California court strikes a blow for children; homeschooling virtually outlawed.

[Dinner]

School is only six hours a day so that leaves 18 hours a day plus 48 hours on the weekends where parents could squeeze in extra tutoring for students if they wanted to.

[Wezil]

Agree, but let's be more effective and not waste 6 hours a day.

[aneeshm]

Here's a thought experiment:

Who has a greater incentive (or any incentive at all) to act in a manner beneficial to a child - the child's own parent, or a bureaucrat or a politician who never deals directly with the child? Who is going to benefit (more) if the child in question gets a good education? Who is going to lose (more) if the child is not properly educated? Who is more interested in the long-term (and not merely election-term, or enough-to-cover-my-arse-in-case-something-goes-wrong term) welfare of the child?

Given your answers to all these questions, who is the person to entrust with the decisions regarding the nature of the education the child will receive?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

So in essence this entire thread is nothing more than an affirmation of teacher unions and accreditation. :barf:

With a sad swipe at creationistas for validation, how pitiful.

[Dinner]

Progress.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
So in essence this entire thread is nothing more than an affirmation of teacher unions and accreditation. :barf:

With a sad swipe at creationistas for validation, how pitiful.

It's an affirmation that people who teach children should be qualified to teach children.

Most folks who were homeschooling in California were breaking the law. What kind of example is that for our youth to observe?

[Jon Miller]

This is just going to encourage private schooling, as the peopel who would be willing to dedicate themselves to their children still won't send their kids to the ****ty public schools.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Wezil
Agree, but let's be more effective and not waste 6 hours a day.

Many public schools are worse then a waste of 6 horus a day. If the parent is actaully teaching the kids (and there should be checks ot make sure this is happeneing), the kid is getting a far more effective education then most schools can provide.

JM

[Jon Miller]

http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp

JM

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


It's an affirmation that people who teach children should be qualified to teach children.

Most folks who were homeschooling in California were breaking the law. What kind of example is that for our youth to observe?

People who commited sodomy in many areas (in even the 90s, maybe even today) were breaking the law. Is something being the law mean that it should be the law?

JM

[GePap]

Why is it that most of the rest of the world does not have these stupid problems with education? Why is it that in many places in the world, including many poor countries with neglegible resources compared to the US public education actually works well enough to get their kids to read and do math? Why is it so hard to make American children monolingual while so many other states can make their children multilingual?

Is this level of stupidity reserved specifically to the US and to a much lesser extent Canada?

[Whoha]

People who commited sodomy in many areas (in even the 90s, maybe even today) were breaking the law. Is something being the law mean that it should be the law?

Thats why we have trial by Jury, and the ability of the legislature to change the law.

However, it is unlikely that this law will change, and the people home schooling their children will just have to leave.

[Zkribbler]

I don't think the problems you see discussed here are nationwide. They're more localized to southern California and other areas along the boarders.

One, as pointed out in one of the posts above, in the L.A. area, many rich areas (e.g Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, La Canada) are not part of the L.A.U.S.D.'s but have formed their own school districts, leaving L.A.U.S.D. underfunded. Two, our public schools are being overwhelmed by migrant students, many of whom are uneducated and don't speak the language.


[For our British friends, what you call "public schools," we call "private schools." Our "public schools" are free government-run schools.]

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Why is the proper training a teaching certificate. To use an example here, Doc Strangelove wouldn't be qualified to teach his daughter because he has the wrong degree. Same with me.

The issue I have is that the training (2 month certificate), is by no means indicative of skill or ability or even competency.

It's a better indication of skill or ability than no indication whatsoever. If you have an issue with the certificate requirements, that's understandable... but wanting children taught by those with absolutely no oversight is completely ridiculous.

There are plenty of people without that specific training who can teach and who teach very well. To say otherwise is to state that teachers become magically qualified once they earn their certificate.

You have it backwards.

For instance, you don't give drivers licenses to make people good drivers. You make requirements for drivers licenses to try to weed out the bad drivers.

That's not the case here. They haven't been abandoned, and neither have their parents failed. Therefore the state has no cause to intervene.

Read the article more closely. There were complaints made, they were investigated, the children's learning environment was deemed unsuitable, and that's why it went to court in the first place.

Quite the opposite. Too many cooks spoil the broth. The homeschooled children are being adequately educated according to objective standards. Therefore the state has no cause to intervene.

Not in this case. Read the article again.

That's not what the law says. If the law said that homeschooled children that are falling behind can be required to return to normal school, I would agree with you.

There likely is a law along those lines. (In a manner of speaking, this law functions that way in this specific case. Since how it's been applied is in regards to children who's education was found to be lacking.)

However, this does nothing to address the problem. All it states is that homeschooling parents will be punished if they don't have a degree. In what way does this improve education for homeschool children, or prevent them from falling behind? A degree isn't magic.

That is not all. You can have properly trained tutors overseeing the education at home. There are other options as well like video classrooms, private schools, magnet schools, ect.

(A parent who really cared about their child's education would go for a good private/magnet school. They'd still be involved in their child's education of course, but the facilities and specialized teachers are something homeschooling just cannot provide in most cases.)

In any case, if there is a problem with this situation, it's with the process to aquire credentials for teaching, not with requiring them.

Well clearly they do. Have you looked at the competency ratings? What percentage of kids fail the system inside the public schools? Are not teachers themselves opposed to standardised testing because of other concerns?

Having a minimum qualification for those responsible for teaching children is a good thing. No amount of twisting of statistics or ignoring reality will ever change that BK.

Honestly, if the schools were sincerely concerned about failing students they would be encouraging homeschooling, since it is more successful at bringing students up to the expected norms.

It certainly can be. Though the parents who just drop their kids off (or let them take the bus) and that's the extent of their involvement in their education are almost surely not going to be good teachers. Public schools are failing in large part because parents aren't involved in the process. That's a choice the parents make, since it's quite easy to be involved in your child's education even if they go to public school. (My parents definitely were involved.)

If we really cared about our kids, we'd have parents involved in their kid's education whether it's public, private, or homeschooled, as well as make sure that those who are teaching the children... whether public, private, or homeschooled... were qualified to do so.

Sadly, some sort of parental licensing would cause such an uproar... and be impossible to enforce... but it really would be best for children if parents had to have some sort of minimum level of training in how to be a parent before having kids.

I am arguing that competency trumps credentials. The important thing is the result, a student who is well educated. The method is less important so long as the results are there. If the one-on-one attention trumps the credentials, then yes, the system needs to be fixed.

It's not an either-or. You can have credentials ensuring a competency with a 1 on 1 environment.

You can't just pretend that credentials and training provide nothing simply because a credentialed teacher in a public school has to teach 30+ students simultaneously, most of whom are just there cause they have to be and who's home/social life is in complete odds with their education, instead of being able to have 1 on 1 attention.

There is value in 1 on 1 attention, undeniable. That doesn't mean there is no value in properly trained teachers/tutors being involved. A good system would give children 1 on 1 instruction with properly trained instructors.

You want to get rid of the training just because 1 on 1 is better than 1 teacher for 30 students. That's nonsensical.

As for state standards, I'm not against them. I am against holding homeschool kids to higher standards wrt to standardised testing then children in the public schools. Up here kids get tested once every three years. If that level of scrutiny is sufficient for children in the public school, then the same should apply to homeschooled children.

If that level of scrutiny is sufficient for teachers in the public school, then the same should apply to homeschooled children.

Either you are saying that public school teachers shouldn't be required to have their teaching certificate, or that homeschooled should. Which is it?

Thank you. If homeschooling is providing higher standards then the public schools, then this credentialism is unnecessary.

If you ignore reality and pretend that average cases make everything ok for those being left behind.

True, but credentials don't replace competency. If competency is there without the credentials, then why are we forcing people to take unnecessary credentials?

That is an issue with the method of aquiring credentials. Not with requiring credentials.

You assume competency is already there. This case clearly argues against you, since it went to court because the competency was found lacking.

Credentials will weed out some of the bad cases. It's the least we can do. (And of course the better the credential process, the better it will work. That's it's own issue though.)

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Aeson
You assume competency is already there. This case clearly argues against you, since it went to court because the competency was found lacking.

I do assume that someone who has been educated in teaching and has passed the required tests to become a certified teach is competent to teach, yes.

In contrast, I do question the competency of well meaning people who are neither educated in how to teach and have not passed any test proving their competence.

This case didn't go to court because competency was found lacking. Rather, private schools had been submitting false atendance reports indicating that students who were being homeschooled were attending these private schoolss. Once caught, their argument was that the law requiring childen be taught by credential teachers and/or tutors was unconstitutional because parents have a constitutional right to homeschool their children. The Court found no such right in the Constitution.