It might seem better to us but I doubt kids see it like that. Most kids enjoy being in a school environment with their friends. You lose the very important social aspect of school with homeschooling/online courses.
>> À la carte education sounds much more useful than a buffet of stuff selected by someone else for you.
With online courses parents would most likely select what the child learns, it will still be "a buffet of stuff selected by someone else for you". The reason being if given the choice I would be a majority of kids would decide against doing a Maths or English course.
1. Parents can choose what is best for their children, instead of a "democratically" chosen buffet.
2. The social aspect can be addressed by having physical activity clubs/gatherings/groups/centers. I don't know if schools already do this, but being able to choose Skiing as a Phy Ed since grade 1, or whatever tickles your child's fancy just sounds like a much better opportunity to perhaps become a professional athlete in that field.
The burden will fall to the parents to decide how well rounded or specialized they want their children to be in certain aspects - mental or physical.
There could be suggested coursework by companies/industries that would help parents choose what their child needs to learn to be successful in a certain industry.
Let's say my kid shows interest in becoming an Astronaut. I look up Space Company X's suggested education outline and roughly follow it instead of having my kid learn everything until they're in the later teens when they finally choose what they want to spend 8+ hours a day on.
> Parents can choose what is best for their children
They don't need those English courses, or waste time on that History stuff. They'll never need chemistry or physics so why waste their time on that...
There is a time to pick your courses, it's called University. Primary and Secondary school should be a buffet of many many things. Things that are 'unimportant' to their work are actually important to them as an individual. Neither the child nor most parents recognize that.
Case in point, a lot of the current stupidity in US politics is because of people misunderstanding or flat out not knowing the history of the US and the political process in the US. This idea of a la carte education would make that worse. However no parent is going to have their kid 'waste' their time on history or civics when they could be studying to be the next Steve Jobs.
> my kid shows interest in becoming an Astronaut
And next week they'll want to be a drummer. Kids whims change with the wind. Most don't solidify on a career idea until their late teens, if not later.
> The social aspect can be addressed by having physical activity clubs/gatherings/groups/centers. I don't know if schools already do this,
They do. Really, the negative comments here on homeschooling are staggeringly out of date.
Go look at K12.[0] That's what "homeschoolers" in the State of California use, through something called CAVA. I've got two boys in CAVA and one boy in regular public school. The K12 courses are incredibly well-designed.
The education in the public school (and we're in the best school in Palmdale) is terrible. CAVA is amazingly good, way better than the education I got in public school growing up.
Were you homeschooled? Because I was, and all though I don't want to go into extensive detail on why I despise it, I will just say that parents HS because they think they know what's best for their children, but they often don't.
I lived in an area with a horrible school district, so I understand why parents in school districts like that think they can do better, but in reality HS parents should be putting their energy into making public schools better.
K12/CAVA is "public school". It's the normal, California public school system -- it's just a charter school.
But no, I wasn't home-schooled. I doubt it would have been a good choice pre-Internet, to be honest.
Today, I firmly believe that CAVA is the best choice for kids in California if the goal of school is to actually educate them, especially pre-HS, vs. just be state-provided day care. The K12 curriculum and materials are amazingly good. And they're free -- like I said, it's public school. :)
I was responding to the "Really, the negative comments here on homeschooling are staggeringly out of date." part of your post. I find that a lot of the criticism of homeschooling still rings true.
>> À la carte education sounds much more useful than a buffet of stuff selected by someone else for you.
With online courses parents would most likely select what the child learns, it will still be "a buffet of stuff selected by someone else for you". The reason being if given the choice I would be a majority of kids would decide against doing a Maths or English course.