Why do we need so much education?

Well, as much as you don't seem to trust the government... I don't trust using private agency alone, either.

"Private" doesn't automatically mean "moral", any more than with governments. But, at least governments usually provide a place to complain to and some form of accountability. Private companies can be very, very good at dodging responsibilities. Try "Glencore" to Google. And, for some horror stories more to do with education and various private institutions and set-ups... just Google a bit there, too. I've done a cursory one... and the list is just mind-boggling to wade through. I can't be bothered to mine the number of results.

edited 27th Nov '12 1:25:04 AM by Euodiachloris

Any alternative that the students and their families desire. Either the wide range of unorthodox techniques that fall under the umbrella of homeschooling, and then there's private schools.

What if we just set a budget for each student? If they enroll in a public or private school, that school gets the money. If they homeschool, they can spend it on books, field trips, tutors, and such.

There would be no reason not to open a school in a disadvantaged place if they're publicly funded. Also, homeschoolers don't have to spend that much according to my research. It shouldn't cost that much to set up private school of six or so students using homeschool techniques.

It doesn't seem dangerous to me at all. Any education opportunities would develop a reputation over time, good or bad. The difference is that now parents and students will have the option to leave the bad ones and choose better ones rather than "working for change".

"Private" does not have to mean mega-corporation. It could mean anything from that to a neighborhood co-op of three families.

edited 27th Nov '12 1:38:58 AM by Topazan

Then what about Charter Schools/Free Schools?

Keep Rolling On

I didn't automatically mean "megacorp" in that way: just used a large, bold, italic version of private avoidance of a number of things. <shrugs>

Even independent educational groups and rings can have issues at the small- or mid-size and have nothing to do with external private enterprise, as such. They are private enterprises... just not involved with mining for oil or metals.

edited 27th Nov '12 2:18:19 AM by Euodiachloris

Why is that better than what we have now?

Even Charities and Trusts can have those issues, Euo.

Keep Rolling On

Yup. Which is what a whole load of private homeschool circles would translate into: a plethora of trusts/ charities. And, I'd need a lot of convincing as to how efficient or effective that would be in any real number across any country. -.-

In many ways, that's what Britain (and the various colonies) used to have, before the various education acts and the state-school systems were introduced. "Efficient" isn't the right word. Nor "consistent".

edited 27th Nov '12 3:49:14 AM by Euodiachloris

You do realize that $6000 a student is an average, not a blanket sum right?

My son's school depends on fundrasiers and drives to maintain different aspects of the school from everything from maintaining the grounds to state regs to the computer lab.

And homeschooling is grossly under regulated. Most states don't even make the children test in a public library or some state building under outside supervision, they just send the tests to the house. How fair and objective is that? It's not.

Plus in my area, homeschool is mainly used by the very religious to "keep their kids from being indoctrinated" which as someone who has tried to teach a few of these kids at a college level leaves them drowning in misinformation and sometimes in emotional distress.

A girl ran out of my freshman biology class in tears because she thought the world was made only 6000 years ago. In my undergrad of Religious studies nearly half of the overall enlistments will drop because they have conflicts with basic lessons to the point they will even drop out of college completely.

To satisfy our humanity core, only 3 hours or one class, you have to take either World Religions or Basic Logic. That doesn't always go well with public school kids in the Bible Belt, let alone what the very insulated homeschool kids can sometimes experience.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Religion is a dangerous topic, approach it with caution.

Which is why I have no problem with religious private schools. They can still teach their faith but are also meeting the state guidelines for the basic educational needs. Homeschool, not as confident.

Two of the three colleges in my town are affiliated with a denomination of Christianity. One more strict, the other pretty much if you want that side of it you can, but it's not forced. But both in order to maintain their accreditation have to prepare their kids to maintain a certain base knowledge. When young adults from a very insulated homeschool enviroment come in, they sometimes have problems with not just socializing but learning these lessons. A girl shouldn't be driven to the point of tears over a simple geology lesson.

And speaking from someone who has taught religion, I always told my kids they can believe whatever they want. But in my class, it's not what their preacher says, it's what the scientific community says.

You can believe all Muslims are terrorists contrary to my lessons if you really want to, but that's not going to stop you needing to know the Five Pillars in order to get those points. You can belive beng a Christian is foolish but you still need to be able to pick which books aren't in the Protestant Canon but are in the Catholic Canon.

Just like to study political science doesn't mean you have t be a certain party member to understand the process of appointing a supreme court judge. Or to be a doctor doesn't mandate you belive in a soul or not.

The public school system is federally regulated to help kids maintain their personal subjective beliefs while still teaching them the basic objective education they needto function at our civil level. Private schools are just as maintained. Now depending on your state depends on how strict or loose they like to interprete these guidelinesbut there is a check and balance system to investigate possible mishandling.

Homeschool does not have such regulation. And sometimes that's not a problem. But when it is, it's normally a big one. Other tropers have already commented on what problems can come from this lack of supervision.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

The best school I've ever been to was a Christian Highschool that was using the Ontario curriculum with some tweaks and additions. When it came to conflicts between religion and science, the teachers basically just said, "This is what we believe, this is what science says, this is the evidence from both sides, make your own decision."

The International Baccalaureate on the other hand is amazing at dodging responsibility. One kid scared the school by putting a suicide note on the exam room door and running away (he was found just fine a couple days later). When the police came in, the school, under orders from the local IB head, refused to let the police talk to the students until after the finals finished. A week later, because there was no provision if someone missed the exam for any reason. The kid had to redo two years of school because of it and when asked, the local head basically said that he couldn't compromise the exams for the other students. If the kid had actually committed suicide, the IB head could have been arrested.

edited 28th Nov '12 10:54:07 AM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

*shrug* See, I went to a Catholic high school, but science and religion were kept very separate. No misinformation, no proselytizing in the class.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Yeah, my Catholic elementary school regularly put out top performers in pretty much everything beyond it. At least until the teachers all retired at the same time and got replaced by volunteer parents who had no idea what they were doing. We kicked ass while the nuns were running the place at least.

Then again, Catholicism's been relatively cool about the usual problem topics. We also had a bunch of awesome projects about Native American mythology.

I had to take a bunch of tests and stuff when I was homeschooled though. I'd usually have to sit in on one of the middle school classes every few months and take their benchmark tests. Then again, this was during the CIM fiasco; I don't remember how many of the tests were in that domain, but nobody really cared about it other than the suits who came up with it.

They didn't seem to have any trouble placing me when I rolled back in for high school.

edited 29th Nov '12 2:16:24 AM by Pykrete

If we are talking about evolution and cosmology, yeah, that's no problem at all. One "problem topic" which I am not sure if a Catholic school could take on in the proper manner, however, is sex ed. For example, what are they going to say about contraceptives and safe sex?

I only went to a Catholic elementary school, so I don't really know how this issue is dealt with in Catholic middle or high schools; but while I see nothing wrong with encouraging abstinence as an aspect of the Catholic religion, there is the fact that abstinence-only sex ed just plain does not work. Teens are teens, after all.

Then again, the sex ed lessons that I had in a public middle school were one of the most pointless wastes of time that I ever experienced, so perhaps it's not that huge a loss...

edited 29th Nov '12 3:39:02 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Going back a few pages to issues with testing, both sides' complaints seem to have pretty obvious solutions. Essay tests can be graded anonymously, say by not putting student's names on the papers (replaced by assigned numbers that the teacher doesn't know or something), and multiple choice scantrons can have a separate a separate sheet for students to note ambiguous questions (and the teacher can assess whether the question was actually ambiguous and decide to award points for both answers or something). These aren't fatal flaws with the testing systems that can't be overcome with only a little tweaking.

All I really remember about any sort of sex ed was being taught about STDs in high school and (n both public middle school and Catholic high school) being made to watch a very graphic video that first talks about the biological process of pregnancy and then showed in full detail a baby being birthed. Other than that, though, pretty much nothing, not even on abstinence. (Though it briefly came up in a religion class, not a health class.)

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Mine went over the biology in a quite respectable academic sense, discussed Catholicism's stance on it afterward, briefly covered basic contraception as a subject and point of dissent within the church, and then went on to say the high school would cover everything else on the topic in more detail.

And then in high school we covered that stuff pretty well, then watched Am I Normal?, which might be the most amazing educational video ever.

edited 29th Nov '12 4:51:11 PM by Pykrete

I don't remember much about sex ed, but in my catholic high school we did two units on it, one in Biology and one in Physical Education. I'm pretty sure we covered contraception in both, at least briefly. I think I already knew most of the information by that point, though.

Be not afraid...