADHD child is intensely interested
> in, you'll find it hard to tear them away from it. You just have to do a good
> selling job as to making things interesting. It also helps to have an
environment
> where the child can work without distractions.
The amount of supervision/attention obviously depends on the severity of
the condition and the activity being attempted. Even if you find
something the child is intensely interested in, that's doesn't get the job
of education done. If the child is interested in math, he/she still needs
to learn English, science, history, etc. Will you agree that there are
going to be days when you're trying to teach something he/she is not
particularly interested in? Again, depending upon the severity of the
condition, there can be plenty of distractions no matter where the child
is. Please note that I never said that these children require "constant
attention." Those are your words, not mine. Do you agree that a child
with this condition is going to take more effort than a normal child?
> > The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
> > effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
> > parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
> > experience or money required.
>
> This depends on the disability. But electronic forums are providing a lot of
> ways for parents and specialists to collaborate on finding ways to solve
> problems.
Which in turn requires some skills.
For whatever reasons, many parents come to the conclusion that they don't
feel capable of taking on this challenge. I would assume that you respect
their decision in this regard.
C. Smith
C. Smith
> "C. Smith" wrote:
>
> > In article <36B85989...@feist.com>, Beth Clarkson
<be...@feist.com> wrote:
> >
> > > "C. Smith" wrote:
> >
> > > Whether you count as educational costs the fact that schools are providing
> > > non-educational services or not, it doesn't change the fact that
schools are
> > > expensive and education need not be.
> >
> > This is not a fact, but an opinion. Merely stating that schools are
> > expensive without qualify it, much less quantify it, does not produce a
> > factual statement.
>
> It only takes one counter-example to disprove the conjecture that
education must be
> expensive. Many homeschoolers have provided a good education for their
> child/children at a very low cost. Thus the 'fact' that education need not be
> expensive.
One, this isn't what you said. You stated as fact that schools are
expensive without substantiating this in any way. Ergo, the statement
remain one of opinion, not fact.
Two, neither has it been demonstrated that home school children receive a
good education at very low cost. To the extent that the statement may be
true was the point of this thread. To date, there has been considerable
discussion/disagreement about the opportunity cost to parents of home
schooled children. So again, the statement remains one of opinion, not
fact.
> > Given that widespread education (mind you, I said
> > education, not schooling) did not occure until the rise of the industrial
> > revolution, it is pretty much a historical fact that education has been
> > expensive for most of human history.
>
> Widespread education did not occur until the rise of the industrial
revolution? I
> find that difficult to believe. Do you not consider, for example,
apprenticeship in
> a trade to be education? While there was perhaps, not widespread
literacy, college
> educations, etc. I don't agree that education did not occur. It was simply a
> different form of education, suited for the society of that time. I
agree that it
> wouldn't meet the definition of education in our current society, but then I
> wouldn't claim to be well-educated in theirs despite my college degrees.
We'll agree that the definition of education has changed, but in large
part this goes to make my point. For most of human history, only the
wealthy received any kind of formal education in reading, writing,
mathematics, history, languages, etc. While this was in part for other
reasons (the nobleman didn't want an educated underclass), it was
primarily economic. The idustrial revolution generated sufficent wealth
to make widespread education possible.
All of that having been said, I'll be the first to acknowledge that
education doesn't *necessarily* need to be expensive in the future.
> > > Homeschoolers are able to provide a good education at a much lower cost.
> >
> > Pretty much the point of this thread was to debate whether in fact this is
> > true. Yet, you take it as a given.
>
> Yes. I take it as given.
That kind of takes the fun out of a meaningful discussion, no? :-)
> The only real argument I seen against it is the so-called
> 'opportunity cost' which has not been established in any way. Given that many
> homeschool without any loss of income whether because both parents
continue to work,
> because it is a single working parent who homeschools, or because there
would be a
> non-working parent at home full-time anyway, I don't think that you can claim
> 'opportunity cost' as a major factor in the cost of providing an education by
> homeschooling.
If there's one thing that I got pounded into my head in micro-economics,
there is always an opportunity cost.
One fact we can agree upon is that home schooling still represents about
1% (give or take) of school aged children. To date, the parents of the
other 99% (give or take) have elected to place their children in public or
private schools. I think that the opportunity cost explains this far more
than any other reason. What is your explanation?
C. Smith
> Beth Clarkson
C. Smith
> [removed can.politics,nz.politics]
>
> On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 01:54:24 -0800, in
> misc.education,cla...@nospamccnet.com (C. Smith) wrote:
>
> >Let's look at it another way. While most children have been attending
> >public schools for about 150 years, most disabled/special education
> >children have been attending public schools for only 20-30 years. Once
> >federal and state laws opened up public schools to these children in the
> >70's, why did most parents elect to send their children to public schools
> >and no longer keep them at home? Opportunity cost, perceived better
> >education, whatever the reasons, these parents voted with their feet, if
> >you will.
> <snip>
> >I think you've missed the target by a wide margin. Whether in a school or
> >at home, an ADD or ADHD child is going to require more time and energy
> >than an average child. The average child can have much longer period of
> >self directed study/activity than the ADD/ADHD child. While the average
> >child can have half an hour or even an hour of self directed reading, the
> >ADD child is going to require constant attention. While both are
> >receiving "individualized education," in their home schooling, the
> >similarity ends there.
> >
> >The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
> >effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
> >parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
> >experience or money required.
>
> Is the "ADD/ADHD" your "special needs" argument?
No. Given the widespread attention to this condition at present, it
seemed to be an appropriate example to use.
> Oh, *please*! Many of the kids that I know that are homeschooled
> were classified by the skools as "ADD/ADHD" and the skools'
> solution was to drug them into mediocracy so that they would "fit
> in". The homeschooling parent pulled them out of skool and began
> unschooling. After between a few months and a year, these kids
> took off like rockets!
Let's come back down to Earth here. Schools do not perscribe
medications. A teacher/principal/counselor/etc. may recommend/encourage
the parents to have their child see a doctor with a view towards
perscribing an ADD medication, but the parents have to take that child to
the doctor, the doctor has to make the perscription, the parents have to
make sure that the child is taking the medication. Furthermore, there
have been articles in the papers about teachers who are very unhappy about
supervising/administering medication to children during the school day.
> The problem was that they were *bored* by skool. They wanted to
> do everything at once and the skool system was holding them back
> from doing that.
I'm sure that there are children for which that is more than true, but
that doesn't really address the larger issue here. There many children
with other conditions/disabilities that parents have concluded would be
better served by being in a school than at home.
> Once they were put in charge of their own learning, they were
> able to organize their lives so that they *could* learn all of
> the tings that they wanted to learn. Heck, there is one of these
> kids that, every time that I am around him, he both fires me up
> and exhausts me with all that he has learned and all that he
> wants to learn.
Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
children) elect to send their children to public or private schools?
C. Smith
jcamp
>Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
>children) elect to send their children to public or private schools?
>
I suppose you should ask the parents who do so, rather than asking a
homeschooling newsgroup. I suspect you'd find as many reasons why they made
the decision to send their children to be taught by others as there are
people. The reasons why we in our own family HOMESCHOOL my children are
quite broad. We think we can do a better job, for one reason. We don't like
the "peer group mentality". We believe that it is our responsibility as
their parents to ensure they get a good education, rather than foisting that
responsibility on others. We like our children and want to be the ones who
see that light go on when a child grasps a new concept, rather than have a
stranger enjoy that moment. We can't afford private school and have yet to
find one that mirrors our philosophy enough to want to entrust our
children's future to it, even if we did have the money. We have a very close
family and would like to keep it that way. We don't agree with the values
that are being taught in schools. We want our children to be independent and
know their own minds. We want them to have the private time needed to
fashion their own personalities in their own time. We looked at the options
out there and homeschooling our children has the most benefits to our
children and family in our opinion.
I think that perhaps some parents who send their children elsewhere for
their education simply aren't aware that they have any other choice. After
all the vast majority of them have also been educated away from home and
many people don't learn to think for themselves, ever. Some of them are
aware of the option but it seems too overwhelming for them to actually be
able to accomplish. (If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me,
"I've considered homeschooling, but it seems like so much work...I couldn't
do it!", I'd be a wealthy woman) Some take the path of least resistance.
Some must work and their children are too young to be home alone. Some don't
care as long as the kids are out of the house and out of their hair. A few
actually think that its the best option for their children, but not as many
as your statement would imply.
--
Joyce
Please check out my homepage
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ridge/1543
Need a carpet or tile floor cleaned?
http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/campco
PS: Beware of Geeks bearing .gifs!
Michael Moy
The default system is the public school system and that's what most
people
are familiar with. Information about home schooling is now widely
available
though you have to go out and look for it; we don't actively market it
like
some other organizations do. That more people are considering home
schooling
for special needs children is remarkable; given that it is little known
and
that it runs against the grain of our society of expertise.
As I said, it comes down to a selling job and perhaps some work in the
packaging. There are a lot of other things that help that are quite
difficult
to do in the classroom situation. If the child isn't interested in
something,
then present it in another way or put it down and come back to it later.
Or
let them get some vigorous exercise for a while and then try again. It
doesn't
have to be a battle if you have a lot of flexibility in the learning
environment.
> > > The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
> > > effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
> > > parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
> > > experience or money required.
> >
> > This depends on the disability. But electronic forums are providing a lot of
> > ways for parents and specialists to collaborate on finding ways to solve
> > problems.
>
> Which in turn requires some skills.
It can require skill and will require effort.
> For whatever reasons, many parents come to the conclusion that they don't
> feel capable of taking on this challenge. I would assume that you respect
> their decision in this regard.
There are some cases where I would and some where I wouldn't. It depends
on
the case. I'm sure you could think of some where you wouldn't respect a
parent's
decision.
Michael Moy
> However, often children who are in alternative school settings, including
> home-schooled who have special needs, at least in the US, are still recieving
> therapies and services from the local school district and/or other governmentally
> funded services. The only children I have seen mentioned who are not doing so are
> those whose disabilities require compensation only in learning environment, such as
> children with ADHD, LD, and some forms of mental retardation. Since generally he only
> accomodation these children need is additional, one-on-one or small group instruction,
> and since homeschooling provides this innately, naturally these children can be well
> served in the homeschooling setting PROVIDED:
The services available to home schoolers can be quite limited based on
district and
state.
> 1)The parent has the patience needed to educate a child with these needs. Not all
> parents have this. My parents raised two children with special needs-I have cerebral
> palsy, and my brother is ADHD. My mother, who is a homeschooling advocate, has made
> the comment repeatedly that while she probably could have homeschooled me, she
> probably would have ended up abusing my brother if she hadn't had that break-she
> needed all the patience she had just for the afternoon and evening hours.
I would have thought that the ADHD kid would have been easier.
> For children with other disabilities, the difference in progress which can be made
> with appropriate therapies can't be overstated. It is much more efficent for a speech
> therapist to see children at school, where many brief sessions can be done, throughout
> the week (which is often what is needed) then for the therapist to go to the children
> or for the children to come to the therapist, necessitating transportation. It's
> simply not a cost-effective solution for parents to drive a child to therapy for, say
> 15 minute sessions daily, and it's not as good in many forms of therapy for the child
> to have only one longer session a week. While parents can do a great deal of teaching
> themselves, and often have to learn a great deal with a special needs child, they
> cannot and should not try to be the speech therapist, physical therapist, occupational
> therapist etc. Until the early '70's, the only children who got these services were
> those who had parents who put out the money, out of pocket, for them. Look at the
> employment rates now for those with disabilites compared to previous generations. Look
> at the kid of jobs held. The reason why the ADA wasn't passed until 1990 is that until
> then, there weren't enough persons with disabilites in the general population for
> discrimination to be noticable.
I don't claim expertise in the special ed are except for experience with
ADHD kids.
What about the abuse that this type of kid gets in school? I would think
that this
would be a greater problem. These kids have a lot of energy but can
accomplish
a lot in a good environment. But I don't see how to provide a good
environment
for them in a classroom.
> > > The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
> > > effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
> > > parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
> > > experience or money required.
> >
> > This depends on the disability. But electronic forums are providing a
> > lot of
> > ways for parents and specialists to collaborate on finding ways to solve
> > problems.
>
> Agreed-however, I can tell you that I have had cerebral palsy my entire life, and have
> read and studied more about it then many professionals. I do not, however, have the
> specific knowledge needed to set up the type of comprehensive therapy/education plan
> needed to help a child reach their full potential. This takes more than occasional
> collaboration-it takes a group of knowledgable adults working with the child.
It is not clear to me that schools put in a good amount of effort to
help a child
reach their full potential. Especially in the ADHD area but also for the
general
population.
> I had the opportunity (which I was unable to take, due to outside reasons) to be
> involved with a charter school focused on inclusion, which was attempting to create a
> completely individualized program for all of their students, while still providing
> needed support services. So far, the experiment appears to be a success, and I hope
> that other schools are able to follow this example, because it seems to create the
> best of both worlds.
Is this special ed or general ed?
Internet Real Estate
> Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
>
Primarily economics. Unless a family is willing to sacrifice many of the
"extras" that some would call necessities, they will be two income
families.
While we had ours in private Christian school before we started
homeschooling, I had an aquaintance of mine actually stand in his driveway
in between his bass boat and Seadoo, with the Four Runner in his garage
... and he told me how he could not afford to send his kids to private
school.
Most homeschoolers and private schoolers believe their responsibilities
toward their kids greatly outshadow their needs for the extras. TOO MANY
baby boomers were part of the "me" generation ... and haven't grown out of
it.
Edward
------------------------------------
Internet Real Estate
"Sell Your Home Yourself - And Save Thousands!"
http://www.internet-real-estate.com/
C. Smith
<jc...@tpk.net> wrote:
> C. Smith wrote in message ...
>
> >Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
> >children) elect to send their children to public or private schools?
>
> I suppose you should ask the parents who do so, rather than asking a
> homeschooling newsgroup.
One, this thread was originally just in misc.education and not the
homeschooling groups. Someone added the homeschooling groups to get
reaction to several issues that at least I've lost track of.
Two, my question was a response to the assertion by Beth that home
schooling produces better results at much less cost. It was not intended
to be inflamatory or provocative towards home schoolers.
> I suspect you'd find as many reasons why they made
> the decision to send their children to be taught by others as there are
> people. The reasons why we in our own family HOMESCHOOL my children are
> quite broad. We think we can do a better job, for one reason. We don't like
> the "peer group mentality". We believe that it is our responsibility as
> their parents to ensure they get a good education, rather than foisting that
> responsibility on others. We like our children and want to be the ones who
> see that light go on when a child grasps a new concept, rather than have a
> stranger enjoy that moment. We can't afford private school and have yet to
> find one that mirrors our philosophy enough to want to entrust our
> children's future to it, even if we did have the money. We have a very close
> family and would like to keep it that way. We don't agree with the values
> that are being taught in schools. We want our children to be independent and
> know their own minds. We want them to have the private time needed to
> fashion their own personalities in their own time. We looked at the options
> out there and homeschooling our children has the most benefits to our
> children and family in our opinion.
You have given a very, very good answer for why your family decided to go
this route. But in of itself, this doesn't respond to the question I
asked above.
> I think that perhaps some parents who send their children elsewhere for
> their education simply aren't aware that they have any other choice. After
> all the vast majority of them have also been educated away from home and
> many people don't learn to think for themselves, ever. Some of them are
> aware of the option but it seems too overwhelming for them to actually be
> able to accomplish. (If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me,
> "I've considered homeschooling, but it seems like so much work...I couldn't
> do it!", I'd be a wealthy woman) Some take the path of least resistance.
> Some must work and their children are too young to be home alone. Some don't
> care as long as the kids are out of the house and out of their hair. A few
> actually think that its the best option for their children, but not as many
> as your statement would imply.
>
> Joyce
While I'm sure there are at least some people who fit the various
descriptions/ situations you enumerate above, I don't find this to be a
very compelling reason for why 99% (give or take) do not home school.
Particularly unsatisfying for me was your assertion- "many people don't
learn to think for themselves." Beyond all the obvious words I could
bring to bear (insulting, condescending, etc.), the statement most
critically lacks any substance to it. Glen has just suggested the same
notion by lamenting the "mooo crowd." Any argument that depends
(especially so heavily) on such glib, unsupported claims is going to have
a tough go of it.
C. Smith
C. Smith
> On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 14:10:56 -0800, in
> misc.education,cla...@nospamccnet.com (C. Smith) wrote:
>
> >In article <36bdc7c1...@news.got.net>, gl...@got.net (Glen
Appleby) wrote:
> >
> >> Is the "ADD/ADHD" your "special needs" argument?
> >
> >No. Given the widespread attention to this condition at present, it
> >seemed to be an appropriate example to use.
>
> OK, I went with it.
>
> >> Oh, *please*! Many of the kids that I know that are homeschooled
> >> were classified by the skools as "ADD/ADHD" and the skools'
> >> solution was to drug them into mediocracy so that they would "fit
> >> in". The homeschooling parent pulled them out of skool and began
> >> unschooling. After between a few months and a year, these kids
> >> took off like rockets!
> >
> >Let's come back down to Earth here. Schools do not perscribe
> >medications.
>
> Given that I never even suggested that they did and if you are
> suggesting that I did say that, it would be dishonest. We *know*
> that you aren't dishonest because you are concerned with MK's
> honesty, so I must assume that you are pulling this particularly
> stinky morsel out of some nasty orifice for some reason.
While I phrased it in the most dramatic way, the point remains implicit to
your statement- "...the skools' solution was to drug them into
mediocracy..."
No school has this "solution" available to them. No child is on
medication at the direction of a school. The teacher/principal might
suggest that the child see a doctor, the parents might agree, the doctor
might perscribe and so on... The reality is a far distance from what you
stated above.
> >A teacher/principal/counselor/etc. may recommend/encourage
> >the parents to have their child see a doctor with a view towards
> >perscribing an ADD medication, but the parents have to take that child to
> >the doctor, the doctor has to make the perscription, the parents have to
> >make sure that the child is taking the medication. Furthermore, there
> >have been articles in the papers about teachers who are very unhappy about
> >supervising/administering medication to children during the school day.
>
> However, it is my understanding that the skools get additional
> either federal or state funds for every student that they have
> enrolled who had been diagnosed as ADD/ADHD.
To use my favorite answer, yes and no. Schools only receive extra $ for
students placed in special education. There have been stories in the
media of schools/ school districts that go out of their way to get kids
into special ed to pick up the extra dough. These stories are in the
media precisely because they are so exceptional.
Many, if not most, ADD/ADHD students do not qualify for special
education. They remain entirely in a regular classroom and the school
doesn't get an extra dime. Getting kids into special ed. isn't easy.
There are plenty of hoops you have to go through (including the parents'
permission).
> Seems to me that if the teachers want to play the game, payment
> should be in there somewhere.
If you do take a student into special education, you then have to provide
the extra services mandated by state and federal law in return for getting
the extra money. The extra cost is more or less the extra income, so
there's no real economic incentive to do so.
> >> The problem was that they were *bored* by skool. They wanted to
> >> do everything at once and the skool system was holding them back
> >> from doing that.
> >
> >I'm sure that there are children for which that is more than true, but
> >that doesn't really address the larger issue here. There many children
> >with other conditions/disabilities that parents have concluded would be
> >better served by being in a school than at home.
>
> You are the one who brought in ADD/ADHD. I'm just running with
> the ball that you gave me. If you want to change the game to
> basketball after you handed me a football, fine, but it was your
> ball.
Since, as you concurred above, I'm only using ADD/ADHD as an example, I'm
afraid that it is more than reasonable that I might vary from one to
another field of play from time to time.
But if you insist on focusing on ADD/ADHD, could you please tell me what
percentage of ADD/ADHD students meet the description you suggested above
(bored, the school was holding them back)?
> Some of the reasons that parents may want to send chindren who
> are differently abled to publik skool might include the desire
> for forced socalization. After all, any time that homeschooling
> is mentioned, this is one of the first cries that is heard from
> the publik skool proponents -- even though the socalization that
> one gets in publik skool has little to do with what they will
> experience for the rest of their lives after they leave skool.
Let's just be clear that this is a statement of opinion, not fact (though
I agree the concern about socialization is one of the first heard).
> >> Once they were put in charge of their own learning, they were
> >> able to organize their lives so that they *could* learn all of
> >> the tings that they wanted to learn. Heck, there is one of these
> >> kids that, every time that I am around him, he both fires me up
> >> and exhausts me with all that he has learned and all that he
> >> wants to learn.
> >
> >Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
> >children) elect to send their children to public or private schools?
>
> Again, my first thought is the "mooooo" factor. Most people
> simply don't think.
You see this is where your argument really sucks for me. When anybody in
any debate relies on "most people simply don't think," I can't help but
take that as an admission of failure to make the case. It is essentially
unprovable and in my experience at least, is always based on the circular
logic that "most people don't agree with our philosophy/ideas/whatever,
ergo most people can not be thinking."
C. Smith
C. Smith
> On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 13:59:56 -0800, in
> misc.education,cla...@nospamccnet.com (C. Smith) wrote:
>
> >One fact we can agree upon is that home schooling still represents about
> >1% (give or take) of school aged children. To date, the parents of the
> >other 99% (give or take) have elected to place their children in public or
> >private schools. I think that the opportunity cost explains this far more
> >than any other reason. What is your explanation?
>
> You mean including the mooooo-factor?
Since I've beat up enough on the "mooo-factor" dead horse (excuse the
mixing of metaphor--and barnyard beasts) elsewhere, I'll just ask if you
have a substantive response...
C. Smith
David Gossman
tho...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> Actually, I am not sure if this should be looked at from a 'lost opportunity'
> point of view. The point that I have been driving at is that when
> homeschoolers state that 'homeschooling is less expensive than public
> schools', they are not taking into account those hidden costs that are part
> of the published costs of public education.
>
> Public education must supply teachers. What is the labor cost for the
> homeschooler? Use minimum wage, if you prefer to minimize it, but at least
> consider the costs involved. These are the costs incurred by you, as a home
> schooler, that are not incurred by the average (or above average) parent with
> a child in public school.
>
> Quality of education is a completely different matter. The cost of developing
> and utilizing a curriculum can be calculated. The use of that curriculum in a
> classroom (public school) versus its use in a one-on-one situation will
> greatly influence the overall cost to the end-user. Who is going to be the
> final arbiter of curricula quality? We already have evidence that what is
> used in the classroom is often inadequate.
>
> This brings us back to a set of national standards against which any student
> can be measured. (But lets stick to costs in this thread).
>
I think I will throw a wrinkle into this thread. We home school our
youngest two children (5 and 8). My wife and I both work out of our
home, but we do work all day. In order to pull this off we have hired a
teacher who works with the children 4 - 6 hours each day. She teaches
spanish, english, social studies and art. The girls go for private
music, dance, swimming, and karate lessons. I teach science and my wife
teaches math. It would certainly appear that we spend, out of pocket, a
great deal on home schooling. But let's look at the alternative.
Our eldest attended a mix of public and private schools k-6. Normal
public schools just did not work for her. She was simply to bright and a
social misfit. She skipped levels and eventually attended the Ill Math
and Science Academy. If all public schools were run like IMSA....but
that's another issue. At 17, half way through her first year in college,
she has 49 semester hours (she will have 79 at the end of her first
year), is a paid grader for dif-e-q, has a 4.0, is majoring in prevet
animal sciences, is taking a 20 hour load part of which is an invited
research project in quantitative genetics and hopes to get early
admittance into vet school (rumored to be more difficult than med school
to get in). I fully expect her younger sisters to start college both
earlier and with more credit under their belts than she, just because of
home schooling.
What is the cost to these children and to society when we force them to
go to regular public schools and socially interact with other children
that have nothing but contempt for gifted children? Personally we are
coming out way ahead by home schooling and so will our children. Unless
you are prepared to take those kind of costs and benefits into account
your exercise is one of futility.
PS As a side note I see national standards as just another excuse for
"dumbing down" our classrooms. Home schooling is not for everyone but it
is a real shame what we have done to our schools and it is without a
doubt why so many feel forced down the home schooling path. Under these
circumstances cost is not an issue.
--
--------------------------------------------
|David Gossman | Gossman Consulting, Inc. |
|President | http://gcisolutions.com |
| The Business of Problem Solving |
--------------------------------------------
"If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science;
it is opinion." - Lazarus Long aka Robert Heinlein
Marty Carts
Beth Clarkson wrote:
> Aaron Kuperman wrote:
Hi Beth, just wanted to reemphasize what you said about many
hsers not being in the position of "loosing" a second income. Before
we married my wife forwarned me that mechanical engineering was
simply a pastime, something to prove that she could (Boy oh boy,
could she ever!), and that m.e. wasn't in the long term forcast.
Opportunity cost for us is/was zero.
Also, $50K sounds a bit (a lot) much. _______________Marty
> > The largest cost of home schooling is the opportunity cost (lost income)
> > incurred by at least one parent. Most home schooling parents [...]
> > would probably be earning at least $50000 or more. [...]
Gene Royer
C. Smith wrote:
> >
> > >Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
> > >children) elect to send their children to public or private schools?
I would think there are more than one reasons, none of which should be very
difficult to ferret out.
(1) Many parents do not feel capable enough to teach the core subjects.
(2) Many parents simply do not want to make the effort. The *lazy* factor.
(3) Many parents cannot devote the time (both spouses work, multiple-child
households, etc.)
(4) Many parents feel that if they have to pay school taxes, then they should
let the school do it.
(5) Many parents are relieved to get the kids out of the house for someone else
to babysit.
(6) Many parents cannot afford for one parent to stay home (closely tied to
numbers 3 and 4).
(7) Some parents do not know that the homeschool option is open to them.
(8) Some parents lack basic intelligence necessary to properly educate a child.
(9) Some parents mistakenly believe that homeschooled kids are not as well
educated as in pub.
(10) Some parents mistakenly believe that socialization is prerequisite to good
moral development.
(11) Some parents simply don't care one way or the other what kind of things are
being taught to their kids and prefer to take the easy way out.
There are probably others, but these are the answers I get when I consult
one-on-one with folks.
Gene Royer <http://www.lutzbooks.com/governance> Consultant to governing boards
of nonprofit and public organizations. Author: SCHOOL BOARD LEADERSHIP 2000, The
Things Staff Didn't Tell You At Orientation. (Brockton 1996) Now in Second
Printing. Fax: 281-495-1323
Michael Moy
> Until the IDEA, home schooling, with limited if any support provided by the local
> school system, was the default for children with disabilities. It is still often the
> default for severe disabilities, except in large districts, under the guise "homebound
> insruction" (which, given the limited time alloted, amounts to homeschooling). The
> fact that parents of children with moderate to severe disabilities have regularly
> pushed for their child to be placed in as near a regular setting as possible and to
> not be isolated at home implies that for this group, homeschooling is often not a
> desired alternative.
Home schooling today is a lot different than it was even a few years
ago.
> ADHD and most Learning disabilities were not well known pre-IDEA, or at least not by
> current names, and certainly didn't affect as much of the school population.
I thought that ADD/ADHD were about 5% of the population. I've heard that
the numbers
are a lot higher but tend not to believe them.
Michael Moy
> > The default system is the public school system and that's what most people
> > are familiar with. Information about home schooling is now widely available
> > though you have to go out and look for it; we don't actively market it like
> > some other organizations do. That more people are considering home schooling
> > for special needs children is remarkable; given that it is little known and
> > that it runs against the grain of our society of expertise.
>
> I don't understand what you mean by "more people are considering home
> schooling for special needs children..." More relative to whom or what?
More than would have considered it before the recent rise in hsing.
> > As I said, it comes down to a selling job and perhaps some work in the
> > packaging. There are a lot of other things that help that are quite difficult
> > to do in the classroom situation. If the child isn't interested in something,
> > then present it in another way or put it down and come back to it later. Or
> > let them get some vigorous exercise for a while and then try again. It doesn't
> > have to be a battle if you have a lot of flexibility in the learning
> > environment.
>
> I never said it was going to be a battle, just require more effort, a
> point you have re-enforced by your examples. You appear to agree that
> such a child is going to take more effort than a normal child to educate,
> public, private or home school.
Yes. But that the environment at home is better suited to this type of
child.
Michael Moy
> WRONG!!!! ADHD in and of itself is not a label covered by PL 94-142. Most children
> who are diagnosed ADHD are not labeled as "disabled" and therefore the school system
> recieves no special funding for accomodating these needs, any more than they recieve
> educational assistance for having an epileptic or diabetic child on campus. Only
> when an educational need is diagnosed (usually under a LD label) does any funding
> increase occur.
>
> The classroom teacher who is often responsible for assuring that this "medically
> needy" ADHD child takes his medications and who has to monitor any specific behavior
> modification programs set up with the parents, parent conference, and generally deal
> with the child's behavior gets NO compensation. Even if the teacher has a child in
> the classroom who has a diagnosed disability under IDEA, the extra funding pays only
> for services provided for that child, which really doesn't help the teacher much.
> The extreme example is the dedicated aide for a child with muscular dystrophy, who
> literally sat and knitted while the classroom teacher attempted to quell a fight in
> the classroom, because "That's not my child".
We don't want to spend a potentially huge amount of money on this
special needs
population.
Michael Moy
It is a valid, though non-descriptive response. Perhaps you'd prefer
the Windows 95-factor.
Glen Appleby
misc.education,cla...@nospamccnet.com (C. Smith) wrote:
>In article <36be463b...@news.got.net>, gl...@got.net (Glen Appleby) wrote:
>
>No school has this "solution" available to them. No child is on
>medication at the direction of a school. The teacher/principal might
>suggest that the child see a doctor, the parents might agree, the doctor
>might perscribe and so on... The reality is a far distance from what you
>stated above.
Then please explain the alarmingly high number of kids in US
publik skools who are on Ritilin or other "dumbing down" drugs as
compared to, say, the UK.
>> However, it is my understanding that the skools get additional
>> either federal or state funds for every student that they have
>> enrolled who had been diagnosed as ADD/ADHD.
>
>To use my favorite answer, yes and no.
Will you wash my back while you are at it?
>Schools only receive extra $ for
>students placed in special education. There have been stories in the
>media of schools/ school districts that go out of their way to get kids
>into special ed to pick up the extra dough. These stories are in the
>media precisely because they are so exceptional.
That's one assumption. Another might be because it is so
alarming.
>Many, if not most, ADD/ADHD students do not qualify for special
>education. They remain entirely in a regular classroom and the school
>doesn't get an extra dime. Getting kids into special ed. isn't easy.
>There are plenty of hoops you have to go through (including the parents'
>permission).
Once a parent is convinced that Johnnie has a problem and might
be "broken" (something that is often all too easy), it is pretty
simple for the skools to help them step easily through the hoops.
>> Seems to me that if the teachers want to play the game, payment
>> should be in there somewhere.
>
>If you do take a student into special education, you then have to provide
>the extra services mandated by state and federal law in return for getting
>the extra money. The extra cost is more or less the extra income, so
>there's no real economic incentive to do so.
Interesting. So the "special ed" teachers woulda been there
anyway? There is no incentive for administrators to build a
larger empire? Power doesn't corrupt?
>> You are the one who brought in ADD/ADHD. I'm just running with
>> the ball that you gave me. If you want to change the game to
>> basketball after you handed me a football, fine, but it was your
>> ball.
>
>Since, as you concurred above, I'm only using ADD/ADHD as an example, I'm
>afraid that it is more than reasonable that I might vary from one to
>another field of play from time to time.
OK, but trying to dribble a football is more difficult. Just
want to say that going in.
>But if you insist on focusing on ADD/ADHD, could you please tell me what
>percentage of ADD/ADHD students meet the description you suggested above
>(bored, the school was holding them back)?
Not right off (although I'll bet that somebody can -- this is a
pretty intense topic on various newsgroups). What I can do is
suggest that you look at the number of kids who are doing
"poorly" in skool. I would suggest that this number represents,
to a large degree, those not being served by the system. Then
look at the number of these who are described as ADD/ADHD.
(Hint: they tend not to bother with kids who are doing well)
Then (oh, this is a biggie!) look at the number who don't
graduate or who *just* squeek by. I believe that the number that
don't graduate is something along the lines of 25%.
*If* that number is valid, then we are saying that it is OK to
throw away 25% percent or more of our population, based on what
we are doing, now.
>> Some of the reasons that parents may want to send chindren who
>> are differently abled to publik skool might include the desire
>> for forced socalization. After all, any time that homeschooling
>> is mentioned, this is one of the first cries that is heard from
>> the publik skool proponents -- even though the socalization that
>> one gets in publik skool has little to do with what they will
>> experience for the rest of their lives after they leave skool.
>
>Let's just be clear that this is a statement of opinion, not fact (though
>I agree the concern about socialization is one of the first heard).
Well, having been long subscribed to various lists and newsgroups
involving homeschooling and unschooling and interacting
personally with hundreds of these people in real life, I'm not
sure what it takes to move if from opinion to fact in your mind.
Should I call Bekins?
>> >Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
>> >children) elect to send their children to public or private schools?
>>
>> Again, my first thought is the "mooooo" factor. Most people
>> simply don't think.
>
>You see this is where your argument really sucks for me.
Whoa!
<unzipping my pants>
<realizing that this is a publik forum and sheepishly zipping up>
Sorry -- hormones.
>When anybody in
>any debate relies on "most people simply don't think," I can't help but
>take that as an admission of failure to make the case. It is essentially
>unprovable and in my experience at least, is always based on the circular
>logic that "most people don't agree with our philosophy/ideas/whatever,
>ergo most people can not be thinking."
Well, it may be a conversation stopper, but I can't help but look
around and see exactly that.
Look, it's not as if not thinking is a heinous crime. Heck, when
I get into something, I often strive for the ability to do it
without thinking. It serves me well when I am doing something
that I simply want to get done and it serves me well when I want
things to just flow.
The problem comes when we make pretty important decisions (like
sending kids to skool) without thinking about it as most people
simply do.
I'm not saying that everybody who sends their kids to skool does
it without thought. I *am* saying that most people who send
their kids to skool do so simply because "that is what is done."
C. Smith
I don't understand what you mean by "more people are considering home
schooling for special needs children..." More relative to whom or what?
> > > > > Further, I would suspect that for certain types of special needs
I never said it was going to be a battle, just require more effort, a
point you have re-enforced by your examples. You appear to agree that
such a child is going to take more effort than a normal child to educate,
public, private or home school.
> > > > The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
> > > > effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
> > > > parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
> > > > experience or money required.
> > >
> > > This depends on the disability. But electronic forums are providing
a lot of
> > > ways for parents and specialists to collaborate on finding ways to solve
> > > problems.
> >
> > Which in turn requires some skills.
>
> It can require skill and will require effort.
And that's all I'm saying.
> > For whatever reasons, many parents come to the conclusion that they don't
> > feel capable of taking on this challenge. I would assume that you respect
> > their decision in this regard.
>
> There are some cases where I would and some where I wouldn't. It depends on
> the case. I'm sure you could think of some where you wouldn't respect a
parent's
> decision.
Very, very rarely.
C. Smith
Glen Appleby
<dmme...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Glen Appleby wrote:
>
>> However, it is my understanding that the skools get additional
>> either federal or state funds for every student that they have
>> enrolled who had been diagnosed as ADD/ADHD.
>
>WRONG!!!! ADHD in and of itself is not a label covered by PL 94-142. Most children
>who are diagnosed ADHD are not labeled as "disabled" and therefore the school system
>recieves no special funding for accomodating these needs, any more than they recieve
>educational assistance for having an epileptic or diabetic child on campus. Only
>when an educational need is diagnosed (usually under a LD label) does any funding
>increase occur.
Is that really that difficult a leap for the skool administrators
to make? Given the situation with the incredibly high proportion
of LD diagnisis in this country as opposed to other
industrialized countries, I'm guessing that many administrators
have found The Way (tm) and are using it.
>The classroom teacher who is often responsible for assuring that this "medically
>needy" ADHD child takes his medications and who has to monitor any specific behavior
>modification programs set up with the parents, parent conference, and generally deal
>with the child's behavior gets NO compensation. Even if the teacher has a child in
>the classroom who has a diagnosed disability under IDEA, the extra funding pays only
>for services provided for that child, which really doesn't help the teacher much.
Then how do you explain the disproportinate number of kids in
this country who are diagnosed as ADD/ADHD and LD?
Now, I'll give you that many parents find bored kids to be
troublesome and easily go along with such diagnosis as a means to
control "unrully" kids. I'm not trying to place total blame on
the skools. It's just that without the skools having the benefit
of added funding for the diagnosis, I'm not sure that the
disproportinate numbers would be occuring.
>The extreme example is the dedicated aide for a child with muscular dystrophy, who
>literally sat and knitted while the classroom teacher attempted to quell a fight in
>the classroom, because "That's not my child".
OK, but I don't *think* that I am talking about the extreems,
here. I am concerned with appalling trends.
David Gossman
Alberto Moreira wrote:
>
> David Gossman <dgos...@gcisolutions.com> :
>
> [snip...]
>
> >What is the cost to these children and to society when we force them to
> >go to regular public schools and socially interact with other children
> >that have nothing but contempt for gifted children?
>
> They survive, and they come out strong. They find out that not
> everyone out there has contempt for "gifted" children. They find out
> that gift is far less important than work. They grow an understanding
> of human weaknesses, and learn how fortunate they are in comparison to
> many others.
Some do and others do not. You do know that don't you? Have you looked
at the cost advantage of allowing these students to move at their own
pace. (Something that public schools hate to allow.) They spend less
time in the educational system (lower cost) and more time in the
productive work place (higher return)?
>
> They also come to realize that, no matter how gifted they are, there
> will be someone out there that's even more gifted. They grow a circle
> of friends and peers who are of the same level as they are, who have
> similar outlook in life, and that converts into lifelong friendships.
Only if they are in schools large enough to have some peers. This may be
true sometimes for those in the top percentile but is quite rare for
those in the top 0.1%. It depends on the size of the school. Generally
the parents of the most gifted put them in private schools or home
school if they can so those peers in public schools are fewer and fewer.
>
> >Personally we are
> >coming out way ahead by home schooling and so will our children. Unless
> >you are prepared to take those kind of costs and benefits into account
> >your exercise is one of futility.
>
> My kids graduated from a public HS. One went to Wellesley and is now
> doing a Ph.D. at Columbia; the other's at Amherst, doing one semester
> abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Both I and my wife graduated from public schools and universities. She
enjoyed it and I hated it. She was never provided the opportunity to
learn self discipline - it was just to easy. I was lucky enough to be in
scouts. Either way we learned from that experience, from that of our
eldest and from my own time on a public school board just how bad things
are. I'm glad your children are doing well. Ever stop to think of how
much better they could be doing?
>
> It's all, as I see it, a question of attitude and personal focus.
>
Yes it is. Some of us are willing to take personal responsibility and
have the means to do so. Others do not. For those that do not
improvements in the public schools are very important. I have and
continue to put effort into that. Meanwhile, given the means, I will not
deny my children the optimum opportunity that I can provide, would you?
Donna Metler
Michael Moy wrote:
Until the IDEA, home schooling, with limited if any support provided by the local
school system, was the default for children with disabilities. It is still often the
default for severe disabilities, except in large districts, under the guise "homebound
insruction" (which, given the limited time alloted, amounts to homeschooling). The
fact that parents of children with moderate to severe disabilities have regularly
pushed for their child to be placed in as near a regular setting as possible and to
not be isolated at home implies that for this group, homeschooling is often not a
desired alternative.
ADHD and most Learning disabilities were not well known pre-IDEA, or at least not by
Donna Metler
Glen Appleby wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 14:10:56 -0800, in
> misc.education,cla...@nospamccnet.com (C. Smith) wrote:
>
> >In article <36bdc7c1...@news.got.net>, gl...@got.net (Glen Appleby) wrote:
> >
> >> Is the "ADD/ADHD" your "special needs" argument?
> >
> >No. Given the widespread attention to this condition at present, it
> >seemed to be an appropriate example to use.
>
> OK, I went with it.
>
> >> Oh, *please*! Many of the kids that I know that are homeschooled
> >> were classified by the skools as "ADD/ADHD" and the skools'
> >> solution was to drug them into mediocracy so that they would "fit
> >> in". The homeschooling parent pulled them out of skool and began
> >> unschooling. After between a few months and a year, these kids
> >> took off like rockets!
> >
> >Let's come back down to Earth here. Schools do not perscribe
> >medications.
>
> Given that I never even suggested that they did and if you are
> suggesting that I did say that, it would be dishonest. We *know*
> that you aren't dishonest because you are concerned with MK's
> honesty, so I must assume that you are pulling this particularly
> stinky morsel out of some nasty orifice for some reason.
>
> >A teacher/principal/counselor/etc. may recommend/encourage
> >the parents to have their child see a doctor with a view towards
> >perscribing an ADD medication, but the parents have to take that child to
> >the doctor, the doctor has to make the perscription, the parents have to
> >make sure that the child is taking the medication. Furthermore, there
> >have been articles in the papers about teachers who are very unhappy about
> >supervising/administering medication to children during the school day.
>
> However, it is my understanding that the skools get additional
> either federal or state funds for every student that they have
> enrolled who had been diagnosed as ADD/ADHD.
>
WRONG!!!! ADHD in and of itself is not a label covered by PL 94-142. Most children
who are diagnosed ADHD are not labeled as "disabled" and therefore the school system
recieves no special funding for accomodating these needs, any more than they recieve
educational assistance for having an epileptic or diabetic child on campus. Only
when an educational need is diagnosed (usually under a LD label) does any funding
increase occur.
The classroom teacher who is often responsible for assuring that this "medically
needy" ADHD child takes his medications and who has to monitor any specific behavior
modification programs set up with the parents, parent conference, and generally deal
with the child's behavior gets NO compensation. Even if the teacher has a child in
the classroom who has a diagnosed disability under IDEA, the extra funding pays only
for services provided for that child, which really doesn't help the teacher much.
The extreme example is the dedicated aide for a child with muscular dystrophy, who
literally sat and knitted while the classroom teacher attempted to quell a fight in
the classroom, because "That's not my child".
>
> Seems to me that if the teachers want to play the game, payment
> should be in there somewhere.
>
>
> >> The problem was that they were *bored* by skool. They wanted to
> >> do everything at once and the skool system was holding them back
> >> from doing that.
> >
> >I'm sure that there are children for which that is more than true, but
> >that doesn't really address the larger issue here. There many children
> >with other conditions/disabilities that parents have concluded would be
> >better served by being in a school than at home.
>
> You are the one who brought in ADD/ADHD. I'm just running with
> the ball that you gave me. If you want to change the game to
> basketball after you handed me a football, fine, but it was your
> ball.
>
> Some of the reasons that parents may want to send chindren who
> are differently abled to publik skool might include the desire
> for forced socalization. After all, any time that homeschooling
> is mentioned, this is one of the first cries that is heard from
> the publik skool proponents -- even though the socalization that
> one gets in publik skool has little to do with what they will
> experience for the rest of their lives after they leave skool.
>
> >> Once they were put in charge of their own learning, they were
> >> able to organize their lives so that they *could* learn all of
> >> the tings that they wanted to learn. Heck, there is one of these
> >> kids that, every time that I am around him, he both fires me up
> >> and exhausts me with all that he has learned and all that he
> >> wants to learn.
> >
> >Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
> >children) elect to send their children to public or private schools?
>
> Again, my first thought is the "mooooo" factor. Most people
> simply don't think.
>
Glen Appleby
misc.education,tho...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>In article <36bdc4b7...@news.got.net>,
> gl...@got.net (Glen Appleby) wrote:
>> See, I know hundreds of homeschoolers. Now there *are* some who
>> make good money. The majority, though, seem to be just middle
>> class folks (I'm guessing in the range of $20k - $30k per year
>> for the combined household income) and there is one heck of a lot
>> of them who are at the poverty line who are doing an amazing job.
>>
>> Now, if what you are attempting to do is to associate a cost with
>> a parent trying to do the best that they can for their children,
>> in order to say that costs more than a publik skool education,
>> then you might be missing something *pretty* important.
>
>Actually, I am not sure if this should be looked at from a 'lost opportunity'
>point of view. The point that I have been driving at is that when
>homeschoolers state that 'homeschooling is less expensive than public
>schools', they are not taking into account those hidden costs that are part
>of the published costs of public education.
>
>Public education must supply teachers. What is the labor cost for the
>homeschooler?
That would depend on the type of homeschooling. For example,
with student-led learning, there is no teacher.
>Use minimum wage, if you prefer to minimize it, but at least
>consider the costs involved. These are the costs incurred by you, as a home
>schooler, that are not incurred by the average (or above average) parent with
>a child in public school.
Well, OK, but is there any payback in things like not needing a
babysitter because the parent is there all of the time? Is there
any payback in the parent being there to actually see the
"Eureka!" look when they get it? Does the parent benefit at all
from seeing their child turned on by something and allowed to
totally run with it?
See, if the parent *prefers* to spend the day with their child,
why should there be a cost associated with it? Why should
anybody have to associate even minimum wage with something that
they *get* to do because they would prefer to do it?
>Quality of education is a completely different matter. The cost of developing
>and utilizing a curriculum can be calculated. The use of that curriculum in a
>classroom (public school) versus its use in a one-on-one situation will
>greatly influence the overall cost to the end-user. Who is going to be the
>final arbiter of curricula quality? We already have evidence that what is
>used in the classroom is often inadequate.
Well, I guess that I'm easy. I would say that the student is the
final arbiter of the quality. If the state, for example, finds a
particular book to be "the best" and the student finds it to be
tedious, the student will not get out of that book what the state
intended.
Glen Appleby
misc.education,cla...@nospamccnet.com (C. Smith) wrote:
>One fact we can agree upon is that home schooling still represents about
>1% (give or take) of school aged children. To date, the parents of the
>other 99% (give or take) have elected to place their children in public or
>private schools. I think that the opportunity cost explains this far more
>than any other reason. What is your explanation?
You mean including the mooooo-factor?
--
Glen Appleby
Seems to me that if the teachers want to play the game, payment
--
Glen Appleby
<jc...@tpk.net> wrote:
>C. Smith wrote in message ...
>
>>Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
>>children) elect to send their children to public or private schools?
>
>Some must work and their children are too young to be home alone. Some don't
>care as long as the kids are out of the house and out of their hair.
This is something that I hear surprisingly often. "I couldn't
*stand* to have my kids around all day every day." I am not
suffecently cynical at the moment to have mentioned that.
Glen (there *are* days, though) Appleby
Glen Appleby
<m_...@juno.com> wrote:
>C. Smith wrote:
>>
>> In article <36be4560...@news.got.net>, gl...@got.net (Glen Appleby) wrote:
>>
>> > You mean including the mooooo-factor?
>>
>> Since I've beat up enough on the "mooo-factor" dead horse (excuse the
>> mixing of metaphor--and barnyard beasts) elsewhere, I'll just ask if you
>> have a substantive response...
>
>It is a valid, though non-descriptive response. Perhaps you'd prefer
>the Windows 95-factor.
LOL!! I gotta admit to being sucked into that.
I like Unix. It lets me do so much.
At the same time, though, the point-and-droll interface of
Windoze has some benefit .... OK, so mostly for quickly showing
the JPGs on the X-rated cites.
Glen "I *am* a Dumb Guy (tm)" Appleby
Herman Rubin
Donna Metler <dmme...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Michael Moy wrote:
>> C. Smith wrote:
.................
>> > The second part of the equation is that special needs child require more
>> > effort, in both training and materials, than an average child. Many
>> > parents may reasonablly conclude that they don't possess the training or
>> > experience or money required.
>> This depends on the disability. But electronic forums are providing a
>> lot of
>> ways for parents and specialists to collaborate on finding ways to solve
>> problems.
>Agreed-however, I can tell you that I have had cerebral palsy my entire life, and have
>read and studied more about it then many professionals. I do not, however, have the
>specific knowledge needed to set up the type of comprehensive therapy/education plan
>needed to help a child reach their full potential. This takes more than occasional
>collaboration-it takes a group of knowledgable adults working with the child.
It takes knowledgeable adults. But it does not take the type of
educational plan you seem to feel is necessary. We do not know
enough to be that rigid; it is especially in the direction of order
of progress that it is necessary to be very flexible. The rate
needs individual attention as well.
This is in direct opposition to the idea that certain goals should
be achieved by certain ages, and that if these are achieved earlier,
further progress in those areas is unimportant.
Education is NOT training. Some training, such as being able to
decode written language, is necessary to be able to handle
educational tools, although even this needs modification for some.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Dorothy Sacks
Donna Metler wrote in message <36BDCD09...@bellsouth.net>...
>
>
>Jeff & Traci De wrote:
>
>> Aaron Kuperman wrote:
>> >
>> > The largest cost of home schooling is the opportunity cost (lost
income)
>> > well educated and fairly creative, and would probably be earning at
least
>> > $50000 or more. Even if they live in a big city with many opportunities
to
>> > spend money on special resources, the labor cost is the big item.
Assuming
>> > four children, that means a budget of probably $13,000 per child, which
is
>> > more than even the most affluent school districts, equal to elite prive
>> > schools, and several times what poorer public schools spend per child.
>> >
>> > [posted from home, not on company time]
>>
>> Man, I wanna know who you think would hire me at $50 thou...
>>
>> Before I had my baby I was teaching Pre-school. I didn't make 20
thousand a
>> year. I'm not all that sure I made 15 thousand a year. Okay, I just
checked on
>> it. I was the Head Teacher and assistant director of a pre-school and
daycare
>> center. As such, I was one of the highest paid pre-school teachers in the
area,
>> which averages minimum wage. Assuming a 40 hour work week, which was
usual, I
>> grossed just over 13 thousand dollars. Lovely pay for all my education,
don't
>> you think? LOL
>>
>> Traci
>>
>
>And this just shows how poorly education is regarded in this society. Given
all the
>studies which show that the first years are the most important in a child's
life,
>you'd think that those who choose to work with young children would make a
living
>wage!
>
>(I used to teach Head Start, and literally doubled my salary by moving to a
public
>school system-which still is considerably less than I could make with my
level of
>education in just about any other field. The company my husband works for
employs
>several former school teachers, who could make more money answering
tech-support
>phone calls (company trains, only basic computer knowledge required) than
teaching.
>Sad, isn't it!)
Absolutely, sad as those of us who choose to work in the field know. I was
making
considerably more even in teaching because I taught HS in the public schools
here.
Had I gone after the PHD when I first got out of college and ended up
tenured at
the college level, it would have even been more. But I choose to work with
preschoolers
now parttime, so make around $10,000/year. Could not do it if I had to
support
my family and would not contribute significantly to family income so why not
Hschool instead. No real opportunity cost at all for those of us who choose
not
to work in higher paid jobs anyway. (Admitedly, I could have been making
over
$50,000 had I stayed with IBM in computers).
Dorothy
>
>>
>> --
>> From who I was to who I'll be
>> His love and grace has delivered me
>
Dorothy Sacks
Ron McDermott
> But if you insist on focusing on ADD/ADHD, could you please tell me what
> percentage of ADD/ADHD students meet the description you suggested above
> (bored, the school was holding them back)?
As someone who has done a small amount of research on
this topic, it is important to note that the organizations
with which I have been in contact (composed of those actually
having the disorder) do not cite this as being a factor in the
problem. If the problem was one of boredom, then it wasn't
ADD/ADHD in the FIRST place. Now it could have been a
misdiagnosis since this disorder is extremely difficult to
diagnose reliable (a brainscan has recently been suggested
as a means of reliable diagnosis, but this is quite new).
> > >Why does the vast, vast majority of parents (regular or special needs
> > >children) elect to send their children to public or private schools?
> >
> > Again, my first thought is the "mooooo" factor. Most people
> > simply don't think.
>
> You see this is where your argument really sucks for me. When anybody in
> any debate relies on "most people simply don't think," I can't help but
> take that as an admission of failure to make the case. It is essentially
> unprovable and in my experience at least, is always based on the circular
> logic that "most people don't agree with our philosophy/ideas/whatever,
> ergo most people can not be thinking."
I agree with you on this; this kind of comment is simply
namecalling, not an argument of any kind. There are
probably a number of reasons why someone would choose
to homeschool, just as there would be a number of reasons
why they might choose to send their kids to regular schools;
some good, some poor. For whatever reasons, it is pretty
obvious that the vast majority of people prefer to use
regular schools. That doesn't make one "right" and the other
"wrong", it just IS..
Dorothy Sacks
Alberto Moreira wrote in message <36c4ebfd...@news.mv.net>...
>Also sprach David Gossman <dgos...@gcisolutions.com> :
>
>[snip...]
>
>>What is the cost to these children and to society when we force them to
>>go to regular public schools and socially interact with other children
>>that have nothing but contempt for gifted children?
>
>They survive, and they come out strong. They find out that not
>everyone out there has contempt for "gifted" children. They find out
>that gift is far less important than work. They grow an understanding
>of human weaknesses, and learn how fortunate they are in comparison to
>many others.
>
>will be someone out there that's even more gifted. They grow a circle
>of friends and peers who are of the same level as they are, who have
>similar outlook in life, and that converts into lifelong friendships.
Alberto, is that really you? I cannot believe you are saying this after
all the hoopla about religious dress and about turning backs on people
who make inroads into your personal space. I actually agree with all
of what you just said above.
>
>>Personally we are
>>coming out way ahead by home schooling and so will our children. Unless
>>you are prepared to take those kind of costs and benefits into account
>>your exercise is one of futility.
>
>My kids graduated from a public HS. One went to Wellesley and is now
>doing a Ph.D. at Columbia; the other's at Amherst, doing one semester
>abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris.
>
>It's all, as I see it, a question of attitude and personal focus.
And of parental interest in the education of his/her children.
Meaning that parents who know how can get *good* education
for their children even in the face of a *bad* system. But
we should be making it easier for them and we should be
making the system better.
Dorothy
>
>
>
>Alberto.
>
>