Where did they go? Kids missing from public schools

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by AsianStew, Feb 16, 2023.

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  1. AsianStew

    AsianStew Moderator Staff Member

  2. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

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  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Ultimately, life in a capitalistic society is, at best, an unfair competition. While I will do everything I can to support access to good public education, I really couldn't care less what individual parents do. You want to disadvantage your kids? You want to fail to support their education, their teachers, their schools? Go ahead. You want to home "school" them? Fine. I really don't care. Just leave the schools alone so those that do can thrive.
     
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  4. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    There are a lot of dysfunctional situations in many of those schools Rich, that desperately need to be changed. There are parents on this forum, long-time members in some cases, who felt they had to get their kids free of the mess the schools were in. And they did - often with much diligence and major success. It's not an easy thing.

    I don't think ALL the schools by a long shot, need to be "left alone." Too much evidence (on here alone) to the contrary.

    You say "Fine. I really don't care. Just leave the schools alone." Lot of people say that won't do. I'm not buying it, from personal observation, either. And I feel it's dismissive. Obviously said by a parent who was fortunate enough not to have any of the school-related problems that many others have encountered.
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2023
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  5. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Even teachers decide to pull their kids out of schools - with good reason. I've seen it. More than once. People I know. I support teachers, as I ought to - I have one in the family. But they're not all the same....
     
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  6. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    Unfortunately, while not everyone who wants to homeschool is an abuser, allowing easy access to homeschool allows abuse to thrive. And every student who gets pulled from the school is less money going to that school, which makes them less able to serve the kids who are left. And so more leave. It's a vicious cycle, meant to dumb down the population. It's not good, and more people should care.
     
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  7. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Come on, "not everyone"?

    If there's hard evidence that homeschooled kids are abused at a rate greater than those in public schools, I haven't seen it. It's not hard to find claims from sources that have an axe to grind one way or the other (e.g., Elizabeth Bartholet, NHERI, etc.) but that's not the same thing.

    The opposite happens. The same money is there, serving fewer students. Even in places with a voucher program, the voucher isn't dollar-for-dollar, meaning that the amount available per student in public schools still goes up.

    And no, the homeschooling movement is not a pernicious inimical conspiracy to dumb down the next generation. My eldest three kids were adequately-to-well served by public schools, but my youngest was utterly failed by his, and pulling him out to homeschool him is the best thing for him I've ever done.
     
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  8. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    This comment is a pile of unsubstantiated tripe that ignores not only the myriads of government school teachers who've successfully predated upon children, it also seeks to undermine the fact that children belong to parents. Moreover, given that homeschooled students statistically vastly outperform public school students in every category including STEM, university acceptance and completion, etc., I very much doubt that removing students from overpriced and underperforming government schools will result in less children being served.
     
  9. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    While trying not to get pulled into this debate again, I will note that most studies on homeschooling suffer from severe methodological issues because the whole point is that the kids and parents are outside the public sphere. What you end up seeing is a small subset of data from formerly homeschooled kids who made it to college, for example, which totally misses the kids who were not able to get in to college because they were unprepared.
     
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  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Because I'm a quibbler, I would instead say that parents are the ones who by default have agency over their own children, absent clear and compelling reason for that agency to be overridden.
     
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  11. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    I'd like to see a source for that. Everything I've ever said says that schools get funding based on students who attend. Students with special needs are allocated slightly more (though not nearly enough) than the average student. If there are 10k students in a district and half of them are suddenly homeschooled, they're not going to suddenly have 2x as much money per student for education purposes. That's money that can be put to a different line item on the budget.

    No. Just... no. People do not belong to one another like that and that attitude is, frankly, disgusting.
     
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  12. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Let's assume that's true. They do have it, they're just not using it for that purpose, so it sounds like your problem is with policymakers, not homeschoolers. Just because a lot of people start homeschooling, doesn't mean that property tax rates automatically go down.
     
  13. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    Uh, ok.

    There is a vast body of refereed, peer-reviewed, and metadata studies. Are we really to accept your unsupported claim that "most" of these studies are invalid owing to methodological problems?
     
  14. Vicki

    Vicki Well-Known Member


    This is partly true and may vary by state, so I can only speak for the state where I work. Your local tax dollars will go to the public district regardless of the number of students. State funding follows the student. But there's an offset based on a bunch of factors like the overall size & economy of the district. A wealthier district will get less per student from the state because they supposedly have enough local tax dollars. Federal funding is another separate animal. Add in things like “school-wide Tile 1”... And funding that can only be used for specific programs/purposes. You can't just move money to a other line item. Some funding is use it or lose it. It's a very tangled web. Our politicians want to expand our voucher system because there is too much money being left on the table. I don't work in the details of our school funding, but I have worked in tangent with it. I had a short stint in our accounting department and learned a little bit about how we spent the funding we got.
    As for special ed funding, the amount is based on the disability. There's 6 tiers. A speech-only kid gets far less than autism, for example
     
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  15. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    By the same token, you can't get to deny the more problematic aspects of the movement just because you had a compelling reason to get your kid out of a public school. Like how much of its critical mass came about after Brown.

    People already pointed out how part of every school's budget is tied directly to FTE enrollment (sources that are more important in poorer districts that collect less local taxes, btw). More importantly, for me, the flight away from public schooling weakens public support for them, which leads to funding cuts, which leads to further flight. Arguably, this works exactly how it was designed to work. Even in pop culture, a lot of shows that would feature a high school in the past now are set in charters, nagnets, and private academies (hello, Riverdale, I'm so glad my kids got over you).

    I'm all OK with homeschooling as long as it's an exception from the rule and not tries to be the norm.
     
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  16. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I don't care about what "the movement" looked like in 1954 any more than I care about what the Democratic party looked like in 1954. I care about parents having options to make sure their kids get the best opportunities that are right for them. And here in 2023, increasingly those are families of color.

    By "people", I assume you mean one person suggested that, and another explained how that's actually not entirely the case.

    And again, even if that were how it worked, your beef would be with policymakers, not homeschoolers.

    As a parent who's done both, sending kids to public school is a lot easier and cheaper. Most parents would want to send their kids to a decent school rather than do it themselves. That's what I wanted. So if so many parents increasingly feel this is something they have to do for their kids, maybe getting to the bottom of that should be more important.

    I see we're back to pernicious inimical conspiracy.

    Pop culture reflects the world in which it's situated. In the same way, shows are much more diverse than in previous generations in having non-token characters that are ethnically diverse, from GSMs, etc.

    "It" isn't trying to be one thing or the other.
     
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  17. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Schools are not known for the excess of cash, so partial funding is essential funding.

    Not homeschoolers. Homeschool movement. I'm in a nearby boat myself: my kids are in a nice little charter in a well-to-do (for the town) neighborhood. Not blaming anyone for anything, but someone sure can notice the fact that the charter is predominantly white while the district is 60% Hispanic, and wonder how much this was a reason some parents are drawn to it and ensure its viability.


    This is for the politicians, who really should help public schools instead of fighting them. But seeing how homeschooling movement trends right and is a part of the whole "parental choice" schtick that is para-political and right-wing-adjacent (see DeVos, Betsy), they are part (however small) of the reason politicians are not doing this.
    It's like NRA. It does a bunch of stuff a legitimate group of gun buyers does (eg., safety classes). In fact, I'm a member, sort of (went on a Range Safety Officer class with a bunch of Boy Scout volunteers, in case our Troop would need someone to sub for one). Yet, we mostly hear about them for their lobbying and para-political b#11cr@p.


    The Right's war on the public school is hardly a conspiracy.
     
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  18. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    Especially since they're publicly trying to get rid of the Department of Education right now.
     
  19. SweetSecret

    SweetSecret Well-Known Member

    Many children I know are not in school or being homeschooled. It's a major issue where I live. Schools are often not academically successful, and are unsafe so the parents simply refused to put them in...and fail to bother to homeschool. We end up with a bunch of young adults who cannot even read, do basic math, etc and who are depressed and abusing substances to escape their sense of hopelessness. I definitely would like to see a better system where there is more accountability and young people don't need an adult to enroll in school.
     
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