The wife and I are leaning toward homeschooling. I went to private catholic school, her public in FL. We both feel like we could educate better and skip most of the indoctrination in todays schools. I also have a brother who teaches in the greater Philadelphia area and the stories are insane. Saying homeschoolers would be allowed to slack off is laughable. He says he hasn’t been allowed to fail someone in six years. He can’t even use a red pen for grading papers. The school system has changed dramatically in the past 15yrs. Im looking to educate my children well. That is the main direction of our thinking. We are still in the air….

if getting passed along with Ds and the occasional C is your goal almost any public school can help you out.
they will even feed them for free most of the time and keep them out of your hair 8-3 so you can do whatever you need or want with that time. include a little bussing time in that and get 7-4

yes it can be abused , it isn't all that often ,not near as often as kids are shuffled grade to grade in massive school systems were funding is based on passing kids.

most parents who take the time to home school do so to try and do better than the state school

we home schooled , had people we knew who unschooled , those kids are happy productive adults now one is a stage actor , who performs and dances in musical productions , others have a confectionary business , one with a fitness business , another owns a coffee shop. so I guess it worked.
unschooling is no set curriculum they found lessons in either what the kids were interested in or things the family needed like farm work , one kid learned math by helping and eventually doing the books for his parents bed and breakfast , his only specific assignment was to read and give a weekly book report , his a parents were also both authors.
that kid has started a business pays his taxes , doesn't have any trouble with the law.
other home schooled kids I know are off at college for soil and agriculture degrees.

my kids went back to school for high school my oldest was 4th in their high school for GPA with a 3.9 yup that 1 B in gym class killed the 4.0 , they also graduated with enough college credits to be a sophomore by their second semester , they are currently student teaching K-4 art and have a job at their current school lined up when this semester is over.




I

Their social skills suck in a lot of kid I have met
We did it for 3 years, it is a lot of work.
I was the science and outdoor ed teacher

We decided to spend the cash and go Christian private schools
I was more the most peoples house payment

I’m a slacker. Did you want my taxidermy swift fox this year? My home schooled son will have a few to sell. Good news is he’s quick with math.

Which states require standardized testing for homeschoolers?
About half of the states have requirements for standardized testing for homeschoolers. Here are these states divided by region:

Northeast: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont
Midwest: Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota
South: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia
West: Colorado, Oregon, Washington
Pacific: Hawaii

Mandatory requirements by State

There are some exceptional home schooled kids, and there are home schooled kids that "graduate high school" and can barely read or write. It all depends on the effort that the parents are putting in.

I've seen them not even be able to get their driver's license until they are 18 because they can't pass the test. Really awkward kids too

On the flip side, our church rents out its gym to a homeschooled basketball league a lot of Saturdays. Those kids are sharp, but their parents are very involved. They seem to have great social skills too but they are in several programs that get homeschooled kids involved with other kids, like the basketball league.

I went to public school K-12 and I came out just fine. Got a full ride academic scholarship to college. Got my masters afterwards while working full time. A lot of my lifelong friends I went to elementary through high school with. I can't imagine going through life without that core group of friends. That would be the hardest thing for me if I would have been homeschooled. It would be hard for me to home school my kids unless I found many opportunities to get them involved with other kids and develop their social skills.

I'm also staunchly against sheltering your kids during their teenage years. I'd much rather correct my kids when they're at home than send them off to college and have them exposed to all the things you sheltered them from on their own. I saw a lot of kids crash and burn when I was in college because they got to college and learned all about drugs and women

"I know you guys dislike government control of any sort but with home schooling"

I " as a homeschooler " was using taxpayer money to school my kids. Of course, we spent less than a fourth what the taxpayers spent on public school children. The allocation we could spend was about 3 grand per student. I bet we never spent 3 grand total in any year. So it would be expected, that if I am using public money, they get to make the rules.

I was homeschooled for one year, and it was the best year of my school-aged life. A badly broken leg made it hard for me to get around, so my mother schooled me that year. We did schoolwork every morning, from 9-12. The rest of the day was mine. When I went back to school the following year, I tested ahead of most of the rest of my schoolmates. The odd thing is that I still remember most of the stuff that I learned that year whereas I don't clearly remember what I learned in my years in public school.

I don't have children, but if I did, I would homeschool.

That said, I think kids can turn out fine in public school, or home school. In either case, it depends on the parents. Parents that would be successful at home-schooling would also likely take the time to ensure their kids aren't being brainwashed by liberal public schools.

But, providing that the parents are well educated enough to actually teach their children, and willing to spend the time to do so, I bet a home-schooled child would turn out better than a public-schooled one most of the time.

I worked with several couples over several decades where we had public, private and home schooling as options. Public was the highest, followed by private and then home school. The most comments I got regarding the want to home school centered around the parents were not OK with the kids in the classrooms and the homes or envirnoments they grew up in. Private schools were mostly based on religion and many grand parents paid the tuitions and or the vouchurs were a good way to lower costs. Class room size in the private schools were about half of those in the public schools. (pre-HS level) Several used the 4 year old K and kindergarten in the public schools and then chose private or home school. When testing there was little difference in the average between each age group. There was more variation in home schooling and that was more due to poor abilities or effort on the parts of parents. There are several firms that provide very good materials for home shool families here in WI, but it is the parents that need to follow through. Not many 10 year olds are that self directed. We also live in an area where there are not many that good paying careers that allow one parent to stay home and do the schooling. We also did find that during COVID students really suffered in the learning experience and there was a lot of time used to get students back up to grade level. For many parents, they wanted to control the envirnoment their children grew up in and were taking responsibility or lack there of in helping their children to learn how to socialize with their peers. In many cases when students leave the private or home school settings is determined by the students themselves and the most common time for that is middle school age or HS.

Bryce

in WI our kids can go do extra curriculars at the public school but the parents receive ZERO tax dollars , not even a tax credit for home schooling you buy all your own books , provide all our own supplies and such.

we funded everything , now technically we were a private school as far as the state was concerned , we gave our school a name and we used it to go to museums and such for field trips at the school price of a few dollars a kid.

we even made T-shirts with the school name & logo so they looked like any other school kids at these events , just only 4 of them

we had monthly homeschool group meet ups during the day and an evening event for the entire family , pot lucks , summer camp type stuff and field trips of business tours , capitol tours and such

they had home school swimming lessons at the ymca a set of time mid week set aside for the 2 county homeschool groups one Christian and one no religious affiliation the two groups went together on swimming lessons .

since we receive ZERO tax dollars , we filled out one official form a year stating the kids were in private school and submitted it to the WI DPI

"What are School Vouchers?
School vouchers give parents the freedom to choose a private school for their children, using all or part of the public funding set aside for their children’s education.

Under such a program, funds typically spent by a school district would be allocated to a participating family in the form of a voucher to pay partial or full tuition for their child’s private school, including both religious and non-religious options.

There are 25 voucher programs in 16 states—Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana (2), Maine, Maryland, Mississippi (2), New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio (5), Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin (4)—and Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico."

Basically we got school vouchers.

A friend of ours has a grandchild that has missed a lot of school. The child lives with his divorced mom and does not have a single friend, He is also obese. The mom just moved to a new city to move back to her divorced husband. She has allowed her son to enroll in our states online school program because he is uncomfortable at the new school.

I hate to point fingers, but I think this is a case of long term poor parenting. The kid is essentially being written off, I believe. Neither the mom nor the child are motivated, and both are taking the easy route. Sad. They rely on the grandparents for financial support. The mom doesn’t work outside the home. She bakes cookies for a few customers.

I went too a publik ejucaton skol n look at me now.
There’s some wicked smart youngins around here that are homeschooled. Parents are super strict and “old school” though.

They lack social skillls, every homeschool kid who has come to my school is so annoying and they don’t know how to talk to people

Maybe they find you annoying, lol.

If You get a D in Public School , You didn't comprehend 40%
They rubberstamp You and pass you.

Do that for 12 Years They Graduated You as a uneducated student.

The ACE Pace program our kids went through Homeschool

made You re- study the portion you didn't learn.

Two of my Four kids Got their AA degree in College by age 18

The other two did well in Homeschooling and Graduated on time with Good marks.

Also We still pay Taxes for Public School, so the kids could Play on Sports teams etc...

Never met one home schooled kid who was not a social dead beat, don't know how to start conversations or how to act around others, they may be wickedly smart, but that don't help them socially

Have a family right next to us who home schooled their kids a boy and a girl, girl took off and left after reaching the done point and is back east doing sea mammal stuff, going to be a biologist, since leaving has learned to be social is a charming lady, the boy works at Walmart, has the scraggliest beard I've ever seen, never answers when you say hello to him, dress in crabby clothes, no transportation rides a scooter back and forth, his friends pick him up around the corner so his parents don't see them.

Night and day different, the parents did all the stuff needed, so go figure !!

you don't have to go to a school where kids trying to convince you suicide is a good idea to get social skills.

4-H is a great place to meet like minded youth and participate in encouraged public speaking , activities and projects were you can learn valuable information and skills about useful subjects.

Public school education is appalling, that has been forefront for some time now.
Given the opportunity now,.I would have made the effort to home school.
Take a look at reading, math and comprehension.
If it weren't for union heavy weight , it would be more obvious.

and hang out with grounded farm girls as my boys really noticed this added bonus of 4 H this year. was a shock to their mom when she say then walking around with girls. She sent me pictures I only responded well mom always said they were just like me, being I met my wife when I was 16 and she knows how I was that really hit her. her only response was O God don't scare me. .