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A Washington DC public school circa 1900. US Library of Congress.
There are very few signposts in the education game—very few assertions that can be backed up by hard statistical data. It is striking, therefore, that the superiority of homeschooling over the public schools can. In study after study, American students who have been homeschooled for a good portion of their primary and secondary education score about 30% higher on standard tests than do the kids in the public schools. Put another way, if the average score on such tests is 50%, the average homeschooled kid scores 70-80%. If the average score is a D, the homeschooler is scoring a B. This is true in every subject, though the public schools do seem to do slightly better on math than on reading.
Obviously, homeschooling relies on volunteer labour. But the average cost of a year of homeschooling is $500. The average cost of a year of public schooling is $5,000. And the average homeschooled kid actually studies for 16 hours per week; the average time in class for the public schools is 25 hours, plus homework.
Do the reading, do the math, and one thing is clear: homeschooling is overwhelmingly more effective than sending your kids to the public schools.
But what does this tell us about the state of the teaching profession today? Imagine if, for comparison, your chances of getting well were vastly greater if you stayed home and chose your own treatment than if you went to a doctor or a hospital? How long would the medical profession survive? Imagine if your chances of getting convicted were vastly less if you represented yourself in court rather than hiring a lawyer. How long would the profession of barrister survive?
The teaching “profession” nevertheless survives, primarily due to the political power of the teachers' unions and their PACs. They have long been the biggest contributor to the Democratic Party. But the evidence seems clearly to show that it has less than no justification for its existence. It is nothing but an interest group, a clique that has developed an efficient scam against the public. Unprettily, it has basically done this by holding people's children hostage.
That looks as though it is about to change. Chris Christie in New Jersey is rapidly building himself into a political legend, and a possible president, on the premise of going toe-to-toe against the teachers' unions in that state. His success has been signalling other politicians that this is fertile ground; watch soon for many others to follow. We are close, I think, to a tipping point.
Perhaps a more interesting question is: how on earth can a professional group consistently manage to do less well at their chosen work than a person pulled randomly off the street?
7 comments:
I've been homeschooling my children for nearly 7 years. When we started out I didn;t work but now I work full time and continue to educate my own children.
I LOVE your article but will say that I certainly couldn't have the results I have if I had as many students as a public school teacher has now with the myriad of issues each child brings to the class. They seem to spend the majority of their time managing crowds. How sad that they cannot spend their workdays practicing the profession they worked toward!
That being said, I'm thrilled to have found your blog ;)
As much as I agree with the facts about homeschooling being better than public schools (we have always been an unschooling family), you are off the mark to blame teachers. Most teachers - though lord knows there are some terrible ones out there - are lovely people who thought they would be doing a bit of good in the world. What they find when they enter the profession though is that the system of institutionalized schooling makes that impossible. I could go on and on about the ills of school, but I won't . Having your children learn at home and a teacher with 30+ kids in a class are nothing alike. It's really not fair to compare them.
I appreciate your post, but as a homeschooling parent, I would disagree that we are equivalent to "person pulled randomly off the street". While it's true that most homeschoolers aren't trained teachers, we can control aspects of our students' lives that teachers cannot. My kids are well rested, well fed, get sufficient exercise and have parents who believe education is important. I think that if schools were full of kids meeting that description, their scores would go up.
Unfortunately, schools seem bent on making changes that make it harder for kids to have enough sleep (longer days and more homework), enough exercise (no recess), quality food (long days combined with junky cafeteria meals), and involved parents (confusing "new math", excessive homework conflicting with family time).
These data, if accurate, are quite compelling.
I was struck by your last comment, however.
Do you have reason to believe that most homeschooling parents would be similar in significant ways to individuals "randomly" pulled off the street? In other words, would the data be as dramatic if we really did assign random people off the street to home-school their kids?
This does not diminish the success of the results achieved by home schooling parents. Just dubious about that last assertion.
Any thoughts on this?
To Kimmy and Paula: class size is the most common explanation given by the teachers' unions for why they are not doing better, but there is no empirical evidence to back up this claim; and it is sure not for want of trying. That means it is almost certainly untrue.
I think you are right that the average teacher spends the majority of their time in crowd management; but I think this is the fault of the teaching methods being employed, the type of person who currently becomes a teacher, and an emphasis forced on them by the ed schools, not something intrinsic to the classroom situation.
By nature, all of us enjoy learning, and kids most of all. There is something wrong in the fact that most kids nevertheless seem to hate school.
To Sabat, on kids needing to be well-rested, well-fed, and exercised: while I am sure that is true, it is also true that studies that have compared homeschooling (and private schooling) to public schooling have been done that corrected for this possibility, and found that the academic advantage of homeschooling was just as great without these factors.
They are not what makes the difference.
To Sebat and Elaine on "randomly pulled off the street": I used this terminology having already considered the objections you raise here; which does not necessarily mean I was right in my judgement. Here's my thinking. While it is of course true that, to the child, parents are the furthest thing from "people randomly pulled off the street," that is just what they are from the perspective of the education schools--lay people with no training.
Of course, part of my point was ironic--to underline how skewed the perspective of the ed school really is. And of course, in most cases, parents will do far better with their children than someone else will, most certainly including a teacher in a classroom, because a parent is best placed to supply the one thing most necessary for a good education: the love of the teacher for the student.
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