Another great example of homeskooling (long)

Cut and paste after removing spaces within the "http" part—and notice how many idiots came to the homeskoolers' defense:

h t t p://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110408084056AA3iiNw

Legal for parents to say they're homeschooling when they're not?

I know someone who has four little girls, ages 3, 6, 8, and 11. Their parents claim to "home school" the kids, but they're not. There is no instruction whatsoever taking place. I value education highly and pity these little girls who will struggle in the world someday because of their ignorance. Is this even legal? We live in Indiana. Can I do anything? I'm their aunt. Talking to the parents doesn't help, because they claim they are having lessons and tests (but the girls have even told me they don't). The 11-year-old can't read, and can't spell the simplest of words. They are socially awkward around people, too. Please give me advice! (P.S. Before you home schooling advocates out there get your panties in a bunch, I'm NOT talking about you. I know that there are many children who are successfully home schooled and turn out great. But those are the kids who have dedicated parents who are doing what they're supposed to. Also, I know the song and dance about "alternative" forms of learning, etc. Please spare me those comments. Any way you try to justify it, there is a fundamental problem with an 11-year-old who can't read or write. For those who might tell me to "mind my own business", I say this: If you saw a child being beaten or neglected, you would have a MORAL, ETHICAL obligation to step in and intervene on the child's behalf. Depriving a child of an education is a form of neglect.)

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K-Man back. Answers to the question not included because they depress me.

Some obvious issues come to mind when looking at the whole picture as the aunt describes, including the comment about the girls being "socially awkward":

1. Sexual or physical abuse going on in the home, which would tend to make children withdrawn. A horrific case that surfaced in Arizona a few years ago involved a man who withdrew his "tween"-aged (pubescent) daughter from public school to "homeschool" her. He instead repeatedly raped her over a period of several months and kept her locked in a closet when he wasn't doing that. She told the authorities later that he had never done the slightest bit of homeschooling after she left school—unless you count the sex education, that is.

2. Possibly fundies who believe that women should be kept ignorant and dependent. Another "homeschooling" example that came to light a few years ago involved fundie parents who deliberately chose not to teach their daughters to read, or much else besides housework. Their rationale was that if they wanted to know what was in the Bible, their brothers could read it to them, and later their husbands could tell them.

3. Undiagnosed learning disabilities.

4. Moo using an excuse to continue to stay at home and not work. "Honey, I can't go back to work: I have to homeschool the kids." Only she's watching TV all day instead...

People, based on numerous accounts in other forums and various articles, I submit that the result here is more typical of homeschooling than the National Spelling Bee winners and the like. Despite the self-serving studies that "sometimes later is better than sooner" when learning to read that the homeskoolers cite, study after study have repeatedly shown that failure to pick up the rudiments of reading by age 8 or 9 means a lifelong illiteracy problem for most children. Not reading by 10 or 11? Too late to become proficient—at least in most likelihood.

My brother's soon-to-be ex-wife is a school administrator who taught in three different states, and when we discussed this subject, she said that her district had had to adopt special policies for homeschooling children reentering public school, because by the high school years they were typically three to four years behind grade level in reading and math skills, let alone every other subject. Their parents just weren't doing the job. I compiled a thick binder for her full of the expert commentary against homeschooling and articles about the seldom covered dark side. Best guess: for every homeschooled academic success like those we hear about in the media, there are 10 like these girls who are at best victims of educational neglect and will never attain the academic level they would routinely have been expected to achieve in a real school.

Before I decided not to have kids, I was going to homeschool.. Apparently, there should be standards in place to make sure the kids are getting enough education.. Having undereducated kids is really a terrible thing when people are uneducated the way it is.. It's sad that parents who want to homeschool aren't teaching kids more than regular schools.. That's really how it should be, considering the kids have an opportunity to learn all day long that way. =/

LW needs to call CPS. Not educating your kids, as far as I know, is criminal.

Home schooling needs to be regulated by required periodic testing, on site unannounced visits, and accountability for the health and welfare of each child. Sometimes abused or neglected kids are discovered by a teacher, coach, or school nurse. When the kids aren't allowed outside the perimeter of their homes there are no checks and balances to insure they are even alive, let alone actually being educated. I too know of kids who are allegedly "home schooled", yet they haven't even opened a text book or other learning materials in YEARS. I also think the parents should at the very least have some form of teaching certificate.

At this point there are no educational requirements for the parents who "teach" their kids at home, so what we are getting are high school drop outs who can't properly teach even IF they even tried. I remember at one time a home schooling parent had to have a college degree, but that is no longer the case in many states. These religious nuts are the worst offenders too in that they just skip over subjects they don't "believe" in.

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

I think a call to child protection is in order since these kids are suffering from educational neglect. I'm not necessarily against homeschooling, but I do think standards should be in order, there should be some sort of curriculum, etc. These days, there's a lot of material out there for parents who want to homeschool, and there are even online schools now, so there's no reason the kids shouldn't have some sort of learning materials available to them.

This story in a way, reminds me of something that happened to me in elementary school. I was going to this christian almost fundie school where I had an incompetent teacher. In addition, the school was more concerned about funding their athletic program then they were about anything else. My mother got upset with them and decided she was either going to send me to another school or "teach him myself." I stayed home for 2 weeks, with her alternating between saying I was going to to go another school or stay home the rest of the year and start over next year since this teacher hadn't really taught me anything. I basically stayed home and just played, watched TV, ran errands with her, etc., and not much else, wondering when I was going to my new school.

After about 2 weeks, one day my mother announced "There will be no TV today, until you get caught up on school work, the TV is unplugged," which I didn't understand because of course I'm going to be behind if I haven't been to school in 2 weeks. My mother had this fixation about how TV was the root of all of our problems and without it, they'd all go away. At one point during the day, I was playing with a deck of cards in my room and she came up to see me and said "you're supposed to be doing school work," which again I didn't get because I hadn't been to school in 2 weeks. The next day I went back to school, my teacher acted weird toward me at first, and some of the kids asked me where I'd been to which I said I was sick, and it all went back to normal, and we were allowed to watch TV.

With the parent/child relationship, parents have a lot of power and with power comes responsibility. If the parent is messed up to begin with, they can mess up their kids too. My mother always blamed her problems on others, nothing was ever her fault, she always had a "poor me" attitude. I think I have had a lot of issues in my life because of this, and it has taken me a long time to heal from it. Cutting my family out of my life has been the only thing that has really helped me find peace.

JD

I think education and vaccination should be treated in the same manner: Both should be fucking mandatory unless there is a damned good reason why not. If the kyd gets homeskooled, it should be carefully regulated to make sure that it's getting a proper education.
When a kyd is homeskooled, he/she loses out on the important socialization aspect of growing up. The kyd never has a chance to develop relationships outside of their own immediate famblee circle, and run the risk of growing up "socially awkward" or as I like to put it, "feral".
Parents are allowed to get away with not doing anything anymore to better their chyldrun's lives. Breeders are all about "memememeee" they don't have a moment's thought about what they are actually doing to their kyd. They neglect their brats out of laziness, infantalize and abuse them, and then call it a "parenting style."
VAX and Education are necessary for our society to stay healthy and prosperous. There is NO good reason under the sun why kyds should be denied either of these things.

There is of course the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Cornell University published their study of the cognitive bias in a 1999 scientific paper. This is where people of lowest quartile ability in everything from logic to grammar to creativity to humour also (ironically) possess the greatest superiority complexes.

They predictably and continually estimate their own abilities to be 'slightly better than average' across all subjects when, in fact, their scores for pretty much everything except nose-picking lies in the bottom quarter of the population.

Show them their scores, and the mistakes they made, and they just shake their heads and blame somebody else.

According to the scientists, "Overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."

In other words, the crappier your brains, the greater your estimation of your own abilities.

These people are "teaching" their children without any professional assistance. Think about it a minute. Would YOU like to be no smarter than your parents -- ever -- on any topic??

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"The death of creativity is a pram in the hallway"
- Cyril Connolly

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kman

My brother's soon-to-be ex-wife is a school administrator who taught in three different states, and when we discussed this subject, she said that her district had had to adopt special policies for homeschooling children reentering public school, because by the high school years they were typically three to four years behind grade level in reading and math skills, let alone every other subject. Their parents just weren't doing the job. I compiled a thick binder for her full of the expert commentary against homeschooling and articles about the seldom covered dark side. Best guess: for every homeschooled academic success like those we hear about in the media, there are 10 like these girls who are at best victims of educational neglect and will never attain the academic level they would routinely have been expected to achieve in a real school.

This is not only true of homeschooled kids. I've talked to public school administrators who have seen the same thing with kids in religious-oriented charter schools. If the charter school goes belly-up and the kids are returned to public school, they require tutoring and extra time to get them up to grade level.

Some parents I think overestimate how much work homeschooling will be, or that it simply isn't easy. My own story of being homeschooled for a year is an example.

My mother basically decided she had enough of the schools, the other kids, parents, etc., and decided to school me and my sister at home. She did try to do it right, meaning she bought study materials, curriculum, etc., for us so we'd actually have some structure. It went well at first but when the material got harder and we needed extra help, Mom would insist we shouldn't be having problems because "You're smart enough to understand this." She basically got frustrated and gave up, telling our Dad we weren't putting forth any effort and just wanted to sit around watching TV, which wasn't true. When I tried to tell Dad the truth, he slapped me and told me to "never call your mother a liar." Of course, when he suggested enrolling us in regular school, she made excuses that no school would take us and if she enrolled us in the public school we could walk to, they'd put us in the lowest classes with all the dope heads. After going round and round with her, he just gave up.

Sis and I later got the materials Mom was using to teach us and started studying them on our own in our rooms, or helping each other when we could. Of course, when we were doing this, Mom would sometimes tell Dad all we did all day was play or watch TV. She later took us to take an entrance exam for a Catholic school saying she hoped we get a score "just enough to get in," but we both scored in the 90+% range on it, so we must have done something right. It was kind of hard to get back into regular school, but we managed to do OK.

Even though it was one school year, I can understand why some homeschooled kids have a problem making the transition to regular school. Sis and I were both socially isolated during that time, not allowed to go out of the house into the neighborhood by ourselves, only going places our parents took us, with our parents not wanting us around other kids because they thought all other kids in Atlanta where we grew up were not raised right.

It took me a long time to recover and I didn't really recover from this and other stuff my parents, mother especially, did until I had moved out of the house and lived on my own for a period of time, only getting to something that resembles normal when I was able to move to a city far away from them and not go back.

I agree with the assessment that for every homeschooled kid who wins the National Spelling Bee or something like that, there are several others barely at grade level. I sometimes think homeschooling should either be illegal or if it's kept legal, there need to be checks in place to, as so many breeders say, "protect the children" and make sure they are getting at least a basic education. Like it has already been said, there are numerous homeschool resources out there and kids can even go to school online. Something like that would be OK, but this other BS has to go.

Atlanta Escapee

Homeschooling may be a good thing in RARE cases. One example I can think of is a kid who is truly a genius. Schools are not set up to handle kids like this, so if the parents are willing and able to homeschool they should.

My brother and I were put through this as well. My Duh has PPD (paranoid personality disorder) and blamed the reason for me getting hassled in school was not my social awkwardness from isolation and being biracial, but on his former job (he believed he was a whistleblower, in reality he was just another scumbag trying to rip off taxpayers based an unreal injury in hopes for a multimillion dollar settlement and TV coverage). He pulled us both out of school. Me for nearly a year, and my brother two months. I was 13, my bro 7. We both got left back because of his actions. Mom and grandmoo stood by doing nothing because they didn't want to hear any more yelling (this caused even more yelling, ya think?).

Rudolph Giuliani was recently elected at the time and he was overhauling the NYBOE, so when Duh pulled me out of my 3rd school (Catlick second time around) and informed the BOE that he would begin homeschooling, the secretary responded with, "Put them back in school," and hung up. This didn't deter him. We went to the Channel 13 (WNET) building and purchased GED material for me. Mind you, GEDs are for high schoolers who are lazy and/or fed up with school curriculum. He bragged to the bewildered clerk that I was some sort of gifted genius that others couldn't keep up with. If you are going to do the GED program at home you had to watch a TV serial in order to do the work in the books, Duh didn't get that and was too cheap to purchase the corresponding programs that were on VHS (but were quite expensive and I think you had to have proof of qualifications as a GED instructor to buy them).

My first time out of school was 44 days, out of those 44 days I think I watched the programs (in the middle of the lessons that I really couldn't follow) for maybe a week. When I went back to my freezing room to do "homework" I couldn't do it. Also, the answers were supplied at the back of the books, so I thought the whole thing was pointless and gave it up. Duh also lost interest, so the workbooks were forgotten in the closet until we cleaned out his room after we threw him out in '05. The school called and sent a truancy letter requesting my presence back or ACS would be called. I went back willingly knowing the humiliation I would face (Duh put cotton in my ears to block out the hassling, but when Mom said I wouldn't be able to hear the lesson as well he paid no mind).

I finished out the school year of '93 just barely passing, and Duh didn't send the last of the tuition in (not that they deserved it). After that I hadn't gone back to school until November of '94. During that time Duh's harassment of me stepped up (I was a spy), Mom got worse, grandmoo was worse than ever, and her golden son declared war on me. I destroyed a bunch of his porn tapes and stole money in retaliation. My brother was taken out that September and, like me, wasn't allowed outside or near a window. When I went back (after a day of hell trying to get me matriculated in an overpopulated ghetto JHS) that morning I had (what I know now is) a panic attack. It was overwhelming to be outside let alone back in school. While I was an honor roller, I did poorly socially. I was hassled, sexually harassed, and had my life threatened. No teacher bothered. I had no friends.

Homeschooling is definitely NOT the way to go. We should have been removed from our home (but we weren't because Mom, me, and my bro are white and we live in an middle-class white neighborhood), and I always felt that homeschooled kids are abuse victims who will never be able to integrate into society normally.

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ATL-Escapee
It took me a long time to recover and I didn't really recover from this and other stuff my parents, mother especially, did until I had moved out of the house and lived on my own for a period of time, only getting to something that resembles normal when I was able to move to a city far away from them and not go back.

It wasn't home schooling but catholic elementary and over sheltering but the rest I'm right there with you.

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“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”

If a normal school teacher needs a degree to do their job, then I think a person who chooses to home-school their own damn kids needs the same kind of certification. Some fatass lazy frump-Moo with a GED who's tired of Jerry Springer reruns should not be allowed to teach her child anything because the child will not learn a damn thing. Yeah, it might seem really easy to just let the kids do anything they want without teaching them a damn thing, but then they will end up being labeled as disabled adults because no one ever taught them how to read or write.

And as has been mentioned already, these kids do not learn proper social skills. They don't learn how to make friends, they don't learn how to behave, they don't learn that personal things like scratching their crotches and picking their noses are things you do at home and not around others. Basically, they are groomed to be retarded; deep down, they might be bright young people, but between being educationally and socially stifled, they will appear to the rest of the world as mentally disabled and they will not go anywhere in life. No one will hire them, no one will want to be their friends, and the only people who will want to date them will likely be abusive people.

And how long will it be before Moos are able to home-school their children on a college level? Save money on college by having Mommy certify you in coupon clipping. She can even print out a degree written in Comic Sans and put some gold star stickers on it.

If you want to teach your kids at home, fine. There better be a damn good reason for it, and Moo damn well better know what the fuck she's doing. Otherwise, I think missing that much school and not actually being taught at home would be considered truancy. Someone has to call CPS about these kids because they will likely be jailbirds and hookers as a result of their parents' sick neglect of their education.

good for you for just going back to school JD. despite family problems growing up i did quite well at school. have since cut my family out too, its painful to think about, but its the past, and life now is peaceful and sane.

It is astonishing to me that in a society which has laws ensuring universal education, this sort of thing is permitted. Universal education is both a right and a requirement, and parents should have no more right to deny their children access to education than they have to break their children's arms. The quality of the education (stemming both from the qualifications of the instructor as well as from belief-based decisions to neglect certain topics), the socializing aspects, and the lack of oversight for potential abusive situations are all issues which stem from home 'schooling'.

I think that religious nutjobs have provided the primary push for this to be accepted in the US, because they don't want their children exposed to different ideas. These people are trying to erode everyone's rights.

There is rarely a valid case for homeschooling. In order to homeschool, parents should have to submit paperwork pertaining to their case, including proof of qualifications, lesson plans, and a compelling argument as to why the child would be better served by homeschooling. This material would then be judged by professional educators. Religion would not be a good argument; the school not having the facilities to teach the child would be an acceptable argument. If homeschooling was permitted, the child should be required to attend public school during standardized tests (and must continue to score acceptably in all components order to continue to be homeschooled). Furthermore, the child should have to either attend public school about once a week, or participate in some sort of public activity (such as Little League, Girl Scouts, etc) in order to ensure socialization and to serve as a public check of the child's well-being.

Like lupabiyotch, JohnDrake, and ATL-escapee so thoughtfully illustrated with their personal experiences, our current homeschooling lack of regulation is a breeding ground for troubled and mentally ill parents to further cause emotional damage to their kids. It needs to be completely overhauled, IMHO.

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

Doesn't lessen the tax base.....

Snark, here's the wiki on PPD. I knew the asshole had been abused all his life, so I chalked it down to that- at first. Then when I did more reading on PPD all of his strange actions (he also accused me of stealing 3 cans of green beans, a melon baller, and a canceled check to give to his enemies and "create distress"- he spoke frequently in legalese) made sense.

I was in cathaholic 'school' from 4 years old til 12 & when my folks finally realized that I was extremely miserable they enrolled me in public. My teacher thought i had been homeschooled for how far behind I was in education & socialization.
I can't understand WHY both of these forms are considered education. They're both forms of sheltering a kid & turning them into a friggin' retard.
My friend was homeschooled from 4th grade til he graduated HS & he's extremely retarded socially,is almost 40 & STILL lives with mom & dad. He's on so many forms of mental medication but he's not stupid. It's like he wants to be normal but that boat has sailed. His mom did have the brother,who was the golden boy of the two,die at the time he was pulled out of school so he tells me she wanted keep my friend closer to her. It's just another form of control on a kid.

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thom_c

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ATL-Escapee
It took me a long time to recover and I didn't really recover from this and other stuff my parents, mother especially, did until I had moved out of the house and lived on my own for a period of time, only getting to something that resembles normal when I was able to move to a city far away from them and not go back.

It wasn't home schooling but catholic elementary and over sheltering but the rest I'm right there with you.

I went through Catholic school and over sheltering as well. When I was a kid, we were mostly banned from going outside and playing with neighborhood kids, which caused a lot of friction with neighbors. When we started homeschooling, we had moved to a new neighborhood and weren't allowed out period because my parents didn't want us having problems with the neighbors and felt if we didn't want to go out and play, we could devote all of our time to studying and homeschooling. My parents for some reason felt me and my sister were too good to be around local kids, so they kept us in.

In grades 7-10, I was in Catholic school and actually did OK. Some of those nuns were pretty mean, but I survived. Many of the kids weren't much better, most were snobs from wealthy families and the friends I had came from the families who weren't exactly wealthy, but sacrificed thinking their kids would get a better education there. My parents didn't like this of course, thinking I should kiss up to the rich kids, but none of them were very nice so I didn't want to be around them.

Grades 11-12 my family moved out of Atlanta to a smaller community and went to public school where at first I got some hassling for being the new kid from the big city, but eventually that died down and I found acceptance.

The only way I was able to really heal from all of this was to move out on my own. Since my own parents were crazy and my own childhood wasn't great, I eventually decided I didn't want children and thanks to finding out about CFdom online, I've gotten the snip and am CF and never married in my 40s.

Atlanta Escapee