The majority of my concern centers around ever-slipping standards of behavior and academic performance.
One teacher told me that in his district, the lowest grade they’re allowed to give students is a 50% — including assignments that students don’t turn in and tests that they don’t take. Additionally, he is required to offer extra credit to any student that asks. So he has a decent number of students who do no work all year, go in to the final week of school with a 50%, and then ask for an extra credit assignment that will bump them up to a passing grade. If he doesn’t oblige them, he gets chewed out by parents and administrators at every level.
A friend at another district told me that she has been explicitly barred from sending students to the principal’s office or issuing suspensions or detentions. She has also been told that she can’t make students put their phones away, and almost all of their textbooks have been replaced by iPads and she can only issues digital assignments that get emailed to the students and parents each night so there’s a paper trail and documentation of everything she assigns.
So basically, I’m just not interested in having my kids spend 8 hours a day in an environment where it is normal to be a disrespectful little prick that stares at a screen all day and gets half the credit for doing none of the work.
There is also the conversation about rampant mental health issues among teens and children, the current cultural obsession with racial, sexual, and gender identity that seems to be hitting children harder than other demographics, and idiots at every point on the political spectrum using public schools as battlegrounds to score points in the culture war. Whether that’s teaching children to view absolutely every social interaction and historical event through the lens of race and hierarchies of oppression, or going in the other direction and denying basic historical facts about the role of slavery and racism in America’s history or making teachers take down posters of Martin Luther King Jr. because they’re “too political”. It all just seems to be getting a bit too nutty for my taste.
Those homeschooled kids across the street from me are ultra conservatice Christians. Most homeschooled families I know are. I’m not bashing them for their political and religious views, but I’ve known a lot of homeschoolers and none of them were woke. They were the complete opposite. It probably depends on where in the country you live.
I was homeschooled, graduated at 14, started college at 15, played a sport in college when I was college aged. I now have a very good income and career and am home schooling my kids (10 and 6). AMA
Depends where you live. IIRC, you are in SD. In Oregon, most are progressives.
IMO, Conservatives and Woke individuals home school for the same reason - ‘To match their kids education with their values the best way they know how.’
EDIT: for some reason I didn’t see the end of your post. Otherwise reasons. They didn’t believe that public education would be rigorous, teach me what they thought was important and schools were particularly great. @jshaving updated
Haha yeah I realized that after I asked. Just meant why specificially (if that’s cool to ask). Wasn’t sure if they’d leaned far left or far right, or something like that.
In general, you can homeschool kids multiple different ways, and in 2022 there are for more options than in the 90s.
For me, my mom bought curriculum and taught me the core subjects: Math, English/writing, history, science, etc. I passed the state testing requirements at 14, then enrolled at a Jr. College on a full ride scholarship. While at JC, I then took the classes I didn’t have in ‘HS high school’, essentially classes that had labs.
The curriculum usually came with a book to read, lesson plans, quiz/test book, teacher book and answer key. If I needed help, I was fortunate that my mom is quite sharp and could answer questions. For the social side of school, I played and lettered in four high school sports, so I was pretty involved, I just never attended classes at the school.
Wife and I have decided that, due to the shitty public education system, we’ll either enroll our kid(s), once we have them, in either private school or homeschool.
Because my boy is turning six this summer, we have to submit our plan to the gubment.
We have homeschooled for the past year but at six is when the plan has to be submitted.