The downfall of religious homeschooling

[Foxaèr]

Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post has an incredible story of a Christian home-schooling family where the parents don’t want to send their children to the local public school, and the children, knowing they’re not getting a good education, are fighting back:

[Son] Josh Powell wanted to go to school so badly that he pleaded with local officials to let him enroll. He didn’t know exactly what students were learning at Buckingham County High School, in rural central Virginia, but he had the sense that he was missing something fundamental.

By the time he was 16, he had never written an essay. He didn’t know South Africa was a country. He couldn’t solve basic algebra problems.

If parents claim a religious exemption from public education, the state government doesn’t do anything to check in on them and make sure they’re doing a decent job.

It’s scary to think that 7,000 children in the state are being home-schooled and we have no idea how many of them are getting a decent education. We don’t know how many can read or write. We don’t know how much math they can do. We don’t know what books they’re reading (besides the Bible, anyway).

Josh Powell, now 21, wonders how much more he could have accomplished if he hadn’t spent so much time and effort catching up.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyath...bly-wrong/

As much as I dislike the public school system, I know it is still a better alternative to religious homeschooling. Religious people who finally enter the world, whether to attend college or get a job, tend to only have one thing on their minds, god, and that makes them completely unprepared for the world.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Kids fall through the cracks in public schools, no doubt, but here's the thing, if you're free enough to opt for home schooling, I'm sure you're free enough to make sure your kid finished her homework before she she goes out to play. If parents don't impress upon their kids that doing well in school is important, their kids sure as hell won't think so either.

[My imaginary friend is GOD]

The problem with regulating religious homeschooling is that it makes homeschooling more difficult for those who are doing it right. In Alabama, a new law has been passed that there will be an organization overseeing church schools (all homeschooling is done through church schools), and that each church school will have to pay $500 every three years to be overseen. I'm glad I wasn't homeschooled under this law. What a pain in the ass.

I'd like to point out that the point of homeschooling in religious families can be different than in other families. They often want to train their sons to work for their father's business and daughters to be good housewives. Math isn't required for that.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

I was homeschooled k-12 in a fundamentalist family. I thankfully didn't grow up like Powell did. I was writing reports and short stories by age 8 and 9 and essays by age 12 or 13. Started Algebra I think by age 11.

In my experience, most of the homeschoolers I knew were at least equal to if not better at "uncontroversial" things such reading, writing, the arts, mathematics, geography, Western history, and English. Lot of them, including myself however, grew up on a diet of anti-evolution creationist material for our "science". Creationism heavily influenced most of our science studies such as astronomy, biology, geology, archeology. Biblical psuedo-history also influenced all of our history studies of ancient world (before 1 A.D.). Many homeschoolers might not have that great a grasp on art history because of all the "pornographic" paintings and sculptures. We also had a lot of pseudo-history about the founding of America.

I only knew maybe one kid like Powell. He grew up on a farm. My mom was "substitute teacher" for him for like two weeks. We found out that he had no knowledge at all of uncontroversial astronomy like the order planets, the order of the solar system, the size of the planets and sun, galaxies, etc. His parents were literally just teaching the four Rs (Reading, wRiting, aRithmatic, and scRipture).

What I see a lot of among homeschoolers is a huge push by their elders to shape and mold them into Christian activist lawyers. Being in debate leagues is a huge thing among homeschoolers and these kids end up going to right wing lawyer colleges such as Patrick Henry.