If a family is willing and resourced to (deeply) consider homeschooling because of one subject (you mentioned Algebra for 8th graders[1]), then another less expensive/effortful path could be hiring an afterschool math tutor, or sitting down with your child to work through Khan Academy together.
Both suggestions require extra time, while still keeping your child "within the system" through attending school and (presumably?) receiving a decent-enough education in other non-math subjects. If the malaise extends to (many) other subjects, then I could see how home schooling becomes a more attractive option.
The math situation is a clear signal that school administration/education departments do not prioritize education, and in fact find it unfair that some students actually manage to learn something, and want to stop that. It's not that they don't have the resources or enough interest to fill classes; it's that they don't want kids to learn too much. It's fair to infer that this attitude is not limited to math.
Ostensibly education is why the schools exist. If they're not going to do that, let's at least let the kids go play in the park or something. They'd probably get better socialization that way anyway.
> It’s not that they don’t have the resources […] it’s that they don’t want kids to learn too much.
Hehe, this is simply not true. Where did this conspiracy theory come from, and why do you think this poorly of people who are spending their time trying to help kids despite low pay and a constant barrage of harsh critical opinions from parents, law-makers, and hordes of armchair critics on the internet?
You’re making wild assumptions and using the worst possible motivation to build a straw man criticism. If you can do better, maybe you should get involved or consider being a school administrator?
I don’t like it when there is less support for the motivated students, and it happened to me in high school. But you are aware the situation we’re discussing is due to needing to educate 100% of the student body up to a minimum standard, right? Public schools are almost always underfunded and short-staffed. Nobody’s trying to actively prevent the smart kids from learning, they’re trying to avoid using all their resources teaching the kids that don’t need it as badly from leaving the larger group of kids who’s families have less money completely behind. Your comment is completely ignoring what happens to the students who are behind in math already, and how to get them enough help.
What is always true is that what’s best for the group isn’t necessarily best for the individual. In this case, you’re suggesting the opposite of prioritizing education for all, and thus you’re not talking about prioritizing education, you’re talking about prioritizing resources toward students that already meet the minimum standards. Schools, teachers, and administrators are trying to prioritize education for all, and they have an explicit duty to get every last kid up to basic minimum standards. If they don’t meet those goals of getting the bottom half of their classes passing, they could lose their jobs and they would be failing to prioritize education for all.
Public schools are intentionally harming gifted students in the name of equality. The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, VA intentionally hid merit achievements from students which would have helped in college applications.
Banning advanced math is just another instance of this. A slower paced class for lower performing students would actually help them. Bringing down advanced students only serves to make the school look more equitable.
I had to Google the incident you’re referring to. Sounds like there was a delay in notifications, it only hurt early acceptance applications, and that it won’t happen again because they got a lot of flack. I don’t think this situation is relevant to schools not offering algebra in junior high, because this was specifically a top school that offers advanced classes. You’re bringing up a quite different point about college admissions, and that debate should be focused on colleges, because they themselves have started sometimes discounting or ignoring the academic achievement list of applicants, due to excessive gaming of the application system, and also acknowledgement that meritocracy is living up to its original coined meaning, as a sign that merit is at least as much an outcome of money as it is of talent, in other words so-called talent is a byproduct of having support and we’ve been failing to support people who might have had a chance largely in favor of people lucky enough to have rich parents.
> A slower paced class for lower performing students would actually help them.
Agreed, bingo! If you don’t have the resources to cater to people who are ahead, the only choice to help those who need help is to lower the bar.
> Nobody’s trying to actively prevent the smart kids from learning
This is false. Why else ban teaching algebra district-wide to 8th graders? The explicit justification is that it helps some students get too far ahead of other students and causes inequitable access to take calculus classes later on, which is considered a bad thing.
Teachers even complain if you help your child accelerate through the textbook for the year.
Who’s “banning” math, exactly? Give me examples and specifics, and please elaborate on what the difference is between a ban and not offering advanced math. You’re basing your argument on the imaginary hyperbolic terminology of the above comment.
Aside from the ridiculousness of calling 8th grade algebra "advanced math" (I was taking the equivalent in 6th grade where I grew up, in a low-income public school), "giving directives that schools are not to devote any resources to teaching 8th grade algebra" is in every sense equivalent to "banning teaching algebra."
If a state did the same thing with LGBT topics or evolution, I suspect you'd take no issue with calling it a ban.
> If a state did the same thing with LGBT topics or evolution
Hahaha you mean the topics that are actually getting banned in states like Florida and Kentucky?
> giving directives that schools are not to devote any resources to teaching 8th grade algebra is in every sense equivalent to “banning teaching algebra”
Again, please provide some specific examples of this happening. Are you getting all worked up over something that is mostly made up or taken completely out of context? No way to know unless you cite the actual problem and demonstrate the magnitude of the problem.
Of course there absolutely is a huge difference between not having the resources for a class and banning it by law, and you know it. You can argue the outcomes might be equivalent, if you want, but it undermines your own argument to exaggerate.
Fair enough, I’m not defending SFUSD specifically, I’m arguing from my own experience having seen similar policies made specifically over resource constraints. That text notwithstanding it would still be true that adding options for advanced students does take away resources that could be used for students that are behind, one way or another. It might not be a lot, and it might be reasonable to offer advanced math, but the money is still finite and could be used to further help kids in the most need. In this entire thread we’re still only talking about kids who’ve already met the educational goals, and not talking about how to avoid leaving some kids behind, especially the poorer ones.
Due to polarization. People are herded to fight over stupid but controversial things so things never change. That said, parents in general invest and care a lot about their V2s than any government could ever lie about. Inevitably their children will be indoctrinated to believe in things that go against their values and they will be rightfully pissed off and afraid.
Are you claiming that there weren't enough interested kids to put together a full class to teach algebra in middle school? Specifically in large cities like San Francisco or Seattle where this kind of thing started? As far as I know, that justification is not being given, and instead the argument is about how some kids are learning more advanced material than others, and the "fair" thing is to hold back the more advanced students.
The thing about tracking is that it doesn't require more resources. If you have 6 classes in a year, you can put e.g. the top 17% together, and they can move at a faster pace than the bottom 17%. Or you can let kids take classes with mixed ages. Gifted kids don't need more resources. Literally you could have them go sit in the library and do what they want and they'd probably learn more than sitting in a class where they're forced to pay attention to something they've already mastered. When I was in calculus I was bored enough that I would also read my uncle's discrete math book that he let me borrow, but most teachers don't like when you ignore them, and when you're in a class with the lower end of the aptitude curve, there's negative peer pressure around being a nerd.
> The thing about tracking is that it doesn't require more resources.
Hehe of course it does. You’re talking about more curriculums, more book and material acquisition, more teachers with more training, etc. And maybe lots of schools don’t have 6 different math classes.
> Gifted kids don’t need more resources.
Agreed! That’s maybe why some schools are focusing on the kids who do need more resources?
In fairness to your argument, I think “gifted” kids do need support though, it’s just that they are statistically better at either having it given to them outside of school, or of finding it on their own. What’s left is just a rather weak argument about not letting them get bored. Solving boredom should take a back seat to solving education for the less fortunate, IMO.
The curriculum already exists. Textbook selection is already done. The discussion is about delaying teaching a subject, not eliminating it. You don't need more materials, just different ones (one additional algebra book and one fewer remedial book). And you don't need more teachers. Just be more effective about grouping the kids the teachers are already teaching. My suburban school had no problem putting together multiple sections of algebra in middle school. I'm sure a city with 10x the population can do it too. And if a teacher can't teach basic algebra, they probably shouldn't be teaching math at all. Or if you mean later classes like calculus, let the kids leave, and if there's a local community college, allocate some of the money you saved to let the kid take classes there.
> What’s left is just a rather weak argument about not letting them get bored. Solving boredom should take a back seat to solving education for the less fortunate, IMO.
Okay, then let the advanced kids go sit in the library, go outside and play, or go home. Making them sit in class is, if anything, going to make them anti-social and create resentment toward the "dumb" kids. I don't think torturing a kid making them sit bored out of their mind among people they don't like for 15% of their life for no reason is a "weak" thing to argue against.
Lots of gifted kids fall through the cracks because they are bored and get themselves in trouble. Gifted does not mean good life skills or early adulthood
Does anyone actually believe this? It would be more than naive to do so. On r/teachers just the other day, I was reading about one of them complaining that all they really are, are baby-sitters so they parents can work dayshift. Even they know what they're for.
But if everyone were to suddenly be willing to speak this truth aloud, it'd be too absurd to continue. People are shamed and guilted into paying the taxes for education. No one could be shamed or guilted into paying for someone else's teenager daycare.
> The math situation is a clear signal that school administration/education departments do not prioritize education, and in fact find it unfair that some students actually manage to learn something, and want to stop that.
I was in first grade in 1980 (1981?). It was like this for me the entire run of it. Wanting to learn more, hungry for it, with them rationing what I could learn to tiny little crumbs a few times throughout the school year. Studies were paced out for the dumbest kid in class. I think I made it to my sophomore year of highschool before I gave up, and when I did, that was my fault too.
It was bad even then, and at least back then they were still pretending that it was about education.
>Does anyone actually believe this? It would be more than naive to do so.
GP clearly believes it, since they wrote this. I believe it too, and I think this is a mainstream belief, not a "more than naive" one. Your one anecdote based on a Reddit rant (and, I assume, personal bias) is not nearly convincing enough to change my mind.
I would not dispute that it's a mainstream belief. But I don't think that this has ever been a good counter-argument to "it's a naive belief".
My anecdote, such as it is, is hardly uncommon. It is in fact, nearly a cliche at this point, or a stereotype. I sincerely doubt that me having communicated it to you is your first encounter with the idea.
As to your mind, I don't wish to change it. I am content with you remaining naive. My own children receive advantage from this. Please continue to screw up the public education system for decades, my entire lineage can only prosper the longer this continues.
> On r/teachers just the other day, I was reading about one of them complaining that all they really are, are baby-sitters so they parents can work dayshift. Even they know what they're for.
So we're clear, when a teacher complains about being daycare, what they mean is they're:
- an educator
- an administrative assistant
- daycare
The first of those is a reasonable expectation of the job. The second two, less-so.
And so you complain about the unreasonable things, but don't mention the reasonable one... because it's literally the job.
Taking kvetching about ancillary mandates to mean that education isn't happening or isn't still the primary job is weird.
That isn't what the person meant. They pointed out, clearly, multiple times, that though they were trained as an educator, no education takes place. Leaving only the "daycare" part.
When someone disputes this, what they really mean is that they are uncomfortable with the realization that it is daycare, that it hurts them to consider that something so profoundly part of their status quo is rotten to the core, and it makes their own lives seem dishonest. They would rather than misperception that education still occurs to persist unchallenged.
> because it's literally the job.
Hasn't been, for years. It's not improving/reverting. You're willfully blind to it.
> or isn't still the primary job is weird.
Please don't mistake me. I'm not claiming that education has been secondary to other concerns. I'm saying that it doesn't happen at any significant rate at all, isn't in anyone's list of priorities, and that when it does happen it is accidental and unrepeatable.
> When someone disputes this, what they really mean is that they are uncomfortable with the realization that it is daycare, that it hurts them to consider that something so profoundly part of their status quo is rotten to the core, and it makes their own lives seem dishonest. They would rather than misperception that education still occurs to persist unchallenged.
Or, they disagree, and they have their own thoughts.
> Please don't mistake me. I'm not claiming that education has been secondary to other concerns. I'm saying that it doesn't happen at any significant rate at all, isn't in anyone's list of priorities, and that when it does happen it is accidental and unrepeatable.
As someone with two parents, multiple family members, and past partners in the profession of education, early childhood and other... we will have to agree to disagree.
I'm sure your opinions are formed from your own experiences.
> then another less expensive/effortful path could be hiring an afterschool math tutor, or sitting down with your child to work through Khan Academy together.
...so now after your child spends hours every day at school, they have to spend yet more hours learning what they should have learned in school.
You can see why so many parents decide that for more effort, they can save their child a lot of wasted time, effort, resentment, and bad influences. Particularly families where at least one parent can stay at home (and these days, working from home makes that so much easier once kids are old enough to learn by themselves).
"the achievement test scores of this group of home school students are exceptionally high--the median scores were typically in the 70th to 80th percentile; 25% of home school students are enrolled one or more grades above their age-level public and private school peers;"[1]
But it's psychological outcomes and averages, so I'd take any study with a grain of salt. It does match my experience having home-schooled friends growing up, it's just so much more efficient to be learning at one's own pace than that of the slowest kid out of 30.
This is kind of self-selecting. If your kids are poorly taught and don't have any collegiate aspirations, why are you going to subject them to achievement tests. You're not. So the only home school students taking those tests are those who are going to do well.
Compared to public schools, where most kids are going to take some kind of achievement test. Whether it be the SAT, ACT, or state-level grade advancement test.
It was indeed self-selected (parents volunteered to administer the test) and notes itself that it did not attempt to control for variables, and so should not be used for comparison purposes.
Also, the demographics are pretty wonky, as they note:
- 94% white
- 97.2% two-parent marriages
- 93.8% Christian mother (no info on other parent?)
- 2-3x general pop's attainment of 4 year degree or higher
- ~2x likelihood to be in the highest income brackets (50k+)
- Essentially no home schooling families in the lowest income bracket (0.8% vs 12.6% of all families with children)
I honestly think social sciences aren't all that amenable to the scientific method - too hard to control all variables - and I'm sure someone could cherry pick studies to say the opposite of what I'm posting here. But, what else can we do?
Agreed. Social sciences are notoriously difficult to rigorously normalize, mostly due to the natural variation and impracticality of recruiting a valid cohort (in $ or time).
It's a miracle even drug development on the harder science side works as well as it does.
From what I've read, there's almost no data in it since it's all done in private with little to no oversight.
This makes the comparison very hard, since one side is has all of its successes and failures critiqued in public, and the other side is only ever talked about with anecdotal data.
Personally I believe there should be some sort of periodic standardized test for homeschooled kids too. Even if it's not for "passing" a grade, so we know in which level of learning they are compared to everyone else.
If we can't compare them, how can we evaluate its merits and flaws?
We don't even require parents to notify all states that they are homeschooling their kids. Those kids just disappear from the system entirely, no reporting on outcomes. Homeschooling struggles from a deep distrust of any sort of oversight, IMO. It means their best successes get discounted because "of course they'd succeed anyway with involved parents" and their worst abuses get rugswept as "not real homeschooling." No way to numerically make determinations like "is homeschooling as good or better than public school on average" if you refuse to make the population of homeschoolers identifiable.
This is mostly due to the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).
Which has essentially the same incentives and results that the NRA does -- cater to the craziest of your constituents, fan outrage, then push the most extreme views (to protect everyone).
As a result, HSLDA essentially says that no child abuse or sexual assault exists in the home schooling communities, because it's the only way to justify their position that zero regulation is the only appropriate amount of regulation.
I'd be a fan of some nationwide objective test, given once per year, that tracks level of achievement of all students, homeschooled, public, or private. Sadly it seems we're moving away from that as a country, because no one likes to be objectively measured.
For the SATs, homeschooled students score ~75 points higher than public school students. We can draw only limited conclusions from that, though. People self select into taking the SATs. And there's the the bigger issue of demographics: given the demographics of homeschoolers who take the SAT, you'd expect them to outperform anyway. Regardless, more data is better.
Many states is an overstatement. Only 13 require any sort of testing. Even in those 13, not all grades are tested, and often a parent may provide a nonstandardized 'portfolio' in place of testing. The other 37 states have no required testing whatsoever.
You're assuming kids have the extra time for that. Homeschooling also is much more time efficient. There's a lot of time eliminated even you're not trying to get a whole classroom on the same page (literally and figuratively), and leaves more time for play, extra curriculars or special interests and positive socialization, things that existed more prominently in education when there were smaller class sizes. You can also cater more to where the kid is at in a subject, moving faster in subjects they excel at and slower in subjects they struggle with, as well as accommodate any learning disabilities or idiosyncrasies as well as age specific level of brain development (huge differences in comprehension levels with just a six month age difference in certain subjects. It's also what the ultra rich and children celebrities effectively do, purchasing a bespoke individualized education plan just in a class of 4-5 in private school.
I always laugh at the people insist it's best to let their kids be guinea pigs while public school systems which aren't even utilized but it's most vocal advocates for their own children are on a multi decade track of "figuring it out".
The most likely place someone is to experience violence in their lifetime is in a school, sexual abuse and assault rates are higher than in the Catholic Church or BSA by population. You can't be mad at people for opting out while the rest of the advocates figure it out for the 5th decade of objective decline and empty promises when problems they've experienced when they were in school haven't even been addressed or have gotten worse. They may be voting for the right people and are active advocates for better education but their kids are in immediate need of a better education.
> then another less expensive/effortful path could be hiring an afterschool math tutor, or sitting down with your child to work through Khan Academy together
But the objection is "inequity". Surely this extra effort creates more inequity?
It is and honestly we’re doing that right now with Seattles equity based schooling program but there is a finite number of hours in the day so you can only do 1 or 2 subjects. If you replace math with remedial math, science with social Justice and writing with unstructured scribbling there just isn’t enough time left over to teach that.
Both suggestions require extra time, while still keeping your child "within the system" through attending school and (presumably?) receiving a decent-enough education in other non-math subjects. If the malaise extends to (many) other subjects, then I could see how home schooling becomes a more attractive option.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37741653