Vouchers, Homeschooling, and markets, Oh My!

[scoutldr]

Sarcastic??? Moi???? Au contraire!

 

In this SMSA (standard metropolitan statistical area), there are about 7 school districts. It is a well known fact among those who have lived here all their lives, as I have, that two of the districts are excellent, some are average, and one, I wouldn''t send a dog to. When a new military member transfers in and starts looking for a house, the first question I ask is "do you have kids in school?". Now, why is there such a disparity in quality of education within a 25 mile radius? Per pupil spending is about the same. Buildings and classrooms look about the same. The teachers are about the same...and get paid the same (+/- about $1000). The ONLY difference I can see, is the SES (social and economic status) of the residents. The "excellent" schools serve primarily non-minority populations, while the "other than excellent" schools serve a large minority and inner city population. My observation is that in the excellent schools, the minority students do just as well, if not better than the "majority" students. I think the difference is parental involvement. When both parents live in the home and are ACTIVELY involved in the schools and interested in having their kids study and do homework, rather than letting them roam the streets, the kids will excel. It''s a cultural issue, and NOT something the schools can solve, regardless of how much money we pour into them. By taking your voucher and "escaping" the public school, you are part of the problem. The school collective no longer benefits from your interest and efforts, not the least of which is to set the example for the other parents who don''t KNOW how to parent.

 

As I said, my wife and two sons and I are products of the public school and state universities. From the day my son started kindergarten, she was there volunteering in the clinic (an RN). They eventually hired her to be the school nurse. She was active in the PTA and eventually elected President and honored with a Life Membership. When my sons went on to high school, we spent countless hours sitting on the bleachers for Baseball and Football games, going to PTA meetings (BORRINNGGGG!), and buying band candy. The baseball coach knew us by name...because he was my teacher when I was in high school. When my son brought home a bad grade, I was talking to the teacher the next day.

 

When you don''t even know who the father is, and you have to work all the time and can''t go to meet teachers and volunteer, that kind of rapport can''t and doesn''t happen. Don''t blame the schools...you have to hold up your end of the deal, too. Fix the culture, and the schools will follow.

 

 

[Gunny2862]

Thanks for your preemptive post scoutldr, you''ve started an answer to my question!

 

And you have reaffirmed one of my earlier statements, i.e. "On the whole our local public education system appears to turn out the whole spectrum of students. Clearly not the best result, but the students intrinsic motivation is where it looks like the system needs the most help to me. Those who have a goal seem to find the path and associations they need and the paths'' and associations to avoid."

 

And now to the question;

so what does an involved parent look like, folks!

 

You''ve got me paranoid that I''m one of the slugs who''s not involved in my local schools.(You can never do enough!)

 

So far, neither my wife and I have Life memberships but she has been both a PTA President and Treasurer and we are perennial PTA members. We know about the business end of Bakesales and Newsletters. I know all of his teachers by sight from Pre-K on, my wife ever the overachiever can name them all and most of their children, and believe me they know us- and just go ahead and schedule the office time for us when grade check time arrives. We are in a different school track than I took in this town but I still know most of the coaches from playing against them, and helping now when available - I was on the chain gang at this weeks football game, I was involved in all but two wrestling practices last year. The homework is done and checked(retaught if necessary - that lattitude-longitude stuff gets sloppily done sometimes!) The Cello is practiced, and not just reading but the enjoyment of outside reading is encouraged. His school associates know us well enough to talk to us when we see them.

 

So where''s the shortfall? Or are we sufficiently engaged? Do I wish it was easy to get the rest of OUR LOCAL peers to match us, of course.

 

And yes, I may be a little sensitive, the homeschoolers seem to be claiming not only the better educational system but the moral high ground too. (I refuse to belive that it is immoral to leave a child there who is doing well and is a positive influence.)And yet, this forum keeps coming back to a general agreed upon necessity for some kind of public system. (I''m trying to stay open to the arguments however.)

[packsaddle]

Rest assured, Gunny, that probably all of us in these threads are engaged and actively interested in their families and in education. You have nothing to worry about...if you are worrying about it, heh, heh.

 

The home schoolers have reason to hold their heads high. They have accepted the inherent moral superiority of the Darwinian approach and I salute them for it. It IS a bold, courageous decision on their part.

As a result they need not be concerned for others and I need not be concerned any further for them or their children as well. It is a perfectly rational way to go if they make that choice. But, as you note, the results are checkered and as Lisa notes, the children and society pay the ultimate price for failure.

But THAT is the essential requirement for the Darwinian approach to work...failures must be selectively removed. My fear is that as a society, we''ll have to pay a greater price for ''carrying'' some of those failures along with the rest of us.

[GernBlansten]

Being an involved parent is inserting yourself into your childs education process. It doesn''t mean spending countless hours volunteering, it means making sure you know what they are doing, how they are doing and adjusting and correcting as necessary. It means tutoring, coaching, mentoring, disciplining. It means reviewing report cards and assignments and contacting the teachers for development plans. Look at the PS failures, their parents just don''t care and have given up. That''s why I think that homeschooling is superior is a myth. If those same parents sent their kids to PS, they (the parents) would be just as involved and their children would excel to the same degree or better.

[scoutldr]

Gunny said, "You''''ve got me paranoid that I''''m one of the slugs who''''s not involved in my local schools.(You can never do enough!)"

 

A psychiatrist once told me, "those who are truly crazy don''t wonder if they are."

 

[Lisabob]

Gern says: "their parents just don''''t care and have given up."

 

While I''m not disputing that this is true in a certain subset of cases, I''d be more inclined to agree that "their parents just don''t care OR have given up." I''ve met a number of parents who do care, but who lack the tools or skills to intervene effectively in their child''s education, especially when we get into late middle school and beyond. Ideally people would develop their own skills to a point where giving up isn''t necessary, but that too, takes some resources that may not be available to everyone at all times.

[Aquila]

They don''t necessarily reflect the values of the "public" nor can the "public" simply change the things they don''t like (don''t be naive - the NEA is the LARGEST union in the US, by a large margin); they are government schools. Calling them public schools is a misnomer. Public schools were originally voluntarily paid for by the community - hence, they were serving the public.

 

As far as the poor having no choice, according to a University of Chicago study, near 1 in 5 students under the poverty line in Chicago go to private schools. It''s always a matter of choice -- because we homeschool, we live in a one-income family. I won''t come knocking on Gern''s door when we need a new car; we''ve made our choice -- the children over the $. And we live with it.

 

"Tainted" wasn''t my original word, but yes, there are children (and adults) who have had experiences that shape their worldview in a way that I don''t want my impressionable children to see. Youths whose innocence is gone; adults who would steal it, whether intentionally or not.

 

As far as teens being turned into gangbangers, if your district is free from teenage problems, great! Most are not. According to Planned Barrenhood''s pollster, more than 2/3 of both males and females will have sex before age 18 -- 25% of teens before age 16. 1/4 of those will get an STD. The DOJ says that 28% of schools have a significant problem with violent gangs. 1 in 5 8th graders has smoked marijuana. 15% of 10th graders have taken ecstacy. It goes on and on. Mine won''t be in those numbers. If the school yours attends can guarantee you the same, that''s fantastic! You''re very fortunate.

[Hunt]

"I won''''t come knocking on Gern''''s door when we need a new car; we''''ve made our choice -- the children over the $. And we live with it."

 

So I take you that you wouldn''t deduct mortgage payments from your taxes? If you do, you''re knocking on my door for help paying for your house. I just don''t agree with this everyman for himself attitude toward schooling--as I said before, I think there are societal benefits to public schooling that go beyond financing. (Just as most people think that there is a societal benefit to home ownership, which is why the mortgage deduction exists.)

[packsaddle]

Found this and HAD to share...just too much fun not to.

Here's a teaser,

"Florida's plucky refusal to embrace 21st century education is one reason that prestigious tech industries have avoided the state, allowing so many of our high-school graduates (and those who come close) to launch prosperous careers in the fast-food, bartending and service sectors of the economy."

 

http://www.miamiherald.com/540/story/421075.html

 

[packsaddle]

This was an interesting case. It has implications much broader than just UC.

 

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2008/08/uc-and-the-crea.html

and

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/13/BAQT129NMG.DTL&type=science

 

"Hallelujah, say the academics and scientists. The University of California has prevailed over a lawsuit that sought to force the university to accept creationist science classes from two private Christian high schools as college-prep courses."

 

I had wondered how long something like this would take to show up at the college level. Now I know. Good for UC for standing firm. And the court ruled correctly. Be advised.

[Gold Winger]

" Look at the PS failures, their parents just don''t care and have given up. That''s why I think that homeschooling is superior is a myth. If those same parents sent their kids to PS, they (the parents) would be just as involved and their children would excel to the same degree or better."

 

How did we manage back in the days before everyone's parents spent all of their time managing their kids' lives?

 

(This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

[sailingpj]

Well, Pack posted a link to this a couple days ago and I just have make a few comments about the homeschooling stuff.

 

I was "Homeschooled" for 5 or 6 years. 4 in elementary school and sort of 2 in high school. I really wish I had never done any of it. My mom pulled me out of a Catholic school because she had visions of sailing around the world. She wanted to get a couple years head start on homeschooling me, so after the second or third grade I stopped going to the catholic school. My mom did a ton of research and bought some school books. She spent a couple days going over them and writing out a couple months plan. For the first few weeks she checked my work almost daily, then it became weekly, then very rarely.

 

For a while I continued to do the work laid out for me, but then I started to slack off and just play and read fun stuff. I was a third or fourth grader left mostly unsupervised while my mom worked on the boat. The Hardy Boys were much more fun and interesting than analogies.

 

The first couple years I got most of my work done eventually, but I kept getting worse and worse about doing it. The second or third year homeschooling my mom basically just gave me school books and said learn. I just wasn't really feeling the school thing at that time, so I didn't do much. After a while my mom found out and there were repercussions, but that didn't stop it from happening again. Neither my mom nor I were really suited to homeschooling and my dad was at work all day. After 4 years of me not doing much I went back to the catholic school and was very surprised.

 

I couldn't relate to any of the other people in the school. Academically I caught up pretty quickly, but I wasn't interested in any of the same things as the rest of my class. I didn't even know what they were talking about half the time.

 

During those four years of homeschooling I spent most of my time in my room reading. When I wasn't there I was helping my mom work on the boat, or helping other people in the marina work on their boats (I was small enough to fit in places they couldn't).

 

Academically I am sort of in limbo. I have a lot of bad habits that I am trying to fix (they all have to do with not doing work). Socially I still have no clue and can't really relate to anyone outside of the Scouting and Sailing communities, and even there I don't mix very well.

 

As i said earlier, I really wish I had never started homeschooling. I think I would be a lot better off for it. Of course I would be a completely different person. I probably wouldn't be anywhere near as knowledgeable about sailing as I am. When I say I have been sailing since I was 5 I really mean it. I have been actively sailing since then. I was driving the boat and trimming sails as soon as I had enough weight behind me to do it effectively.

 

My point is that homeschooling isn't always a viable option. Both the parent and the child have to have the right personality to do it.

[packsaddle]

Sailingpj,

Thanks for relating that story. I hope things eventually work out for you. This institution has a special program for students who are having a tough time making the adjustments for whatever reasons. The program is only a few years old and it includes some 'first' students (first in the family to attend college) and some who just have a tough time. But the program was started in response to the engineering school which noticed a segment of their freshmen who were losing their scholarships or getting into academic trouble during the first year. When they looked into the problem a little more carefully, they realized that the majority of these students were either minorities (often also first in families) or home-schooled (this is rare in minorities...h'mmmmmm).

So in a sense home-schooling has helped create a service for all students who have this kind of trouble. The program might not have existed otherwise.

On the other hand, the costs are hefty and they are ultimately borne by everyone who pays tuition and taxes. AND a significant number of these students don't make it anyway - that Darwinian thing again.

I wish you the best of success.

[sailingpj]

Thank you, luckily I have enough gray matter between my ears that when I put my mind to something I get it pretty quickly. It helps when I find someone in class to compete with. When that happens I am guaranteed to ace the class.

 

You wouldn't happen to know of any schools on the west coast that have similar programs? I might just check one of them out.

[packsaddle]

Most any college that wants to survive will have a general program offering tutoring and counseling services along those lines. Just for example, all of the universities of California have such a program:

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/collegeprep/welcome.html

 

Sub-programs aimed at specific-needs groups are a bit more difficult to isolate but programs like I mentioned above will know about those specifics at each parent institution. My advice is to identify what direction your interests seem to point and make a list of the schools that could fit them. Then check out their materials and if they look promising, contact those general tutoring and counseling offices for more specific information. I would not, however, make the choice solely on the basis of the presence or absence of such programs but rather on all the factors including, ahem, cost. Like I wrote, I wish you the best of success.