Home schooling: data sets

It's been hard for our district to plan ahead. Out of necessity, many of our students were remote learners in 2020 and continued that through last summer. Parents and teachers alike realized that the Zoom meeting stuff wasn't cutting it. We'll have test scores in a few months to verify it, but the informal consensus is that most students lost about half a year during the pandemic. The lack of in-person learning really hurt--there's really no substitute for it.

One group that actually wasn't affected that much was those students who were already being home schooled before the pandemic. They may have actually benefited, since their parents were often home more. As I said, we've yet to see test scores, but these students have always done well and reports are that that didn't change during the pandemic.

We still have many parents who don't want to send their children back to live classes just yet--primarily because they haven't been able to vaccinate them. For those families, we offer the option of live Zoom classes or home schooling. But state law mandates that a student spend as many hours per year being actively taught at home as he/she would in a live classroom. Putting the student in the corner with a book doesn't cut it.

So a new job I have is consulting with home school parents regarding their curricula and lesson plans. This used to be handled by their "regular" teachers, but there's just too many of them now--about 20% of all enrolled students. These meetings are required by state law and district policy.

One thing I'm finding out is that these home schooled students are WAY ahead of their peers in: English, social studies, foreign languages, and history and civics. They're a little bit behind in math and science. The overall effect is that they're now a year or more ahead, since they weren't slowed down by the pandemic's disruption and were always doing better to begin with. Some of us have theorized that the more intensive personal interaction (most home schooling is one-on-one) makes these students excel at those courses mentioned above, while their relatively worse performance in math and science may reflect their parents' lack of knowledge in those areas. This refers to all students in our schools, which range from grades 1-8.

Do you know any kids that are being or have been home schooled? What's your overall impression?

It's the self-selected demographics. Home-school parents are typically more motivated, wealthier, and better educated than the parents of the kids in your classrooms.

It's the same dynamic that perpetuates the myth that private schools are better at educating students than public ones. When teaching to the same demographics, public schools are superior.

Well, sure. But what's interesting is that the huge increase in home schooling included those families that didn't match that description, and even their kids are doing considerably better than their peers. You wouldn't think so, with parents who aren't qualified (or in many cases, even remotely qualified) to teach their kids taking up the mantle. But the benefits of one-on-one instruction as opposed to one-on-45 appear to trump all other considerations.

It's certainly food for thought for anyone who wants to home school their kids. But of course, that option isn't available for everyone in normal times. I agree that anyone who takes the time and effort to home school their kid(s) is probably a better and more diligent parent than one who has the opportunity but doesn't--and just plops their kid in front of a computer.

Kevin, you lost me at your second sentence when you wrote about students "out of necessity" couldn't attend school.  Students and parents in my town didn't see that necessity.  No dead, everyone's fine.

 Have you ever watched a cat, when using a sandbox, go to extremes covering up it's shitty mess? The bigger the mess, the more sand required to cover it up. Anytime Kevin gives a too long an "explanation" when defending his moronic postings, you can be assured that it is an attempt to cover up the excessive amount of crap he spews.

Are you sure about that? Generally, parents of home-schooled kids are WAY more motivated than the general population. And that's probably the most important factor.

I shouldn't presume to add to this discussion since I have no kids, but a difference in home schooling THEN (when it really was a choice) to home schooling NOW (the last school year, at least) has to be significant if viewed in global fashion.  Back THEN (my day), before computers, the matriarch would commit to the hours, the school district's curricula, etc.  One on one, at least some elementary grades.   Now I'm seeing mothers describing a lot of stress from suddenly having to become teachers, maybe to multiple children at different learning levels, i.e. ages.  What I was reading about my local area concerned some students taking the instruction over Zoom, others of same classroom/grade getting the same material at their desks in the brick and mortar classroom with teacher.  How motivated, self-directed, behavior-compliant is the kid at home to pay attention to the teacher on the computer?  Wow, what a mess, I'd guess.  As I said, I really have no idea about these things, just thoughts.

Candy

There was this pandemic thing. You may not have noticed.

Shhh, little barky dog. The grownups are talking.

Yes, but I was pointing out that the pandemic added to that group parents who weren't particularly so motivated, in that they hadn't chosen to home school their kids pre-pandemic, but their kids did as well as those of the parents who had been doing home schooling all along. We all found that surprising--we expected those kids to be barely limping along, just like the ones (most of them) who hadn't adapted well to Zoom classes.