homeschooling

I've been homeschooled and I think it has its pros and cons, which can become problems or blessings according to the decisions and lifestyle of the individual family. I'd certainly not advocate any prevention of it on the part of the state, unless it could be indubitably proved that the children's education was being neglected. However, I think that placing the right tools in the hands of the parents is highly important.

I'm probably not the best judge of the socialization aspect, because I'm often a taciturn bookworm. (Who can wax garrulous in the right company.) I'm not a person who feels the need of a lot of friends and socialization; but I think I can talk to and enjoy people of many age groups. (Fellow teens usually, but not always, excepted.)

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Originally posted by OrphanPip
The problem is that every dime a parent gives to those private schools, the public loses out. The choice to give your child a private education comes with the side effect of lowering the quality, just the slightest, for many of the most disadvantaged in our society.

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In the U.S., what the public loses in education, it will gain in other government services, because government services are proportional to the amount of money it has to spend. If your children don't cause dollars to go to the school they'd attend, then those dollars are available to pay for other government services. Perhaps in Canada, the parents get whatever money the government would spend on their children's education if the children are privately schooled? The US doesn't allow that. In that sense, Canada would be less socialist than the US.

In fact, what you said about lowering the quality for disadvantaged hits the nail on the head. One of the key issues for me is that governments tend to take choices away from the general public in order to buy votes from the disadvantaged. When you coerce everyone else to help the disadvantaged, you create a kind of compassion vacuum. Whatever motivation people have for helping the disadvantaged by choice is replaced with resentment, at least in those who cherish freedom and understand how that coercion curtails it. I mentioned this in an earlier post.

I tend to trust people to do the right thing, and I know they will often fail, but that failure is an important step to optimizing cooperation and community cohesion. When they are coerced into doing what I think is the right thing, it might turn out Ok, but it has a horrible and lasting effect on our future. I learned that from my children. So rather than worrying about limiting the government through my choices, I generally try to maximize the limits I can put on the government through my choices.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

In general I think parents are quite capable of giving their child an adequate education through homeschooling, to an extent. This tends to fall apart for the senior levels of high school. How many parents are truly qualified to give something like an AP level physics class (for the Americans out there), or how many parents educated in the early 80s are aware of current developments in biology. It's that point of preparing children for more specialized post-secondary education that homeschooling is probably not ideal.

I tend to support individual determination, so I'm not interested in limiting the rights of parents to homeschool children. However, I'm all for promoting public schools over private institutions. In Quebec, the system has clearly become tiered because of semi-private institutions. Jewish, Greek, and Catholic schools are capable of charging high tuition and receiving public funding, and this is something I have a problem with.

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In the US non public schools do not recieve any funding. Parents who send their children to private schools in essence pay double. They still pay taxes that support public schools and they pay to send their children to private schools.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

In the US non public schools do not recieve any funding. Parents who send their children to private schools in essence pay double. They still pay taxes that support public schools and they pay to send their children to private schools.

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There are three tiers in Quebec.

We have fully public, semi-private (usually religious schools), and private.

Most of the Catholic schools are semi-private, they receive government funding and have the right to charge extra for extra services.

The only fully private schools that I know of in Montreal cost upwards of 10-15k a year. The school I attended for years 12-13, was a semi-private Catholic school that cost 4000 a year.

In Quebec everyone pays a school tax, to either English language or French language school boards, depending on your choice. Then schools receive funding based on some sort of complicated system of needs/enrollment. So, if a public school has less students, they get less funding. If a semi-private gets more students then they get more funding.

Even taking this away from issues of funding. When the children of the best off parents are taken out of the public school system, it also keeps the best off parents from becoming involved with public education. The quality of education at a school relies heavily on the involvement of parents.

Edit: Choice for parents is all fine and dandy, but children don't chose to be born into poor homes. Public schools have helped bridge a gap in class difference more than any other institution in history. I worry that letting public schools fail is nothing more than limiting the potential of the lowest rungs of society. It is not about buying the votes of the disadvantaged, it's about doing right by children who deserve quality education no matter who their parents are.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

Public schools have helped bridge a gap in class difference more than any other institution in history. I worry that letting public schools fail is nothing more than limiting the potential of the lowest rungs of society.

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That is a valid concern. At least here in the US, the public education system has been abused toward indoctrinating children into a misplaced faith in government so much that the "gap in class difference" is thus bridged by making sure we poke everyone's left eye out, instead of only the poor kids' left eyes; public school does kids more harm than good. Of course, I'm comparing it to colonial America, where there was no compulsory schooling and the literacy rate was higher than it is now.

However, I can pretend to believe the same illusion that most Americans do, that public school is actually providing a benefit. If a child's parents work very hard so that they have extra money, haven't they earned the right or should we disallow them from providing their kids with advantages simply because that makes it unfair? But I see that I ought also to pretend to believe in another illusion: people who can afford private school are generally "evil capitalists" whose effect on society is negative, rather than positive. Hmm... If I go that far, then I will have to agree that we should hold them back somehow, perhaps by forcing them to put their kids in public school. But that's based on a firm belief in those two illusions.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

It is not about buying the votes of the disadvantaged, it's about doing right by children who deserve quality education no matter who their parents are.

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Ideally. Sadly, politicians with ideals are very rare, and politics demands that they remain very rare, so the ideal is not met, and in fact democracy does indeed buy the votes of the disadvantaged with money taken from everyone else. The sense of community and solidarity that makes us cherish the idea of wealthy people providing for poor people involves a subtlety that is lost on most people: Should the wealthy be forced, or allowed and encouraged to provide for the poor? Which produces a healthier society? Political scientist Jim Payne wrote some books that address this question, just search for "Princess Navina" or check out http://www.lyttonpublishing.com/. But really, I think everyone can find the answer on his or her own by doing some soul searching.

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Originally Posted by Dave Scotese

That is a valid concern. At least here in the US, the public education system has been abused toward indoctrinating children into a misplaced faith in government so much that the "gap in class difference" is thus bridged by making sure we poke everyone's left eye out, instead of only the poor kids' left eyes; public school does kids more harm than good. Of course, I'm comparing it to colonial America, where there was no compulsory schooling and the literacy rate was higher than it is now.

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This is just patent misinformation. Literacy rates in the USA today exceed 99%, in colonial USA the only access to literacy statistics is evidence of people being able to sign their own name (on wills), which gives a range of 80-90%. Moreover, this number is likely inflated by sample bias. Do you honestly think public schools haven't increased literacy amongst African Americans?

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Originally Posted by Dave Scotese

However, I can pretend to believe the same illusion that most Americans do, that public school is actually providing a benefit. If a child's parents work very hard so that they have extra money, haven't they earned the right or should we disallow them from providing their kids with advantages simply because that makes it unfair? But I see that I ought also to pretend to believe in another illusion: people who can afford private school are generally "evil capitalists" whose effect on society is negative, rather than positive. Hmm... If I go that far, then I will have to agree that we should hold them back somehow, perhaps by forcing them to put their kids in public school. But that's based on a firm belief in those two illusions.

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A strawman, and displaying simplistic black/white thinking. The major problem here is that children are not responsible for their social position, no reasonable person can propose that today a child derived of quality education could have a hope at decent income later in life. Parents can provide their children with educational benefits without sabotaging the public school system. They could donate extra money to the school, pay for supplementary education for their child, or maybe they could contribute to improving the public school system as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Dave Scotese

Ideally. Sadly, politicians with ideals are very rare, and politics demands that they remain very rare, so the ideal is not met, and in fact democracy does indeed buy the votes of the disadvantaged with money taken from everyone else. The sense of community and solidarity that makes us cherish the idea of wealthy people providing for poor people involves a subtlety that is lost on most people: Should the wealthy be forced, or allowed and encouraged to provide for the poor? Which produces a healthier society? Political scientist Jim Payne wrote some books that address this question, just search for "Princess Navina" or check out http://www.lyttonpublishing.com/. But really, I think everyone can find the answer on his or her own by doing some soul searching.

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It's not about your perceived nonsensical notion of community. It's about practical solutions for providing a necessary service to a large group of people, which means public institutions. All children have a right to education, the only way to ensure they all get it is through publicly funded schools.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

This is just patent misinformation. Literacy rates in the USA today exceed 99%, in colonial USA the only access to literacy statistics is evidence of people being able to sign their own name (on wills), which gives a range of 80-90%. Moreover, this number is likely inflated by sample bias. Do you honestly think public schools haven't increased literacy amongst African Americans?

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Well, I found some links for you. Perhaps you'll return the favor? I know I said colonial America, and I should have just said "early America", so I'm sorry for misinforming you. Does it really effect the point I was making?
David W. Kirkpatrick's "Then and Now"
John Taylor Gatto's "Intellectual Espionage"

If you're interested in my research on the rest of what you wrote, you can ask. I won't bother you with it otherwise since you apparently see me as nonsensical and simplistic.

I see! So, instead of public schools being the "evil capitalists", it's that public schools are evil communists. Nice. Totally makes sense. It's always good to know who's evil and whose not, I say.

I think I'll start storing canned goods, duct tape, and medical supplies in my basement, just in case. . . .

Both of those articles have serious issues with hearsay and don't take methodological differences into account.

Let's take a look at some hard data, the 1840 US. census.

http://books.google.com/books?id=xMj...201800&f=false

In this census, I calculated the national illiteracy rate (found in the education section) to be about 18%. One shocking stat from this census is the low illiteracy rates in New England compared to other sections of the US. I find this curious because the stats for 18th century USA cited by the above articles refer to Massachusetts and Connecticut, making a strong argument for sample bias in the figures cited in your articles. What we find looking at this census data is that in some areas, like the Southern USA, (slaves not counted in the census for education, and were legally not allowed to be educated at the time) there are upwards of 40% illiteracy at the time. I was also able to find that the earliest public schools in the USA started in the New England area. So, public schools may even have played a part in the high literacy rates in New England. Other factors may be a cultural emphasis on literacy and a self-replicating culture of literacy, i.e. more initial immigrants to the area were literate, and subsequently taught their children.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal...accno=ED176241

This paper from 1979 says that illiteracy in 1870 was 20% and had shrunk to 3% by 1940.

The articles you posted are also much too simplistic in their treatment of the large immigrant population the USA has from non-English countries. With upwards of 20% of the US population not having English as their first language, I'm not surprised this would have an impact on current literacy statistics.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

There are three tiers in Quebec.

We have fully public, semi-private (usually religious schools), and private.

Most of the Catholic schools are semi-private, they receive government funding and have the right to charge extra for extra services.

The only fully private schools that I know of in Montreal cost upwards of 10-15k a year. The school I attended for years 12-13, was a semi-private Catholic school that cost 4000 a year.

In Quebec everyone pays a school tax, to either English language or French language school boards, depending on your choice. Then schools receive funding based on some sort of complicated system of needs/enrollment. So, if a public school has less students, they get less funding. If a semi-private gets more students then they get more funding.

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Thanks. That's actually quite interesting. The supposed interpretation of separation of church and state in the US prevents us from that.

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Even taking this away from issues of funding. When the children of the best off parents are taken out of the public school system, it also keeps the best off parents from becoming involved with public education. The quality of education at a school relies heavily on the involvement of parents.

Edit: Choice for parents is all fine and dandy, but children don't chose to be born into poor homes. Public schools have helped bridge a gap in class difference more than any other institution in history. I worry that letting public schools fail is nothing more than limiting the potential of the lowest rungs of society. It is not about buying the votes of the disadvantaged, it's about doing right by children who deserve quality education no matter who their parents are.

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School choice as advocated by conservatives in the US would entail that each student would get a voucher (whatever it costs to currently send a child to school) to pay for the school of their choice. This way everyone, including the poorest, would be on the same standing and you would get rid of the monopoly effect that the current public education system has. It would bring free market forces to a stagnant, union centered (as opposed to child centered) system. In the current system, the customer has no say.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

School choice as advocated by conservatives in the US would entail that each student would get a voucher (whatever it costs to currently send a child to school) to pay for the school of their choice. This way everyone, including the poorest, would be on the same standing and you would get rid of the monopoly effect that the current public education system has. It would bring free market forces to a stagnant, union centered (as opposed to child centered) system. In the current system, the customer has no say.

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The balance is important, though. If it is simply a voucher, and there are no considerations based upon income, then what it fails to do is to keep the poor and rich on an even footing (as you suggest it would). The rich still have more "extra" funds which can be applied to schools that the poor cannot supplement their children towards attending. It ends up squashing the egalitarian spirit within the education system, and reinforcing one in which the children of the wealthy are able to enjoy the leverage to education that their parents can provide.

The parents might clamor for this, but the children, as a group, given a (hypothetical, and subsequent) adult and mature chance to vote on it, would probably reject it. And I think that is why public eduction has had the support that it has, and has had the (historic) successes that is has had.

Still, the system in the U.S. is out of whack, probably due to unions overperforming on behalf of employed teachers, rather than on behalf of students. Some solution that might benefit all is definitely needed, and vouchers are definitely a great idea--but they should not be so meager so as to condemn the poorest students to being segregated amongst the poorest schools and teachers. Perhaps, more important than vouchers, would be an increased accountability among teachers in public schools--something, in the right balance, that might work hand in hand with the conservative (that is, not full-on) introduction of vouchers.

There is an important point, however, to be made about accountability among the teachers of students that have had the benefit of better access to prior education, and those the teachers of those who have arrived in a teacher's class following sub-par experiences in the educational system.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Thanks. That's actually quite interesting. The supposed interpretation of separation of church and state in the US prevents us from that.

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You could put it down to the sepatation of church and state (at least in Canada that is the case as the Queen of the UK is their head of state and head of the Church of England), but not everywhere this is so.

In Belgium there is the same structure:

Entirely public schools, run by the state. Everything is free. Typically the worst kind of people go there or the die-hard anti-religious people. Educational standards are so low that highly educated Muslims who can afford it send their children to Catholic schools (there are Jewish schools, but no Muslim ones). And everyone knows that a lot needs to happen before anyone does that. No offence to the Muslims though. Just an example. State schools also provide Catholice religious education, Protestant (or that may be together in some), Jewish, Islam and morale (non-religious, ethical education). As there are no Muslim schools (ooh, the Muslim phantom obviously), the Arab community typically goes to this type of school, however, that is also where the rif-raf sits together, so the rare well educated ones now send their children to Catholic schools which only teach Catholic religion and are not willing to start on enything else, whether it be Jewish, oecuminical or anything. That is probably part of the reason why the Arab sommunity is not well-educated as a whole.

Semi-private schools. Mainly Catholic schools. They are subsidised, but like in Canada, can charge for extra services or in order to provide better quality. They cost (in my time, ten years ago) 500 euros a year. Which included excursions and textbook rental and buying if applicable (work books). Though, it needs to be said, we never went away for a long time. The longest was three days Paris in the last year. There were ski-trips and a Rome-trip, but that was payable if you went. There are also Jewish schools like this, Steiner, Montessori, Freinet schools like this. I believe the British School in Brussels is also part of this system. Not sure, though they charge a wopping 25000 euros every year! These schools either teach nothing religious but they have their own system (i.e. Freinet, Steiner and Montessori amongst others) or they only teach their religion beside the national curriculum.

Entirely private schools. Very few, almost none. The ones that are only private subject their pupils not only to their own, maybe nique way and subjects of teaching, but also to the fact that they do not automatically pass if they have passed their exams in the school. They need to do a state examination to prove that they have mastered the national curriculum. Therefore people rather go to semi-private schools. Once you have passed your exam, you have passed period.

It is not that Church and State are not separated in Belgium. They are, definitely. A priest who is elected has to leave his job (not his priesthood, but his office so to say, practicing his job as a parish priest) if he wants to take up his seat in parliament. The king may believe and even practice his religion, like the president of the USA, but is not crowned in a church, instead he takes his oath in the parliament (Senate).

I find a semi-state run system (subsidised) not a bad idea. At least you make sure as a state that satisfactoy results are achieved and that Catholic children come out at least knowing Darwin, that Jewish children not only know how to trade diamants and hw to sing from the Thora (to say it bluntly).

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Originally Posted by billl

The balance is important, though. If it is simply a voucher, and there are no considerations based upon income, then what it fails to do is to keep the poor and rich on an even footing (as you suggest it would). The rich still have more "extra" funds which can be applied to schools that the poor cannot supplement their children towards attending. It ends up squashing the egalitarian spirit within the education system, and reinforcing one in which the children of the wealthy are able to enjoy the leverage to education that their parents can provide.

The parents might clamor for this, but the children, as a group, given a (hypothetical, and subsequent) adult and mature chance to vote on it, would probably reject it. And I think that is why public eduction has had the support that it has, and has had the (historic) successes that is has had.

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Is that any different than now? The rich already send their kids to private schools and pay whatever taxes exist for public schools, despite not using them. I fail to see any difference from the current situation. And frankly so what? People have a right to spend their money how they want. In a free society you can't deny a person to spend his money.

Listen to you: "The parents might clamor for this". As if the customer doesn't have a right to the product he is buying. You must be a communist.

It mostly seems the same to me, if one happens to live where vouchers are being handed out--like you say, people are still contributing to the taxes that go to the public schools. I know that accountability amongst teachers (for student performance) isn't everywhere, but I know of places where they are pushing for it.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Listen to you: "The parents might clamor for this". As if the customer doesn't have a right to the product he is buying. You must be a communist.

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Wow :-)
Not a communist, but just pointing out that in the U.S. we have for some time sought an egalitarian society, and have a concern for the education of all children in the society. You must be a feudalist ;-) (j/k)