Another Post hit piece on homeschooling

[Anonymous]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/11/brian-ray-homeschool-student-outcomes

I get it. Sometimes homeschooling is used to cover up abuse or indoctrinate kids. But I'm so tired of these Post articles that take only the most extreme examples and use them to conclude that homeschooling is bad. It can be - but so can public schools. We have all heard examples of kids who graduate from public high school unable to read or do basic math, or who show up with signs of abuse and schools look the other way -- or they are assaulted and bullied at school. But that doesn't mean that all schools are bad.

Any idea why the Post is not even trying to portray some sort of balance here? They could do an article, for example, on homeschooling in this area, which in many cases involves accelerated kids and motivated, involved parents? Or maybe some of the local homeschooling co-ops that have teachers with advanced degrees? Or talk to families who left the public schools because their kids were bullied (and the schools did nothing), or their kids have disabilities and were not being given appropriate services, or were restrained in seclusion rooms? Because I personally know families who homeschool for these very reasons.

There just seems to be an agenda to paint homeschoolers as radical nuts rather than an attempt to provide an objective view.

[Anonymous]

WaPo is not an impartial news source.

[Anonymous]

I've been reading it more as an expose on the HSLDA than anything else. They aren't interested in the local microcosm. They are focused on the loudest proponents, who also happen to be the nuttiest and the most misleading. Of course they don't represent everyone, but they are the most visible and the most influential on policy. I don't read the Post series as attacking homeschooling in general, mostly the HSLDA and the lack of regulation.

Fundamentally, if homeschooling is so awesome, why the fear of regulation? If the superiority is real, shouldn't homeschoolers welcome the chance to prove it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been reading it more as an expose on the HSLDA than anything else. They aren't interested in the local microcosm. They are focused on the loudest proponents, who also happen to be the nuttiest and the most misleading. Of course they don't represent everyone, but they are the most visible and the most influential on policy. I don't read the Post series as attacking homeschooling in general, mostly the HSLDA and the lack of regulation.

Fundamentally, if homeschooling is so awesome, why the fear of regulation? If the superiority is real, shouldn't homeschoolers welcome the chance to prove it?

This. The underlying premise of the series is the lack of regulation, not homeschoolers themselves. It’s about lobbyists and legislators.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/11/brian-ray-homeschool-student-outcomes

I get it. Sometimes homeschooling is used to cover up abuse or indoctrinate kids. But I'm so tired of these Post articles that take only the most extreme examples and use them to conclude that homeschooling is bad. It can be - but so can public schools. We have all heard examples of kids who graduate from public high school unable to read or do basic math, or who show up with signs of abuse and schools look the other way -- or they are assaulted and bullied at school. But that doesn't mean that all schools are bad.

Any idea why the Post is not even trying to portray some sort of balance here? They could do an article, for example, on homeschooling in this area, which in many cases involves accelerated kids and motivated, involved parents? Or maybe some of the local homeschooling co-ops that have teachers with advanced degrees? Or talk to families who left the public schools because their kids were bullied (and the schools did nothing), or their kids have disabilities and were not being given appropriate services, or were restrained in seclusion rooms? Because I personally know families who homeschool for these very reasons.

There just seems to be an agenda to paint homeschoolers as radical nuts rather than an attempt to provide an objective view.

It's an article about Ray, who is a famous authority on homeschooling. Are you saying it's not factual? Or that it hurts your feelings?
If you believe in homeschooling, you should want demagogues taken down.

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You home educate if you believe it’s biblically normative and/or commanded,” Ray added. “You don’t home educate to get high test scores.”

He made a similar argument in an August podcast interview. “Does God give you the choice to just delegate [your children’s education] to anybody you want?” he said. “Absolutely not.”
----

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/11/brian-ray-homeschool-student-outcomes

I get it. Sometimes homeschooling is used to cover up abuse or indoctrinate kids. But I'm so tired of these Post articles that take only the most extreme examples and use them to conclude that homeschooling is bad. It can be - but so can public schools. We have all heard examples of kids who graduate from public high school unable to read or do basic math, or who show up with signs of abuse and schools look the other way -- or they are assaulted and bullied at school. But that doesn't mean that all schools are bad.

Any idea why the Post is not even trying to portray some sort of balance here? They could do an article, for example, on homeschooling in this area, which in many cases involves accelerated kids and motivated, involved parents? Or maybe some of the local homeschooling co-ops that have teachers with advanced degrees? Or talk to families who left the public schools because their kids were bullied (and the schools did nothing), or their kids have disabilities and were not being given appropriate services, or were restrained in seclusion rooms? Because I personally know families who homeschool for these very reasons.

There just seems to be an agenda to paint homeschoolers as radical nuts rather than an attempt to provide an objective view.

Can you put the persecution complex down now?

Oct 2023 articles fawning over homeschooling

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/homeschooling-growth-data-by-district/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/10/31/takeaways-homeschooling-enrollment-poll/

[Anonymous]

Homeschooling needs tough regulations. The abuses of the worst will be curbed. The reputation of the good practitioners will be improved as a result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Homeschooling needs tough regulations. The abuses of the worst will be curbed. The reputation of the good practitioners will be improved as a result.

Get rid of the curriculum saying that evolution is fake or the world is flat and that sort of thing.

[Anonymous]

The only homeschoolers I know were fundies who were ill socialized and learned... inaccurate information.

I think they got a stipend to do homeschooling, so that meant the SAHM of howevermanykids didnt have to get a job. They only cared about the $$ and not letting their kids learn actual sex ed, or science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only homeschoolers I know were fundies who were ill socialized and learned... inaccurate information.

I think they got a stipend to do homeschooling, so that meant the SAHM of howevermanykids didnt have to get a job. They only cared about the $$ and not letting their kids learn actual sex ed, or science.

Well, if she was a fundy she probably wouldn't have gotten a job anyway.

My SIL is Mormon, SAHM to six kids who were/are all homeschooled. I didn't like that they got a stipend because the local school district wasn't exactly flush with cash, but boy are her kids educated. They are probably getting a better education than my kids are in public school in NOVA.

Truly my only issue with homeschooling is the way that people use it to tear apart public education. It is wild that public tax dollars for education can just be given to parents to do god knows what with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only homeschoolers I know were fundies who were ill socialized and learned... inaccurate information.

I think they got a stipend to do homeschooling, so that meant the SAHM of howevermanykids didnt have to get a job. They only cared about the $$ and not letting their kids learn actual sex ed, or science.

Well, if she was a fundy she probably wouldn't have gotten a job anyway.

My SIL is Mormon, SAHM to six kids who were/are all homeschooled. I didn't like that they got a stipend because the local school district wasn't exactly flush with cash, but boy are her kids educated. They are probably getting a better education than my kids are in public school in NOVA.

Truly my only issue with homeschooling is the way that people use it to tear apart public education. It is wild that public tax dollars for education can just be given to parents to do god knows what with.

I think it’s rare that people get money for homeschooling to do whatever they want with (and to be honest I don’t even believe you). The states I know about that give some funding for homeschooling have many requirements to get any money and then the money is never actually given, it’s just that certain approved activities, books, etc are reimbursed for the education of the child.

And FWIW the homeschoolers I know also fall into the category of being far better educated than they would be in the public schools. It’s not for everyone but it clearly works for some people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WaPo is not an impartial news source.

OP, do you not understand that WaPo has moved very left? Which is why it is having financial problems? I haven't read it since it went crazy left under Obama. No one who is a serious person in D.C. reads WaPo anymore

So, what do serious people in DC read?

[Anonymous]

So do something to prove that Homeschooling is a good choice and talk to the press about it.

Tired of people just whining but not willing to prove anything.

[Anonymous]

My only beef with homeschooling is the lack of standards. If homeschooled children were required to take all of the same required tests as publicly educated children, and were force to return to the classroom if they didn't pass, that would weed out a lot of the extremists that The Washington Post writes about.

[Anonymous]

Many publicly educated children do not pass their state SOLs, which is tragic as because those tests set a low bar.

It is very far from clear how moving homeschooled kids into a public school will cause them to pass the tests. Every homeschooled child I know is being home schooled precisely because of dreadful academic failures at their assigned public school.