Can homeschooling make you more tolerant?

boing
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You don’t understand the problem.

Parents who have enough education, acumen, resources, connections, etc. to get their kids into the best school possible are already doing that. What we want, for the long term benefit of our nation (and the individual benefit of each child), is for the children whose parents cannot or will not do everything possible to help them succeed in school to still be able to go to decent schools.

For example, I live in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago. My last address was in the catchment area of the highest rated (at the time) public grade school in the area. At least 5 other families “lived” at my address. Got their mail all the time. Talking with my neighbors, I learned this was a common phenomenon. Any parent WHO UNDERSTOOD THE SYSTEM and had no other way to get their kid into the least-bad school in our area of the south side would pretend to live at a local address. If they didn’t get away with it, no harm no foul, because the public school system would still be legally required to take the student somewhere; but the reality is that the state of bureaucracy is such that this trick often does work.

These kids have parents who understand that getting into a good school is key, and are willing to do what it takes to enable that to happen. Thus, they’ve got an advantage in life over the other kids in their neighborhood whose parents don’t care, or don’t speak English, or don’t have a way to get them daily to a school that isn’t close by, etc.

This is why public tax money needs to stay within one system, the public school system, and used to make EVERY child get at minimum a decent basic education. Private money can set up any school they want. Charter schools don’t have to be supported by the government, especially not to the detriment of actual government-supported education.

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The only metric that matters when it comes to education is the satisfaction of the families being served. A simple google search reveals this study from the Department of Education.

Study charter schools positively affected parent and student satisfaction with and perceptions of school. Lottery winners and their parents were significantly more satisfied with their schools than lottery losers according to all 11 measures of student and parent satisfaction and perceptions examined by the study, after adjustment for multiple hypothesis testing. For instance, lottery winners were 13 percentage points more likely to report they “like school a lot” than lottery losers (Figure 3). Similarly, the parents of lottery winners were 33 percentage points more likely to rate their child’s school as “excellent” than parents of lottery losers."

I’m sure you don’t. But that’s how it works if we tell parents and communities that the only option they have is to do what they’ve been told to do for decades, which is to wait. Wait for more money, wait for new programs, wait for new curricula. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of Einstein’s definition of insanity.

I’m actually surprised that you agree with that because it’s a terrible, callous argument for taking away the only hope that many poor and middle class families have had to gain access to a satisfying education.

You’ve been arguing that since there isn’t enough room for the families who want charters, forcing a lottery system, then charters shouldn’t exist. I’m arguing that since there isn’t enough room for the families who want charters, forcing a lottery system, then there should more charters. You’ve said that’s the attitude of an “elitist jerk.” But I’m not the one opposing the thing that satisfies the education needs of poor and middle class families.

Only the fact that poor and middle class families are satisfied with their charter schools. Telling them, “Sorry, but your school’s test scores are no better than the test scores of the school you don’t want to go to, so you can’t go to your school anymore,” is, again, neither liberal nor compassionate.

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Well, maybe we don’t agree on what the problem is. Maybe we can agree that we’re not just talking about one problem. The public school system is a problem. The charter school system is a problem. There are lots of problems within those problems, as well.

So far, so good, we agree. (Except for the “our nation” part. I believe in universal access to quality education, like I believe in universal access to healthcare, because it’s good for people first and foremost. Benefits to “the nation” is a natural side-effect of treating people well.) EDIT: We probably agree on this, seeing that you put “individual benefit of each child” in there.

Again, striving towards providing the opportunities for EVERY child to get at minimum a decent basic education is something that everybody wants. The problem is that, despite per-pupil spending higher than all but one or two other countries, the public school system hasn’t provided this. Families that can’t afford private school have been traditionally trapped in unsatisfying schools. So, a lot of these families have embraced the options provided by charter schools.

Your argument is that the children of families who don’t have the understanding to exploit the system the way it has to be exploited are still trapped in under-performing schools. The solution to this? Well, that would require a revolution in the way we treat public school. It would require ignoring entrenched interests and focusing on students. I’m not optimistic that it will happen. But I don’t think that removing the one source of hope for many poor and middle-class families is the best way to ensure that the highest percentage possible of students receive a decent education.

What options do poor and middle class families have if the government won’t support alternatives for their education? The “detriment” of public schools where charter schools exist is due primarily to the inefficient management of money that is a prime cause of unsatisfying schools in the first place.

The government provides each child with money to be used for education. You’re arguing that they shouldn’t be able to use that money for the kind of education that most satisfies them, because the system in place is incapable of managing the money given to each child to be used for education. This is a self-perpetuating problem.

When a kid goes to private school, the government does not give a public school the money they would have given to educate that kid. So, going to private school, according to your argument, takes money away from public school. Therefore, kids shouldn’t go be allowed to go to private school, because schools have less money to teach kids who can’t afford private school. Therefore, kids shouldn’t go be allowed to go to homeschool, because schools have less money to teach kids who can’t homeschool.

The implications of your argument are, at their heart, authoritarian and illiberal.

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That’s the only metric for you? Whether they are effective or pulling resources away from other kids has no bearing? I would think some who thinks the problem of public schools is primarily due to “the inefficient management of money” would have a bit higher standard.

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What are you talking about? Taxes to pay for schools are not one-for-one by student. Many children go to public school despite the fact their parents don’t pay real estate taxes (or whichever taxes are used to pay for the local schools), and many homeowners pay those taxes despite not having children. Just because a family decides to send their children to a private school doesn’t mean a portion of their taxes is magically handed back to them. Conversely, if a school district normally has 500 students in a particular school but then a new charter school nearby draws off enough students that they’re down to only 400, they’ll lose approximately 20% of their funding.

I’m not against charter schools. In fact, I’m tangentially involved with one. But parents perception (less than a year in) that they’ve gotten their kids into a better school because they won in the lottery system doesn’t mean it’s true over the long run. It’s perception, not proof. I’ve known too many families who were thrilled to get into a lottery or charter school (and these are NOT the same thing, nor are the funded the same way) only to pull their kid out a year or two later.

In addition, I am against this end-run around the public system because I know the main goal of the most vocal advocates isn’t really to do with ensuring that inner city poor students of color have better access to education but rather that middle class white families can siphon money off the public system to help pay for their kids to go to private schools. The biggest group seems to be those who want the government to help pay for their kids to go to a religious school, and that runs smack-dab into First Amendment protections.

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You’re moving the goal posts. You expressed disbelief that there were any people out there who wanted their kids in a special school and didn’t care about what happened to other people’s kids. I showed you an example of people with just that attitude.

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I should have been clearer, it’s true. I should have said that satisfaction is a much more important metric than test scores. That said, there’s no reason that the satisfaction must come at a higher cost.

And, as I’ve pointed out, if resources are being pulled from other kids, it’s not the fault of charter schools, but rather of the system, itself. Either poor and middle-class people have to continue to be at an educational disadvantage, or the system has to change. I think the latter is more fair.

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You’re misunderstanding me. I’m not talking about where taxes come from. I’m saying that a school gets its money based on the number of students who attend.

I never even implied such a thing.

This is a problem with the funding structure, not charter schools. Families shouldn’t have to send their kids to a school based on a district’s funding structure. They should get to choose based on their needs.

I know for a fact that this happens. But it has nothing to do with whether or not parents deserve to have a choice in their kids’ education. Being allowed to make choices means being allowed to make choices that don’t work and then getting to choose to take corrective action.

I think your attitude is no different from those people who believe that teachers’ unions are not interested in the well-being of students. Once you pretend to understand the motivation of “vocal advocates,” you stop paying attention to actual arguments.

Which group is “the biggest group?” I’m a secular liberal, and there are lots of secular liberals who are “vocal advocates” for school choice, because having a choice in all things is a fundamental feature of being a thinking human being. Besides, the U.S. government already gives funds to students to attend private, religious universities.

That said, I think it’s a reasonable compromise to say that government funds shouldn’t go to religious educational organizations, but that choice should still be available to poor and middle class families.

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You did, and I agreed that I wouldn’t be surprised if some charters were created for selfish reasons. There will always be selfish people trying to game any system that exists.

But that has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not poor and middle class families should have no choice but to go to a school that has been unsatisfactory for generations. Some people are always going to be selfish. I think most (poor and middle class) people shouldn’t have their choices diminished because of the actions of some people.

The fact that some people commit fraud with food stamps and medicare is, in no way, an argument that those things shouldn’t exist.

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