<p>hi guys, I decided to do my PERSUASIVE research paper on homeschooling (AGAINST IT and FOR regular schooling). do you guys have any opinions about this? Any suggestions that I could put in my research paper or any sources? Thanks guys~ you guys are always the best, and the smartest!</p>
<p>Well, I think different methods work for different people. Just arguing against homeschooling doesn't make much sense to me given the variety of people who decide to homeschool and the various reasons for their decisions. School's great for some kids, but surely you don't feel it's ideal for everyone. I've met more than a few homeschoolers who never intended to homeschool-they ended up turning to it as a last resort, when regular school did not meet their kids' needs.</p>
<p>opportunities, clubs, leadership, can you really get all the options from home schooling? all the languages offered</p>
<p>lack of real oversight, easiness for cheating, limited points of view, narrow world view, and very inconsistent methods--</p>
<p>some are "homeschooled' but attend classes, some are taught by mom, some do stuff online</p>
<p>I would suggest you focus on a particular aspect of homeschooling. sometimes homeschooling is 100 times better than the public school option -- sometimes not.</p>
<p>perhaps you can argue that homeschoolers should be required to register, or test, or be evaluated. I am not for that (I homeschool) but it is an argument that you could back-up with some info. Just saying that homeschooling is bad is too broad, to general.</p>
<p>another option could be that public schools should offer services to homeschoolers -- classes, materials, evaluations, etc. After all -- they pay the same taxes. </p>
<p>If you want to ask homeschoolers questions on a very active forum, go here: <a href="http://www.welltrainedmind.com/activeboards.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.welltrainedmind.com/activeboards.php</a> try the high school board. If you ask the question politely -- and don't assume that homeschooling is bad -- you will get some good answers.</p>
<p>and keep in mind that not everyone thinks homeschooling is bad -- many get into Ivys every year. This year (one of the toughest years for admissions) over 30 homeschooled applicants were accepted to Princeton alone.</p>
<p>to answer some of the other posters -- opportunities abound, they aren't manufactured "clubs" in school, but real community involvement. foreign languages are an issue -- many kids end up taking language at the local CC. limited points of view and narrow world view -- depends on the family. same could be said for many private, public and catholic schools. Our family chose to homeschool because of the Eurocentric focus of public schools.</p>
<p>As someone already said, Homeschooling is not One Size Fits All. There are varieties of formats.<br>
(1) Some in my state are publicly chartered, funded, monitored, staffed, evaluated, & must meet rigorous standards. (Way more rigorous than my State's site schools.)
(2) A family can informally homeschool by purchasing materials & doing all the teaching, obtaining no certified assistance, guidance, etc. -- also earning no institutional approval.<br>
(3) Virtual academies, which offer homeschooling as well as supplemental schooling, are heavier in the aspect of monitoring, as they have the computer interface to make that possible, and they tend to feature a great deal of communication between school & families/students. These are also often publicly chartered, with a brief charter period in which to meet their goals or dissolve.
(4) Private educational curriculum companies often offer a "program" (including a "virtual" option, for a premium price) along with the actual materials. As with #1 and #3, such approaches can be highly structured and individualized to meet student needs.</p>
<p>So you'd have to delineate these differences and either argue against <em>all</em> of them, or against one <em>style</em> of them or another. It is a difficult thing to write about without all the facts, since there so many differences between one homeschool organization or institution, and another. For example, it would not be obvious from the above 4 divisions, that some homeschool organizations offer extensive social opportunities, group classes, workshops for parents, field trips, credited P.E. (via sports, dance, martial arts, etc.), whereas some are not in a position to offer much of that, or are so spread out geographically that frequent interaction is impractical. By definition, though, no homeschool format is in a position to offer the daily site interaction with peers that a traditional school does.</p>
<p>Curriculum wise, the progarms can be <em>quite</em> challenging and well supervised. But it takes a lot of work -- always on the part of the parents and students and teachers (and administrators, depending on the organization's structure). </p>
<p>As to "limited points of view" and "very narrow world view," the opposite is often the case, as there can be greater variety in the curriculum offerings (which include online and community college) than in a traditional K-12 situation where the curriculum decisions are made by distant administrators and might be uniform (same publisher or series for an entire school, even for a district). The parent is there not to "offer a point of view," but to monitor & encourage the engagement of the child in the curriculum, and to seek the support of the student's assigned public teacher to that purpose. Homeschooling often inspires a student to become more adventurous, not less so. But the option is not for everybody, and should never be tried unless the family is willing & able to put in the time. The single most frequent reason for families leaving homeschooling is the amount of parental time it requires. (Including the cyber-friendly variety of homeschools.) It is virtually impossible to execute unless one parent does not work outside the home & will be "the teaching parent." Not everybody can afford that.</p>
<p>"Lack of real oversight" does not apply unless the homeschooling is informal (outside a structure supplied by an external agency or company). The programs that are organized, structured are actually often better in oversight than traditional schools, since there's much more one-on-one (including by the teacher).</p>
<p>The OP can PM me if more info is needed.</p>
<p>"perhaps you can argue that homeschoolers should be required to register, or test, or be evaluated."</p>
<p>If the homeschool is not the 4 walls of the home, but is part of a publicly networked charter, this goes without saying. In my State, it's a whole package: the family receives public funds for the curriculum, the student is assessed going in, the student must take minimum evaluative testing, yearly, in accordance with State requirements (writing tests, and competencies in language arts, math, history, science, as well as exit exams for high school). The family is also provided with a credentialed teacher whose job it is to monitor, guide, diagnose problems & intervene, supplement, provide occasional direct instruction, lead the family to resources, etc. Some homeschools provide funds to the family for tutoring. Also, it is generally left to the discretion of the homeschool organization as to the advancement or even continuation of the student. If the student is struggling, he or she often does not advance: retention is suggested for certain subjects or even all of them. (An advantage over site schools, where you advance in everything or advance in nothing.) If a family cannot or will not comply with producing concrete work, they are often terminated from the program, sometimes even before the academic year is over. This is because the State needs documentation for the school to stay in business. Failure to produce work corresponds with lack of attendance (no work shown), which in turn equates with dollars provided to the school, and the school cannot afford to be closed because families are non compliant.</p>
<p>If it's a research paper, it should have some research in it. Most objections to home-school are just going to be based on opinion. And the objections are trite as well: lack of socialization, lack of government oversight, etc....</p>
<p>quote:"opportunities, clubs, leadership, can you really get all the options from home schooling? all the languages offered"</p>
<p>Just as a home-school parent, let me answer this question with our own example - my 10th grader:</p>
<p>Girl Scouts - working on Gold Award
Gavel Club (has earned her Competent Gaveler Award from Toastmaster's International)
Gavel Club president - was secretary last year
Staff member of a published magazine
Black Belt TKD
Congressional Medal Award for Youth - Silver (working on Gold)
Original medical research in Epidemiology - hoping to be published
Volunteers at a local library - over 200 hours so far.
Volunteered with ESL program for Spanish speaking adults
on the Teen Board at the local library - plans events
Writing Club
Book Club
Created own online literary journal -
Writes for an additional online newspaper
Is published (poems/essays) in two national magazines
Regularly attends both professional writer conferences and medical conferences and is probably the youngest attendee to do so.</p>
<p>as for the lanugages - has studied Spanish for over 4 years already - private tutor and outside classes. </p>
<p>The thing about home-schooling is that it provides ENDLESS opportunities if the parents and kids work to find them and take advantage of them. Public school , in our view, limits those opportunities both by sucking up all the student's time and by putting needless constraints on participation. </p>
<p>If I was going to write a paper that had a negative view of home-schooling, I might write one that encouraged more oversight over home-schooling programs. Some states already do this - some have very specific - and strict - regulations. Other states are more lax.</p>
<p>As someone who has recently provided certified support for homeschool families, I have three criticisms which are probably umbrella comments for all programs I have knowledge of, as I've yet to see these concerns effectively addressed:</p>
<p>(1) absence of intake/screening.</p>
<p>As I mentioned above, homeschooling is <em>not</em> for every family or every parent (esp.) Parents who will be ineffective in their role will be ones who (a) struggled, and still struggle, with their own (basic) educational competency, (b) cannot, for competing financial reasons, donate their daily labor to coordinate & manage their child's education, let alone sustain it, (c) are not motivated enough to provide timely documentation of their child's progress (attendance + work products), and/or to communicate with their teacher regarding their needs & their child's needs.</p>
<p>Homeschooling does not just "happen." It is a labor-intensive effort, demanding consistency, organization, & foresight for its success -- mostly by adults. For sustained learning to occur, supervision is essential, even on the highschool level. When the supervision lapses, the learning lapses, 1:1.</p>
<p>Point being, public (free) homeschools do not generally screen or provide even introductory intake meetings, where families learn about the process & just how much work is involved for that particular school's requirements. The rationale for this is that public education is universal access. Yet <em>site</em> <em>charter</em> schools do insist on family accountability, often, with consequences (including expulsion) for violating the charter's minimum performance standards. For the homeschools I've been involved with, the "screening" is post-. It happens when parents discover that they can't or don't want to play that role; they either voluntarily do not re-enroll the following year, or they are denied re-enrollment if no appreciable progress has occurred.</p>
<p>(2) deficiencies in parent training.</p>
<p>The contradiction in ("my") homeschools has been that the school is required by the state to meet progress/accountability standards, defined as minimum State test score levels within a short time frame, among other things. Yet sometimes students cannot progress because of a parent's own deficiencies or unavailability & time conflicts (other children, jobs, responsibilities). The schools <em>offer</em> parent training via workshops & one-on-one modeling by the teacher, but to date have said that they cannot <em>insist</em> on it. Yet the State does very much insist on student progress for the school's continued existence. Homeschools should require parental attendance (only if & when needed, of course!) at training sessions, just as they require student attendance during school work hours. Otherwise, the school is in a lose-lose position relative to its survival.</p>
<p>(3) a minimum number of regular classes, integrated within the program, would be optimal. For older children (in my state, grade 5 and above), this is solved by their eligibility to attend community college classes as early as age 10, for those independent enough, mature enough to do so. But for younger children, they miss out on some important learning that does occur in <em>well run</em> small classes (for example), consisting of students within a reasonably similar range of competency. (contrasted with traditional classes comprising a gigantic range of ability & interest-level, where the group learning product is inefficient at best, minimal at worst). Students learn with & from their peers beginning in the earliest stages of cognition & speech; depriving them of the <em>regularity</em> of that can affect the rate & breadth of comprehension in particular areas. </p>
<p>In one of my schools, small <em>private</em> classes with private teachers in certain areas like foreign language or creative writing, were an optional way for families to use part of their budget. But the offerings were minimal, & few families used that option. We found that by high school, students often had never discussed literature with any peers, learned the value of sharing opinions on current events, or joined with others in solving a math or science problem. They then entered the high school years with a deficit in certain basic understandings of some key concepts -- the very concepts that are learned more efficiently in (again) a well selected classroom.</p>
<p>As I was leaving this school, the plans were to add classes organized & taught by the school itself, on a once/week basis, I think, in areas such as literature analysis, algebra, and writing. (A major hurdle for homeschoolers if the parents cannot write well themselves or are not in a position to hire tutors.) If I were "king," as mini likes to say, I would not make that optional. But they would also have terrific curriculum & excellent teachers, and definitely students would be grouped by mastery level and/or ability level.</p>
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<p>I definitely agree with Pearl that it is a myth that homeschoolers are less socialized necessarily. In fact, sometimes (with lists like she provides) they are more so. More importantly, though, families who elect to be very involved in education, often have calmer students, I've noticed. The increased parental influence has a positive effect on the students, and that shows up in their social interactions, which in my observation is far superior & far more mature than the typical playground juvenile behavior at a site school. For some reason, this tends to be especially true for boys, who in my observation have about a five-fold increase in social maturity when homeschooled vs. when site schooled. Forced dependence, forced structure, relative confinement, and a heavy influence by females (in site schools) does not always serve boys very well, and that shows up in their behavior (frustration, leading to fights; boredom, leading to misbehavior & poor academic performance, etc.)</p>
<p>It takes a lot of work on the part of the parent to create these social opportunities (ongoing) where & when they do not occur by virtue of the homeschools providing that (and some do). But those families who commit to this have plentiful, & often much higher quality, social interactions (and e.c.'s) than those in site schools.</p>
<p>Ditto for the e.c.'s including opportunities for competitions with awards, science fairs, league convocations, debate teams, club sports, city intramurals, etc.</p>
<p>Agan, at least in my state, the accountability on the part of the <em>school</em> is there, & required by law or charter. But the accountability (& means to that) on the part of the parents is not always there, and that is solvable, i.m.o.</p>
<p>I.m.o. the ideal model for teaching & learning is a hybrid one, combining group learning with individual. In my state, neither extreme is working 100%, but I have to be honest & say that the homeschool option, in districts which are performing poorly, is producing a better product. Students who were 2-3 years behind in underperforming site schools, jump to only 1 yr behind within the first year of a well-run homeschool -- even in one case I know where the family had multiple personal challenges this year. The two boys were regressing while in site school. This year, they have begun to make a little bit of progress, even with only one parent fluent in English, the family having a tragedy this year, having 2 moves, losing their computer access, and having a new baby. The individual attention without discipline distractions, the self-pacing, the control of the schedule, and the opportunity to focus narrowly when needed, are all factors which have benefitted the 2 students, & which are missing in (our) site schools.</p>
<p>Theres a really long, detailed thread on this topic somewhere on these forums. I recommend doing a search -- you'll learn a lot.</p>
<p>From what I have seen, homeschooled kids have MUCH more time to pursue socializing and EC's. There is so much less dead time during the day - it really adds up. Homeschoolers get together with other homeschoolers a ton through co-ops (which often have hundreds of homeschoolers as members!), public school and rec teams and clubs, etc. I think a good angle to support an anti-homeschool argument would be to point out how regular schools suffer the loss of these families, which are disproportionately involved in and committed to education.</p>
<p>I hope the OP is reading these posts. Some very good points have been brought up.</p>