Home school vs public school?

As a certified, licensed school teacher, I am always concerned when parents pull their children out of regular school and say they will be "homeschooling" their child from that point forward. I will share my reasons below:

1. Qualifications/educational level of parents - Can a parent reach and teach their child the important things that child needs to know? Do they know what "developmentally appropriate" is for their child's age? Are the parents knowledgeable enough about the curriculum to present it in ways the child understands?

2. Is the curriculum relevant? Is the child learning what should be learned, versus what the parents want that child to learn? (some HS programs offer "revisionist" history, where important truths are conveniently left out - eg, slavery, holocaust, etc) There are certain skill sets/requirements all children MUST know in order to be well rounded adults. Slanted or inaccurate information can negatively affect a child's future.

3. Is the parent willing to sit by their child, invest the time, and hold their children accountable for their school work? Many parents nowadays have to work, and trusting their young child to stay home and do their school work all on line is a recipe for disaster. My daughter's friend is now being homeschooled (due to bullying) and guess what? This girl only gets 5 hours of weekly school work, which is less than one full day's worth of schooling. In a WEEK.

4. Schools provide the opportunity for children to learn HOW to get along with others, even if the children are being bullied. Instead of retreating into a "safe" world, it is better to learn how to handle the bullying and work on developing self esteem. Running away from it doesn't build self confidence, it only pushes the real issues aside.

I hope this provides you with some real information to make a very educated choice. I'm not anti-HS, I am against homeschool programs that end up causing more harm than good. Make sure your child is being monitored on a regular, weekly basis, by qualified school teachers, and is learning STATE curriculum standards. If those criteria are met, then a HS program should be okay overall.

I was homeschooled as well as my two sisters. I totally enjoyed it, wouldn't change a thing. I have not experienced any social problems. I would totally recommend it to anyone.

From the point of view of a "certified, licensed school teacher," homeschooling can be suspicious. I have seen it done terribly - to the point where DHS gets involved - and I have seen it done perfectly.

I don't have any ready answers for how to transform the public American education system, just the very beginnings of an approach. I do know that NCLB needs to go. My mother, who teaches 1st grade in an urban school district, and my father, who teaches high school English and German in a rural school district, despise it because it constrains them to the detriment of their students. My other thought is to make it much harder to become a teacher so that only the best and brightest can be in front of the classroom. In Finland, teaching is a high-status profession that pays well and has the same amount of respect (if not more) as the law and medicine because only the absolute best can become teachers (one reason why Finland is kicking America's butt in terms of education). In other words, the standards for becoming a teacher in America must be increased a lot. Lastly, since education is a political issue, we all must become involved with the political process, however dysfunctional it is. Federal and state educational mandates did not appear out of thin air.

Btw, before I leave due to all these posts quite frankly pissing me off... Let me say this to all of the "professionals, psychiatrists, and teachers" who seem to be in absolute disagreement with home school in terms of social awkwardness, mental issues as I believe one person put it, and the ability to handle depression/anxiety. I'm really sorry to say this is such a harsh way and you can flame me all you want, but your degrees mean nothing unless you've experienced it yourself. You can sit there all day and argue psych 101 and the effects on children all you want, but unless you've actually been tormented day by day, experienced anxiety, depression, and tried home school for yourself as a alternative, you have no clue to the ACTUAL effects these things do to you. You're education tells you the most popular theories, methods and reasoning in order to gain a better understanding on human mentality, but the fact stands is that all of that knowledge exists without compassion and true understanding of what the individual experiences. Likewise most of those popular theories stem from small/large group studies done on a certain number of children in each given situation ,so to say that it stands for the majority is most of the time false. Like I said, you wouldn't understand unless you've been there yourself. While I agree the parents will must be strong and they must be prepared at the fullest in order for home school to work as it should with the child, how can you say that statistically the teachers in the US public schools are doing that? From personal experience, 90% of them don't give a rats *kitten* and hardly ever step in to prevent bullying or fooling around etc. Same goes with what some said about mental illness and shi* seriously wtf? I'd like to see some actual statistics that PROVE that home schooled children are more likely to become mentally unstable, and socially awkward than those in public school. And if you want to shoot me these statistics, don't forget to to include the fact that home schooled children make up a much smaller portion of children in the US okay? lol, I'm done, let the flaming begin.

I am said professional you're mad at. I also had serious anxiety issues when I was a kid/teenager/young adult. In my opinion, your logic can be used against your argument ... because unless you sat in one of my classes or conducted one of my studies, you are unable to say that I don't understand. Furthermore, I know very few people in my field who did not have some kind of negative experience fueling their desire to enter the field ... because truthfully, most people hate us and just based on your reaction and others on here, it's not a field that is FUN to be in a lot of the time.

I'm not going to speak for teachers, even though I was one briefly, but many parents came to me and yelled about how I didn't know what I was doing becaue I never had a learning disability. Now people get mad when I work with their [autistic, adhd, conduct disorder, bipolar, whatever] child because I never had those disorders. However, would anyone think twice about going to an oncologist who never actually had cancer? There's a reason that college and graduate school exist, because things have been learned and have been SUCCESSFULLY used with kids.

A personal experience is n=1. That's absolutely useful! I do case studies all the time, but I also do small and larger research studies. While there are a lot of intrapersonal differences between children, the truth of the matter is that there are also a lot of similarities. Not every single thing is going to work with every single child, but that's to be expected.

By the same token, homeschooling is not a one-size-fits-all-save-the-day solution for kids either. Do some kids benefit, absolutely! There are lots of great success stories with homeschooling, but there are also lots of success stories with public education.

I agree with you that you need not experience each person's reality to help him/her. But, on the other hand, reading case studies and the like, while helpful, might inform, as well as distort, your analysis of another case, since each case is unique.

I also agree there are home-schooling, as well as public schooling success stories, but even with public schooling success stories, many are the result of dedicated parents supporting the education at school and augmenting it.

Education stems primarily from the home environment in my opinion. And it's important to remember that most states place the responsibility to educate children squarely on the shoulders of parents, empowering them to make the ultimate decisions. It's as it should be.

"Teaching would be a lot easier if parents weren't so uninvolved and actually cared about their child's education more".

I completely agree with this. I've met a variety of families over my years of teaching, and one thing the most successful students have in common is a solid home life with consistency, communication, and trust. Trust that the teacher is doing their job, and trust that the student will be held accountable for his or her work.