Ever wonder why so many are home schooling?

As I ponder the question - Ever wonder why so many are home schooling?  I wonder in reality the many reasons.

For one I know some are doing it to shield their children from all the social issues that come from normal school.  At least in our area so many have foul language or behave in such demeaning ways to others; along the lines of bullying.  There are also those that are worried about the curriculum being taught.  They may not want their child exposed to "SEX ED" at a given time or some of the other ideas floating around out there like evolution and the like.



But, I know of the opinion there is more.  It appears some are turning to home schooling as a way to counter what is being perceived as a poor quality education.  Class sizes are getting bigger year by year.  Right now in California 20-25 is normal for a class.  They still have some things in place to help make sure that kindergarten is lower but the norm for higher grade levels is over 20 pupils.
Combine this with ineffective teachers and/or burnt out teachers and you have a recipe for disaster.   And that's not taking into effect or consideration the excessive number of students ending up in schools that ADHD/ADD or autism and other learning disabilities.



I don't know if it is better diagnosis or what but when I hear about 1 in 180 people has some version of autism I get scared.  Did they lump a bunch of things that were being classified differently in the past now as autism or what?  Those figures are amazing when you consider NF(Neurofibromatosis) is generally considered found in 1 in 3000 persons.  That make it very common for a relatively unknown genetic condition.  So Autism is all over the place.  There will be by the numbers 2-3 people with autism at my daughter's school.  So with about 10-15 elementary schools and another 8 high schools and middle schools in the district you are looking at easily 200-250 autistic kids in just the local school district.

So you start to see the disaster that may be boiling below the surface.  The whole broken school system.  And some would say we have depending on the area the premier school system in the world.  Granted some of the rural locations may not have everything the bigger metropolitan locations have but, still we have a fairly comprehensive system.  Ranking high in many indicators compared to the world.  However, can we do more?

I say we can do a heck of a lot more.


many complain that poor or burnt out teachers due to tenure can not be removed without a long costly fight.  Then there is the little known secret (Dirty Little Secret Blog Post) that keeps laying off teachers each year and rehiring the same ones.  What this creates is a bunch of people that can not get tenure and/or access to the pensions. They lose out on retirement funding and the others grow fat on pension that are outrageous.




We need to hold the teachers more accountable.  We also need to have more parent involvement.
When the parent is checking up on the homework, complaining when things get lost in translation and the like things can get better.
If we just assume all is ok, don't verify anything when the teacher says "your kid is doing find in math" then all may be lost.  Or you might just find out things are not as good as you though when it is a bit too late to intervene appropriately.

We have to ask ourselves and our children what is going on at the school.  Is there an area I can reinforce at home?  Where can I get involved and make a difference.

And as we get more involved and hold the school administration and teachers more accountable things will begin to change.

    And now let's not get started on the state of colleges and universities.  I know they have increased the cost per semester he like 200% over the last 10 years or so.  Inflation has not been nearly that bad........  and you can't home school for that one even if you wanted to right?

Buaidh - NO - Bas

P.S. I found an article that is great on home schooling -
Why are homeschooled kids so annoying?