Homeschooling in the US works out much better now than it did in the time the article describes, because the government did something out of character: it actually returned some liberty to parents that it had taken from them. When parents were once again allowed to homeschool their own children legally, a diverse free market in educational resources re-emerged--one that had flourished in the early days of the country.
Now that there is no longer a reason to operate secretly, homeschooling parents can seek out other parents with similar homeschooling objectives and cooperate. Among the first to do this were religious parents, but every year the percentage of homeschoolers who do it for religious reasons declines.
More and more parents are doing it for reasons such as wanting to give their bright kids more advanced classes than the schools are willing or able to provide (that's my own incentive), or to more effectively deal with a child's specific educational needs, or to allow a child to have a "career" (e.g., acting or sports) while still a minor.
Even those of us sending our kids to public schools benefit from this market in homeschooling options. We would be able to benefit a lot more if the "progressive" politicians employed by the teachers unions to keep the decision-making power and money they have wrested from the people from ever reverting back to parents weren't so numerous and well-funded.
Many of us, for example, would love to switch to a partial public / partial private arrangement where our kids could sign up for some of the school classes without being forced to take all or none (while paying full price either way). For example, we might choose PE, sports, and drama (for social), science (for lab facilities), and math (parents might not know it well enough) from school, but choose to do English at home, programming online, art at a local art school, and Chinese from a parents' collective. (And I would be willing to continue paying full fare for the public school while using only part of its program if the remainder were rebated, not to me, but to low-income families in the form of educational vouchers they could use outside school.)
We can do many of those things after school, but the problem is how late "after school" is each day, and how much time after school has to be wasted on useless school homework, because of the requirement that if our kids want any of the benefits the school offers, they are forced to take it all (as part of the political strategy to make opting out of any of the government-controlled system as painful and impractical as possible.) My kids' desire for the social experience of school and my desire that they get excellent educations result in a very long day for them, and I would cut out more than half of their school classes (and even more of the homework) if I were free to do so and give it to my kids as play time.
Full socialization from partial school, higher-quality education from the free market, plus more play time? Still illegal in most states.
>Homeschooling in the US works out much better now than it did in the time the article describes, because the government did something out of character: it actually returned some liberty to parents that it had taken from them.
A significant portion of parents who homeschool kids are doing it for religious reasons and teaching their children garbage.
And a MUCH higher percentage of kids are taught garbage by the state than by religious homeschoolers. Children belong to their own families, not to the state, except in cases of serious abuse, and deviating from the state's (and statists') approved dogma does not constitute child abuse.
I'm an atheist myself, so I have no interest in teaching religion, but I do have a strong interest in parents having more say than the state in what their own children are taught to believe. I'll take the marketplace of diverse ideas that parents sincerely teach to the children they love over the state's agenda for the people it intends to govern, any day. Parents, whether religious or not, should be the primary decision makers in their own children's educations.
In Austin, TX we have a number of part time programs like that through the numerous charter school options. You can sign up for specific subjects and then only attend a few days (or even once) a week as the schedule requires.
It's not a perfect system but it's another option that works better for some students and some families.
Now that there is no longer a reason to operate secretly, homeschooling parents can seek out other parents with similar homeschooling objectives and cooperate. Among the first to do this were religious parents, but every year the percentage of homeschoolers who do it for religious reasons declines.
More and more parents are doing it for reasons such as wanting to give their bright kids more advanced classes than the schools are willing or able to provide (that's my own incentive), or to more effectively deal with a child's specific educational needs, or to allow a child to have a "career" (e.g., acting or sports) while still a minor.
Even those of us sending our kids to public schools benefit from this market in homeschooling options. We would be able to benefit a lot more if the "progressive" politicians employed by the teachers unions to keep the decision-making power and money they have wrested from the people from ever reverting back to parents weren't so numerous and well-funded.
Many of us, for example, would love to switch to a partial public / partial private arrangement where our kids could sign up for some of the school classes without being forced to take all or none (while paying full price either way). For example, we might choose PE, sports, and drama (for social), science (for lab facilities), and math (parents might not know it well enough) from school, but choose to do English at home, programming online, art at a local art school, and Chinese from a parents' collective. (And I would be willing to continue paying full fare for the public school while using only part of its program if the remainder were rebated, not to me, but to low-income families in the form of educational vouchers they could use outside school.)
We can do many of those things after school, but the problem is how late "after school" is each day, and how much time after school has to be wasted on useless school homework, because of the requirement that if our kids want any of the benefits the school offers, they are forced to take it all (as part of the political strategy to make opting out of any of the government-controlled system as painful and impractical as possible.) My kids' desire for the social experience of school and my desire that they get excellent educations result in a very long day for them, and I would cut out more than half of their school classes (and even more of the homework) if I were free to do so and give it to my kids as play time.
Full socialization from partial school, higher-quality education from the free market, plus more play time? Still illegal in most states.