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Homeschooling

There not too tough to find. Just google. I'm not trying to be a punk, I just don't do the url thing too well. And I don't like doing it.
When it comes to academics, I would expect public schools to do a better over-all job than the home. I'm not taking anything away from Mom and Dad, but unless they are both some sort of Einstein, they can't be an expert in everything a student needs.
ted

Well, see, the issue isn't that we can not find anything on home schooling at all...in that regard you are quite right, there is allot of information out there.

However what we are searching for now is an unbiased source on academic and social statistics. Any source which endorses home schooling as a premise, not a conclusion, is not what we are looking for.
 
Jerry, I continue to admire the consistency of your beliefs. I am certain we will disagree on principle, here. My issue is the discriminitory stance that the HSLDA takes against a section of society, one that may want to homeschool their children. Based on their doctrine, I don't see how the HSLDA could support a homeschooling gay couple if legal action was necessary, whereas they would support a straight couple under the same circumstances. They could use their moralistic values, potentially, against their own goals. I am also concerned about the lack of diversity in this particular area that this promotes. This tends to bolster my argument with regards to socialization. Also, the Natural Law argument is often an easy refute in debate, as it tends to give a subjective value judgement to something that is considered 'natural'.

I'm not prepared to defend HSLDA's legal action as I am not familiar nearly enough with their legal actions. I can, however, address the religious aspect of giving support to a gay couple who home school.

In my religious opinion such would be no different than giving support to a parent who divorced the other over something other than abuse or adultery. It would be no different than helping a Wiccan or Buddhist couple.

If we look for the negative in people, we will be sure to find it. The downfall of mainstream Christianity is that they like to use the bible as a weapon, smoking people over the head whenever possible. This is not what the bible is for.
 
As it happens I had looked up the preamble (I have it in my favorite list) so as to get the wording just right for that post.

Apparently I could teach my children about reading comp. better than your teacher thought you, as I said nothing about "Creator" being in the Constitution. I said "those who rote the Constitution say", not 'the Constitution says'.

Also, as you can clearly see in your quotation of the preamble, neither Liberty nor the Blessings of Liberty are established, but referred to, which means that they already existed prior to the constitution.....just like a woman's right to not be raped existed before the Constitution, and in fact exists even if the entire body of U.S. law were dissolved.

And you'd still be, quite basically, mistaken. We've been over this and it is very clear to most that the DOI is not law, was never intended as such. It is their declaration and intent to be released from the tyrannical rule of the King of England and their beliefs as to why they're doing so.
That you take it as some sort of gospel of rights is your personal interpretation, but legally, it is not one of such. Hence, the Constitution was created to legally secure the rights deemed necessary. So, read that again, not the DOI and get back to me regarding what we are entitled to as citizens of the US.
 
And you'd still be, quite basically, mistaken. We've been over this and it is very clear to most that the DOI is not law, was never intended as such. It is their declaration and intent to be released from the tyrannical rule of the King of England and their beliefs as to why they're doing so.
That you take it as some sort of gospel of rights is your personal interpretation, but legally, it is not one of such. Hence, the Constitution was created to legally secure the rights deemed necessary. So, read that again, not the DOI and get back to me regarding what we are entitled to as citizens of the US.

I never said that the DoI was law, either.

You constantly assume that I claim that the DoI is law, yet I have never made that claim.
 
I'm an eduction major, so you might guess where my feelings are on the issue. I see several potential shortcomings to home schooling:

1.) Parents lack the training and knowledge to formally educate their children. There is more to teaching than just reading the teacher's edition. For my degree I have taken or will take classes on child pyschology and development, classroom management, assessment, educational history and philosophy, educational methods, and a few other education classes. Along with that, I will have 3 semester's worth of field experience (begining field experience, intermediate field experience, and student teaching). Oh, and then to top it off, I have to take a ton of courses in my content area (social science with an emphasis on history). This isn't to say no one can possibly teach without this type of training, but it certainly helps and not everyone is equipped to be an effective teacher.

Another related issue is that as children get older and the curriculum becomes more diverse and demanding, no one person can possibly be knowledgable enough to effectively teach all areas. Just think about the typical high schooler's schedule: math (algebra, geometry, trig, or calc), history, literature, grammar, science (biology, physics, or chemistry), second language, fine arts (music, drama, art), and then of course electives that cover a wide range of content.

2.) Home school children can miss out on social interation with their peer group, developing coping skills, and a sense of independence.

This is based largely on my own observations. Home schooling is very big in my church and I've noticed a few things. First, the student's quality of education varies greatly. Some home schooled kids I've seen can barely read and their at the high school level. Others are like walking encyclepedias. Secondly, most home school kids are a little "off". There is no one consistent trait, but they never seem to quite fit in. I've seen extreme shyness, anger management issues, an inability to pick up on social queues like tone of voice or body language, or just general awkwardness.

Of course these traits can be found in the public schools too, but they seem to over represented in the homes choolers I've met. I think its because a lot of home schooled kids are sheltered by their parents and they are not used to dealing with things on their own.

3.) Many home schooled children are not exposed to a variety of viewpoints and ideas contrary to those of their parents.

I think one of the big reasons home schooling is becoming so popular is because parents want to reinforce their own values and beliefs in their children and do not like it when the school exposes them to contrary notions. My church sits in the middle of the one of the best school districts in the state. There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about the quality of education a child recieves in this area. Yet, more and more families are pulling their kids out of public education and home schooling them. Why? I often hear these parents complaining about moral relativism, secularism, sex education, or even evolution being taught in the schools.

Yet, I think these children are harmed when they are not exposed to differing beliefs and values. Part of growing up is questioning your own beliefs and discovering for yourself which ones are valid and which ones are not.

All of that said, I think there are times when home schooling is a valid option and the issues I outlined above can be addressed and overcome by a determined and dedicate parent. If the school cannot meet your child's specific needs as well as you would like, I could see making the switch to home schooling. The law only requires an adaquete education for children, not an optimal one. Children with severe disabilities or with unusually high intelligence might be better served in a home school enviroment that allows for more personalized care and a customized curriculum. If your child goes to a poor performing school or one where the enviroment is not safe, I can see the wisdom in home schooling. However, from what I've seen home schooling seems to have made most of its gains with white suburban families - families that tend to live in good school districts that are well funded.
 
I'm an eduction major, so you might guess where my feelings are on the issue. I see several potential shortcomings to home schooling:

Psychoclown, I would absolutely LOVE to debate this issue with you. Unfortunately, however, we have found this subject to be an enigma in that it has proven to be incredibly difficult to find sources which we can all agree are unbiased. So until we do have some mutually trusted source material, I'm afraid that we will just have to chill and talk about possible avatars for you.

I mean, come on.....the funniest thing on the planet is a screaming clown on fire...add to that a large blade, some unfortunate bystanders and toss a monkey in some where and that's about as good as it gets.
 
I never said that the DoI was law, either.

You constantly assume that I claim that the DoI is law, yet I have never made that claim.

Then please stop referring to its doctrine in citing your own beliefs and I won't make that error any more!
Jerry said:
Our unalienable rights predate the constitution, and those who rote the Constitution say that our rights came from our Creator, the laws of Nature and of Nature's God.
 
Then please stop referring to its doctrine in citing your own beliefs and I won't make that error any more!

I'm sure there's a logical fallacy for what you just said, but I don't have the time to look it up. Sorry. You'll just have to rely on your own good judgment to see that I am not responsible for you making these errors.
 
Hmmm. I just glanced at the Home Educated and Now Adults report. The stats certainly look nice and rosey, but I have a potential issue with the findings. I believe (I could be wrong) that most home school families are white, middle class, and suburban. I'd be curious to see how home schooled adults fair when compared to non home schooled students from the same socio-economic groupings.

................................

You're right that there is not a lot of unbiased material out there. In one of my education classes this semester, we had had to debate education topics. The pair that did home schooling both said empirical sources were hard to find.

Even so, we can still kick around this topic. I love a good debate, especially with someone who is well informed and civil. I usually learn something. :)

As to the avatar, if you can find that avatar, I'll gladly use it!
 
Like this one. If I had a nickel for every time someone has said to me, "But you're not a scientist. How are you going to teach them biology, chemistry, trigonometry?" I could pay my mortgage and have change left over. I always answer, quite seriously, "Well, I took those classes in high school. Didn't you?"

"Of course," the skeptic will say, "but it's not like I REMEMBER any of it."

This cracks me up. Sometimes I'll say, if I'm feeling snarky, "Then surely I can do a better job than your teacher did!"

But I'm not really slamming the teachers. I'm slamming the skeptic's ill-considered argument. You can have the best teacher in the world, but if you don't have a reason to use the knowledge, ten or twenty years later you're probably going to have forgotten it. Since none of us can predict exactly WHAT knowledge our children will need in their lives to come, many homeschoolers approach education not from the perspective of "What do our children need to know?" but rather "How can we help our children retain the love of learning they were born
with?" There's a reason that Yeats quote about education being "not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire" is so popular with the homeschool crowd.

The skeptic's question presumes I'm going to be teaching in the textbook-and-test style that has been deemed most efficient for classrooms full of many students at various ability levels. I think most people who come at homeschoolers with the "are you qualified" argument are imagining a scenario in which Person With Knowledge imparts said knowledge to Student Without Knowledge (Yet). And that's just so different from how home education really seems to work—no matter what method, philosophy, or curriculum is applied. We're working one-on-one—an unbeatable student/teacher ratio—with a teacher who knows the student intimately, knows his interests, abilities, moods, sense of humor, learning style, sleep patterns, and diet, a teacher who has the strongest possible attachment to the student. This creates a whole different kind of learning environment. School vs. homeschool becomes apples vs. oranges. They are such very different experiences that it becomes nearly impossible to compare them. But I think that when the skeptic says, "Are you qualified to teach subject x," he's looking at my orange and thinking what a misshapen apple it is.

<snip>
Not a study or similar, but a good argument.

A good argument, but I think one that is somewhat flawed. The educational philosophy that the author adheres to is existentialism both as a philosophy and in her methodology (at least as she describes it above). It's a very student centered approach that frankly has never been applied in the classroom on a wide spread basis. Education researchers can't agree on the effectiveness of the philosophies that have been widely used, so you can imagine how hard it is judge existentialism objectively. From what I've heard from parents I know who are home schooling, this seems to be a common approach in home schooling.

If applied totally and completely, it would be possible for students to finish school with certain areas painfully under emphasized. Imagine if your education included no American history, civics, or a look at the philosophers our founding fathers were inspired by. Now go out and vote and be a responsible, active citizen.

I believe there is a certain body of knowledge that is essential, certain great ideas or works that are timeless and should be looked at by everyone. Education not only provides knowledge to students, but also cultural literacy.

It is true that many traditional classrooms do snuff out that love of learning, but that does not mean that there is not essential knowledge that students should learn.

Another thing the author did not take into account is that no matter what subject area sparks your child's interest, that child is still going to need a solid foundation of knowledge about that topic. The teacher is still going to be sharing this knowledge with the student in one way or another.
 
Hmmm. I just glanced at the Home Educated and Now Adults report. The stats certainly look nice and rosey, but I have a potential issue with the findings. I believe (I could be wrong) that most home school families are white, middle class, and suburban. I'd be curious to see how home schooled adults fair when compared to non home schooled students from the same socio-economic groupings.

Yes, I have seen that pattern represented in government sources, which are only rich in information on demographics and totally absent of social/academic data.

You're right that there is not a lot of unbiased material out there. In one of my education classes this semester, we had had to debate education topics. The pair that did home schooling both said empirical sources were hard to find.

Even so, we can still kick around this topic. I love a good debate, especially with someone who is well informed and civil. I usually learn something. :)

This is rather odd, this subject I mean.....I have never encountered a topic so absent of research from universities and or the gov.

Quite odd.

But yes, tomorrow I would be happy to kick this around a bit with you. Absent good sources we could discuss our experiences on the matter, and that would be just fine in my book.
 
IFOUNDONE IFOUNDONE IFOUNDONE YEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

Okay, I got that out of my systom, now check out National Home Education Research Institute and tell me what ya think.

Got excited when I saw your post, Jerry...until I clicked the link. Had been there several times. The site is run (I think) by Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., one of the foremost advocates of homeschooling. Sorry, don't think it's unbiased enough.

Other than the fact that finding a study that takes an unbiased approach to examining social skills comparisions of homeschooled and non-homeschooled children, I would think that any research could be biased regardless of the source, just by the very nature of homeschooled family's demographics (parents are more educated, more motivated, children are more motivated). Removing some of the confounds, might not be possible. Add to this, the fact that homeschooling groups are generally resistant to outside agencies conducting research, and I think that actually locating a study will be a lesson in futility.
 
With all due respect, it's clear you don't understand how HSLDA works.

HSLDA is a group of lawyers (yes, they are Christian) who defend homeschoolers in court so that legal precidents can be established. ONLY homeschoolers who pay the $100 annual membership fee will qualify for their services, THEREFORE if a homeschooling gay couple WHO HAD PAID THE ANNUAL DUES had a legal situation THAT WOULD ESTABLISH PRECIDENT, I don't see why the HSLDA would not defend them in court.

I am not a member of HSLDA, nor do I play one on TV :smile: but I do know of several who have contacted HSLDA for help and have variously received help and not. In one case, DHS had been called on a homeschooling family citing failure to properly school the children. A phone call to HSLDA, a lawyer on the phone, the phone handed out to the social worker standing on the porch, a brief conversation in which the social worker was advised of the family's legal rights...HSLDA would defend the family in court if it came to that. In another case, DHS had been called about living conditions of a homeschooling family. HSLDA was called and they wouldn't touch it. "Living Conditions" are not a homeschooling issue.

In my state just a few years ago, the state required a six page application be submitted each year for each child including a class schedule, list of textbooks used and a complete syllabus of each course for each child...a TON of paperwork! In addition, the state wanted to require each child submit to standardized testing at the public school IN ADDITION to the annual assessment we have to submit to the Dept. of Ed. HSLDA attended the legistative session that what held to discuss the proposed bill and argued that the government was actually requiring more of homeschooling parents than public school teachers and was thus unfair. The bill was killed, many regulations were loosened (now I can simply list all my children and their ages on a single piece of paper and include a statement that I intend to educate them in math, science, social studies, etc for 175 school days) and the benefits are for ALL homeschoolers regardless of religious affiliation.

No, I get (and had gotten) what HSDLA is and what they do. I understand that they are a legal organization, dedicated towards defending the rights of homeschooled families, and lobbying legislatures for the rights of homeschoolers. I also understand that HSDLA does not stand or represent all homeschoolers. My concern is that for an organization that seems to be the main legal and lobbying arm in the homeschool movement to have discrimintory and specific religious descriptors in their "Who We Are" and "What Do We Stand For" section is disturbs me. Many homeschooled families may look to this important organization for guidance and direction and the narrow (IMO) view that they are professing can influence parents to create children that will be ill-prepared to deal with diversity.
 
Psychoclown, I would absolutely LOVE to debate this issue with you. Unfortunately, however, we have found this subject to be an enigma in that it has proven to be incredibly difficult to find sources which we can all agree are unbiased. So until we do have some mutually trusted source material, I'm afraid that we will just have to chill and talk about possible avatars for you.

I mean, come on.....the funniest thing on the planet is a screaming clown on fire...add to that a large blade, some unfortunate bystanders and toss a monkey in some where and that's about as good as it gets.

If you put in a monkey, how about a fat-balding organ-grinder, too?
 
I seem to be spending forever both on this thread and researching information for it. My new hobby...:doh


Granted. The ability to interact appropriately with others is a crucial skill. But I contest that public school is the best place to learn those skills.

Public school, unless it is part of an IEP, does not provide direct instruction in "social skills" beyond Kindergarten. The whole purpose of Kindergarten is to teach children how to behave in school...sit quietly while teacher talks, don't run in the hall, line up to go to library, line up to go to music, line up to go to the bus, ask permission to use the bathroom. Nowhere since I have graduated from highschool have I had to use any of these "skills." This was socialization specifically to the public school environment. Can a person be successful in life without ever having had to line up for the bus? Yes.

But the "social skills" you all are so hot on...handling social interaction...are not directly taught in school anyway. "When somebody waves a greeting at you, it is socially proper to wave back." My kids must attend public school to learn that? "Use a fork to eat your green beans, but it's okay to use your fingers to eat the chicken nuggets." Which class must my child take to receive this instruction? And what if my child insists on eating his nuggets with a fork and his greenbeans with his fingers? Will someone correct him? If so, who...the cafeteria moniter who is refereeing a disgreement acroos the room?

I would agree with you in principle with everything you said. Public school does not specifically teach social skills in any organized kind of way. Never said it did. However, in practice, public school teaches social skills every single day through Social Learning. Social learning theory (aka social cognitivism) theorizes that learning can occur without reinforcement or punishment, but through several other processes, also. Main principles of this theory include:

  • People learn by observing others.
  • Learning is an internal process that may or may not change behavior.
  • People behave in certain ways to reach goals.
  • Behavior is self-directed (as opposed to the behaviorist thought that behavior is determined by environment.)
  • Reinforcement and punishment have unpredictable and indirect effects on both behavior and learning.
Imitation, modelling of others, especially superiors, and goal-oriented desires are main components to learning to socialize.

Read up on Albert Bandura and his 'Bobo doll experiment' for more information on this. Briefly, his seminal research in this area showed that people learn social behaviors through observing, processing, evaluating, and imitating behaviors.

This is what happens at school. How one learns to deal with bullies, friends, authority, etc...is through watching how others deal with these situations, evaluating the outcome, processing this, trying out a new behavior, and then repeating. The amount of situations that can be enountered in school and then projected onto many other life situations are far greater than those encountered by a homeschooler.

The homeschoolers I know do not object to that kind of "social" instruction anyway...but would make the point that public school is not the only or most appropriate setting for such instruction. It's the peer interaction that has us most concerned and which you (you=people who oppose homeschooling because it leads to socially backward adults) insist is one of the great benefits of public school.

The diversity of peer interactions and the potential for social learning are the great benefits of public school.

To say that "there is no better place to learn how to deal with bullies, become confident in yourself, interact with members of the opposite (or same, however you roll) sex, and deal with both fair and unfair grading systems" assumes several things:

1. "Becom[ing] confident in yourself" is a social skill. It's not...it's an emotional skill and follows a series of successful experiences. Not everyone can be successful in public school, and if you've read anything at all about learning theories (The Way They Learn by Cynthia Tobias; One Mind at a Time by Dr. Mel Levine; Better Late Than Early by Dr. Raymond Moore) it is clear that only a very small percentage of the population can be successful in Public School. So if self-confidence is based on success, and only a small portion of the population experiences success in school, then it seems that public school is the least likely environment for a child to develop self-confidence.

I agree that self-confidence is not a social skill, per se. This is why I have a problem with most homeschooling research on social skills; they use self concept as the major indicator of good social skills. Self confidence, however, can have an impact on social skills. A confident child may interact better than an unconfident one. It is but one aspect, however.

2. Public School is a naturally occuring environment. It's not. At no other time or place in life do you interact with 30 people your exact age for six hours a day. At home, at work, at the beach, at the grocery store...you must interact with people of all ages, experiences, socio-economic backgrounds etc. Not so in school. The demographics of a school are determined very much by location, and often by the tax base that support it. A child in public school will interact with children his exact age, developmental level, and similar life experience. There is limited contact with older and younger students, so the opportunities for watching how older students behave and being the model for younger students is lost.

Disagree. If you think about it, most of us, at our jobs and homes interact with a fairly consistent, homogeneous group that we spend most of our days with. And once one is an adult, variations in age are less important. Public school does well minicking life's interactions; same teachers, same friends, etc...

3. Public Schools provide instruction for negotiating social situations that is unavailable anywhere else. Except for the recent interest in social instruction regarding harrassment, this is untrue. How does the school teach about boy/girl interaction? Is there someone standing by teaching a young man how to properly ask a girl out on a date (other than his geeky friends who prove nine times out of ten to be no help at all). Is there someone to guide the girl on how to properly turn down the young man when she is not interested (other than her air-head friends who prove nine times out of ten to be no help at all). Who will debrief them when the whole social situation goes bad?

Again, see my information on social learning. All of the things you mentioned are covered in that area, or through questions of others (hopefully family, especially).

In the past, the school's attempt to teach children proper social responses (Just Say No, D.A.R.E.) have proven largely unsuccessful. Kids still use drugs/start smoking/drink and drive/have unprotected sex. You wanted statstics about how successfully socialized public school kids are compared to homeschool kids? That's where you'll find them...if socialization is the learning of the acceptable behaviors of a society, find out how many kids use drugs public school vs. homeschool. How many unplanned teen pregnancies are there public school vs. homeschool. How many kids get expelled from college public school vs. homeschool. How many kids end up in jail public school vs. homeschool. I don't have the statistics, but I'd wager that generally speaking, homeschool kids ARE successfully socialized because they understand the rules of society and obey them.

I haven't seem any research findings on this, but I would guess it is less about choice and more about exposure. If one never sees a drug, one will not use it. On the other side, how might one learn how to deal with these situations if one is not exposed to them rather then being shielded from them?

Information on this post was found at the following links:
Social cognitivism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Albert Bandura - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bobo doll experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Hold on to your hats...I may have found something. It's late, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow to thoroughly review it.

Edit:
Oh my gosh...I may have opened the floodgates...'till tomorrow, all.
 
Last edited:
With public education in the gutter, more and more people are opting to homeschool their children.

My question is: What do you think about homeschooling?

I don't think it's so good as it sounds. It is good on a way that you get education but you don't get the opportunity to study in a class with other children/ classmates you can't do tasks in groups or share your thoughts with them. I think this is a part of education to ,and it's important that the student or the child should get this opportunity to.
 
Got excited when I saw your post, Jerry...until I clicked the link. Had been there several times. The site is run (I think) by Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., one of the foremost advocates of homeschooling. Sorry, don't think it's unbiased enough.

Other than the fact that finding a study that takes an unbiased approach to examining social skills comparisions of homeschooled and non-homeschooled children, I would think that any research could be biased regardless of the source, just by the very nature of homeschooled family's demographics (parents are more educated, more motivated, children are more motivated). Removing some of the confounds, might not be possible. Add to this, the fact that homeschooling groups are generally resistant to outside agencies conducting research, and I think that actually locating a study will be a lesson in futility.

Well, ok, there’s a way to navigate this crazy home school world filled only (so far as we can yet tell) with biased material....we find source material that is biased against home schooling and contrast and compare.

However, I for one have not yet found even one anti-home school source. You?
 
Hold on to your hats...I may have found something. It's late, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow to thoroughly review it.

Edit:
Oh my gosh...I may have opened the floodgates...'till tomorrow, all.

This post is just evil :mrgreen:
 
Alright...ARE YOU ALL READY? OK...HERE WE GO!!!

In my glorious, yet exhausting search for research surrounding the issue of socialization in the homeschool vs. non-homeschool debate, just as I was about to impale myself on my favorite samuri sword, I stumbled upon an idea: what if I started a search by typing in the names of the researchers of some of the studies I couldn't access? Might that lead me somewhere? True, not necessarily a novel idea, but one I had overlooked simply because of the futility of accessing the studies at the source site.

OK, first to start with the reason why finding unbiased or governmental research is so difficult. Homeschool organizations do not want to participate in these kind of studies. As I quoted from the HSDLA website, in a previous post:
It is HSLDA's firm belief that federal government spending on education is unconstitutional and must be eliminated. While we support the position that the federal government should not be involved in education at any level, we also support measures that incrementally reduce the control of the federal government over education.

This quote seems to permeate much of the homeschool community, or at least much of the homeschool community that makes their presence known. Some further information around this:

From the National Center for Education Statistic (Yes, the United States Department of Education!):
However, measuring the prevalence of home schooling in the United States has proven to be a difficult task. Estimates of the number of children who are home schooled vary by hundreds of thousands of children. In the last decade, there have been several attempts to determine the
number of children who are home schooled. Some studies have attempted to assess the size of the home-schooled population by identifying and surveying home-schooling families and extrapolating
from those surveys estimates of the number of children who are schooled at home. Other researchers have collected data from state administrative records to develop estimates. All of these estimates, over time, have ranged from 200,000 children in 1988 (Kohn 1988) to 1.15 million children in 1995 (Ray 1997). However, most of these researchers recognize that their estimates of the number of home-schooled children include unknown sources of error (Kohn 1988; Lines 1991, 1996, 1998; Ray 1997).

Also from the same source:
The low household response rate in the NHES allows for the possibility that homeschooling families, who may not wish to be identified
or involved in government-related research (Kaseman and Kaseman 1991), may have participated at a lower rate than other families.

There is much more to this source. Here is the link.
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/2000311.pdf

Interestingly, there were several other abstract quoted sites on a couple of reserach clearinghouse webpages that also directed one to links that gave similar information. However, as these clearinghouses were homeschool sponsored, many of these links didn't work. Far be it, however, for a tenacious researcher as myself, to give up so easily. Further explorations located this absolutely wonderful article writen by two very strong proponents of homeschooling.
Home Education Magazine: One of the oldest and most informative homeschooling magazines.

There are so many quotes that I could take from this article, that I could use several posts to do it. In brief, the Kasemans' position is similar to the
HSDLA's. They seem completely suspicious of govenmental research and express concerns about how it will lead to regulation of homeschooling, making it comprable to conventional schooling. The Kasemans', in another article, go on to criticize an important HSDLA study, supporting homeschooling, as being invalid.

The HSDLA endorsed study is here:
EPAA Vol. 7 No. 8 Rudner: Home School Students, 1998

The Kasemans' response is here:
HSLDA STUDY ON HOMESCHOOLING

Here, the Kasemans do a great job of showing flaws in the HSDLA study, by demostrating an umrepresentative population, administration problems with accepting and including responses (only 48% of responses were actually counted), and other problems with the report as a whole.

There seems to be a general agenda though: keep government out of homeschooling, and by preventing research, this goal is more easily attained.

One more point around research validity in homeschool studies. Most 'in house' research seems to be sponsored by Christian groups, as these organizations dominated the homeschool community. The HSLDA is Christian based, as is NHERI and NCHE. These (and the people associated with them) are the big players in homeschooling. The following aritcle does a good job outlining this and, again, indicating the general invalidity of research and the position the homeschool research is not helpful, in general.
PJE_Article response

To me, what this all shows is the difficulty of finding any valid research on the topic. And, when you check the links I have cited, so far, all except for the US government link are homeschooled or homeschooled sponsored websites, adding, hopefully, to the credibility of my research.

Continued...
 
Continued...

So what does this all mean to the issue we have been discussing and trying to find valid information on? Is there any valid information? Will I now post this information? Is Jerry sitting on the edge of his seat?

Well...there seems to be no seminal, highly respected studies on this topic. There are many smaller ones, though each has problems, mostly with sample size, population bias, or poor testing proceedures. In brief, the conclusion I reach by looking at most of these studies, is that, overall, there doesn't seem to be any major difference in the socialization ability of homeschoolers vs. non-homeschoolers. I know, disappointing, especially with the difficulty of proving validity of many of these studies.

But wait. Since we've all had so much fun with this thread, thus far, how about we do this: I like Jerry's suggestion. Let's take a look at these studies and debate both the pros and cons of their findings along with the potential validity of the studies. Could be amusing...or something like that.

Here are some of the research clearinghouse links I found. There are some pro-homeschool studies, many 'no difference' studies, and a few pro-non-homeschool studies. Most of the links I have cited in my previous post, eminated from one of these links. OK, here they are:

Homeschooling Research Bibliography - Bibliography of scholarly research on home schooling
AHA Homeschooling Information
A to Z Home's Cool (Homeschool) - Homeschooling Information
Homeschooling Research

Lots of material here, folks. Let's see what happens as they are explored.
 
Captain did you read this one at all?

Research on Homeschooling Socialization (Learn in Freedom!)

Especially noteworthy is this part:

The same year that Shyers completed his doctoral degree thesis research on homeschooling socialization, Thomas Smedley completed master's degree research at Radford University in Virginia, with a similar experimental design. Smedley compared twenty home-schooled children to thirteen public school children, matching the children as best he could by relevant demographic characteristics. His study used the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, which evaluate communication skills, socialization, and daily living skills. Smedley found that the home-schooled children were more mature according to the scoring rubrics of the Vineland scales, scoring in the 84th percentile, while the public school children scored in the 27th percentile. Thus the Shyers finding supports a nearly simultaneous finding by a different researcher, who used a different social science evaluation procedure on a different sample population. Such a replicated finding is unusual in social science.

Because the website is Christian, you may have rejected this as biased at the outset. However, this IS exactly the information you are looking for. I've spent two days trying to locate the dissertation (I think I found it at the University of Flordia library) so I could bring that to the table, and then realized I was looking for the work of Shyers instead of Smedley...

Anywhoo...the Vineland is a test I am well familiar with. It is administered by parent interview/direct observation and looks at four areas of development: fine/gross motor, language, social, and self-help. Questions include: "Does the child respond to his name...tie his shoes...ride a bike...make eye contact...speak four word sentences..." and the responses are "Always, Frequently, Often, Rarely, Never." It is a tool used to screen for developmental disabilities such as autism. My son has taken it four times.

It is unlikely that results could be skewed to read "more sociable" or "less sociable" (believe me...I've tried). Especially with more than one person administering the tests and contributing to the answers. The focus of the test is social skills and seeing how they've developed in comparison to other areas of development...so this is exactly the kind of test results we've been seeking. Regardless of the religious affliation of the website owner or Thomas Smedley, the results are unbiased and I propose these results be accepted as valid.

I just did a search for Radford University

About RU

It's a public college, rated in the top 25 Master's Programs in the South by U.S.News and World Report. IF Mr. Smedley is a Christian, I suspect it would have no bearing at RU. Again, validates the findings (IMO).

:rofl I just found this article which appears to be written by our Mr. Smedley...he appears to be an angry Libertarian, but "God" did not appear once in his article. :rofl

The Libertarian Home Schooler, Thomas C. Smedley

Socialization

The primary advantage of socialist education, we are told, is socialization. The ability to sniff the behinds of those around you, and ascertain your position in the pack, your place in the pecking order. In adult prisons, rapists help to put and keep "fresh meat" in its place. In kiddy penal institutions, bullies serve the same purpose. Several studies, including my own MS thesis, have measured the social maturity of home educated children. This characteristic is normally far higher in kids who were raised in their families, than in those who were surrendered to The Lord of the Flies. It's easy to pick out the home schooled kids at family reunions. They're the ones who can organize the younger cousins into games, or comfortably discuss politics with the sober aunts and uncles.

What a riot!

So, I make a motion these (impartial) results be accepted. :smile:
 
Like everything, not everything is good for everybody.

Some kids will excel at homeschooling, but that is not because public school teachers are bad, it is because of other factors. Some kids need quiet settings, some kids get more parent support, but if a kid tries in public school and have parental support, they can and will do great. Public school teachers are mandated to be very qualified now. They go through almost as many years of study as lawyers many times. A teacher that has a Masters might have gone to school for up to 8 years of college.

Homeschooling in general, I have noticed, is full of introverts and psuedo-wierdos.
 
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