You're right, I shouldn't have imported motive to those parents. And I can empathize with parents in this situation. I don't think it's necessarily easy to go the single-income route.
Still, in my calculus, the benefits outweigh the risks. Here's another anecdote:
Once a week my kids get together with several other home-schooled families. In one of those families, the father is a math professor at the local community college. He's smart. He could work at any of a number of universities and make better money, but he's chosen to work at a community college because it gives him a more flexible schedule to be around to raise/educate his children.
His family of 7 lives in an 1000 sqft home. His decision to take an active role in educating his children required sacrifices, and he's chosen to trade off the career benefits for home life benefits.
(BTW, when people talk about "diversity", this is the kind I think that matters most. Diversity of viewpoints on how to live your life and raise your children. I'm glad in the US we don't have to all agree on the best way to do these things.)
I mean… yeah, if it was my full time job to educate my one child at home, then yeah, I feel pretty good about my chances of making that work - but also having that kind of time, and money, and energy to commit to a task like that is just… I mean, who can afford that, practically speaking? That’s a 13 year unpaid commitment that you have no training for or skills in, and the stakes are the success of your child. Are you prepared for all that?
I guess my point being - it’s not ‘random parents’ in your example, it’s parents that are already in a position to be able to and to be willing to deliver a child though a k-12 curriculum with superior outcomes.
As a parent who made the decision to pull my kids out of school and to home school them, it is a scary thing. Every parent that I've met has struggled with the question of "Is this the right choice? if I choose differently will my child have a 'better' life?"
Once my wife and I decided, we were 'all in' as it were and put the angst of 'what if' behind us. It turned out to be the right choice for our kids, they thrived, and while it certainly had an economic impact, its hard to say of the three choices, private school + two parents working, public school + two parents working, or homeschool + one parent working what the opportunity cost was or would turn out to be, the opportunity to engage kids in learning for learning's sake is priceless.
Oh yes I agree that if each teacher gave you their undivided attention it would have been fantastic. But while I could teach my child maths or physics quite well, I would not know nearly enough history or biology to even start. So I would need to stop working and consider education of my child to be my primary job. I think that's a massive sacrifice that's completely unnecessary, but hey, that's just my own opinion - maybe there are home-schooling parents who work full time at the same time,but I can't see it work. And if they are not working,but staying home to teach their children then the net benefit to society is.....negative? That's just my guess though.
Yes, I agree with this. And still it doesn't work for all parent/child combinations. We know a few folks who home schooled for a few years but then the kids went back to public school. Sometimes the parent and child didn't have good chemistry. Or one kid wanted to run track and there weren't good opportunities outside school. Or the parent dedided they weren't suited for it.
We've been lucky. We don't need two incomes. My wife as it turns out is a good teacher and she enjoys it. Our kids are good students and enjoy home schooling. We live in a community with tons of educational resources available outside the home.
It seems like the educated, power-couple types who obsess about pre-schools, private schools for young children would be capable of and better served by one parent not working full time and participating in their child's education themselves.
It's not easy, and there are trade offs, but we did. We have two kids out of the house. One on their own, the other will be a senior in college next year. We have a younger child in 5th grade that we home school.
We felt it was better for the kids to have one parent at home versus sending them to day care and spending a ton of money on that. It just wasn't worth what the take-home was after paying for that.
Good question (hence my upvote). I have been the home-educating parent, sporadically employed for money, as my children have been growing. Observing them pursue their interests has given me new career ideas, which I like better than my former career.
To be both somewhat insightful I provide a small correction...
> Ultimately, the predominant educational system and it's preeminent methodology, have become about competing for progressively smaller numbers of seats in progressively better lives...
One of many reasons I have put off having a child, the financial burden of giving a child a 'good' education, is considerable. From the purely academic component of quality teachers, to the social component of creating an environment where their interaction with other children is beneficial, neither of these comes cheap.
I'm not after much, just well paid teachers who stay passionate while they teach, a class size where they can give each student enough attention, curriculum that allows the child to 'surge forward' when driven by curiosity and be rewarded for their work not punished for not doing 'this weeks assignment', and enough other children to interact with so they can develop social skills. The last one is the tough bit, all the others can be provided by home school with or without using private tutors or paying for a 'personal teacher'.
It’s hard to do unless one parent is comfortable with, capable of, and willing to spend years facilitating homeschooling (property near good schools is expensive). Then it’s still incredibly expensive in lost wages (and greater income insecurity/risk, which is even worse in the US due to how healthcare and retirement works, plus it probably ties the other partner to secure corporate jobs for healthcare if nothing else, and so limits upside available from riskier moves) compared with other options, unless you have several kids and the stay-at-home parent had fairly low earning potential.
I'm currently in this situation. Home schooling would be easy if we were a single income household where one parent remains working and the other dedicates their whole time to home schooling and preparing meals. But we're not. So are a lot of other parents.
I'm surprised to see that you think there is a clear dichotomy between what can only happen at school and at home when it comes to learning.
You'd be even more surprised to learn that learning can happen anywhere, anytime and from anyone in any kind of form.
Helping kids at home with school work as a parent is not only accessible to rich families. You should help your kids when they really need it regardless of your socioeconomic background.
Now if you're talking about personalized/paid tutors outside of school, then yes - it's much more accessible to richer families but there is fundamentally nothing wrong that. What you decide to do with your kids outside of school is your choice.
Thats why I love home schooling and recommend it to others when possible (and a lot of the mid tier or senior engineers at many of the SV companies that frequent this site can easily have their spouses work part time or stay at home to raise their children optimally). Problem is that you often end up seeing career driven smart engineers marrying career driven smart spouses.
That isn't to say distance them from their own age group. They need tons of exposure to those their own age. But if you do that you can have them going to all the activities and clubs they are interested in in the evening while dodging the cult of personality and familiarity that is the public classroom. And if you can save your children from the brain drain, they will find myriad interests in a vibrant world for them to pursue.
I have done home schooling and regular public schooling. If you can afford to have a parent be at home full time with your kids, you are amongst the wealthiest in the world. You are fortunate.
Let me be the one risking your ire and criticize your and GP viewpoints...
Let me start off by asking if either yourself or GP have kids of your own, and just mention for a short moment, talking about how hypocritical parents are, while judging them while not having kids of your own, well...
The fact is, kids take up a lot of your time, and I mean really a lot. No you are not prepared for how much of your time kids take up. While you decided to have kids, you still have hopes and ambitions of your own, and would still like to be the master of how you spend your own time to some degree.
So in order for sanity to prevail, and for parents to be able to work a job and not have to look after their kids the whole time, society created the schooling system. This systems main purpose is to take care of the children while the parents can earn an income, and the secondary purpose is to provide an education while looking after the kids.
Can this system be optimised? Sure. But who has time? Certainly not the parents.
And the points I am making above, are being realised by a hell of a lot of parents trying to work from home while having to home school the kids at the same time...
It might help to begin with the end in mind. The goal of education and the reason you send your kids to school is so that they come out with skills that enable them to succeed in society[1] and you also want them to be bolstered as moral and ethical human beings.
If you trust the public school to do that - or at least do a better job of it than you could yourself - then you send them. On the other extreme, you either opt for private school or home-school.
I assume people don't make these decisions lightly. The path of least resistance is to send your kid to whatever random school they are zoned for. The next level of care is to move to an area with better schools or hope you can get into a charter school. Next level beyond that is paying a heavy price (in dollars or hours) to send them to private school or home-school. So I respect people who do that, a lot. It comes from care for their kids and ability to commit to it deeply.
As a personal observation, I was very lucky with the public school education I got in Brooklyn in the 90s. Especially in high school, I had many teachers that taught me how to think more than what to think. But that was 30 years ago and that kind of teacher was kinda old-school then. Back then, I can count on one hand the number of teachers I had that today would be categorizes as "woke crazies" (one tell-tale sign, they grade you on whether you agree with them, not the quality of your argument) but I suspect that ratio is way worse now. My kid is a toddler and I have a bunch of years to evaluate the teaching in our area, but I wouldn't think I'd be doing my son a favor sending him to a school that constrains thinking and speech rather than encourages breadth. I am very far from considering home schooling but if my choice is to basically stay home and teach my kids or to send them to a brain-deadening environment (that's an extreme, don't think it's happening in my town) I know what I'd pick.
[1] that is a combination of technical, thinking, and social skills.
I have a 3 year old and a 7 year old and I've been seriously struggling with this recently. I have put the eldest into a private school, which is great and he has come on tremendously, but I still am left with wondering if the classic way of educating ultimately isn't great for him. I have read about home schooling etc, but I just don't have the time to do this. I myself have never worked for a traditional company since I left university (I'm 40 years old now) and so have worked from home, had offices and generally a much more 'loose' working environment than most people so I'm more flexible. Just wish there was something else I could do - I need to look for something else for them to get life experience. Thanks for your comment - it's just sparked me thinking about it again
Ok, but what is the end game? Those parents will either have to homeschool, which they can already do, or you are going to force your kids to attend school with the families you paid a premium to avoid living near.
Without knowing all the facts surrounding this choice, it is rather difficult to judge if this decision was ill-conceived. But as a father of a home-schooled 5yr old, I find myself constantly questioning the value/trade-offs of traditional education paths rooted in a paradigm that doesn't quite fit todays' world. With a bit of planning, History and Socialization skills can definitely be learnt outside the High School System. I am all for a blended learning experience, taking the best of the traditional approach and mixing with unconventional learning opportunities.
Still, in my calculus, the benefits outweigh the risks. Here's another anecdote:
Once a week my kids get together with several other home-schooled families. In one of those families, the father is a math professor at the local community college. He's smart. He could work at any of a number of universities and make better money, but he's chosen to work at a community college because it gives him a more flexible schedule to be around to raise/educate his children.
His family of 7 lives in an 1000 sqft home. His decision to take an active role in educating his children required sacrifices, and he's chosen to trade off the career benefits for home life benefits.
(BTW, when people talk about "diversity", this is the kind I think that matters most. Diversity of viewpoints on how to live your life and raise your children. I'm glad in the US we don't have to all agree on the best way to do these things.)
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