"Robert Sturgeon" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 17:30:38 GMT, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner" wrote in message
.. .

"People disagree over homeschooling's social and academic benefits.
Test score data from states requiring testing or from homeschooling
associations, while not totally representative, suggest that tested
homeschooled children are above average (Lines 2001). According to two
Time reporters (Cloud and Morse 2001), "the average SAT score for home
schoolers in 2000 was 1100, compared with 1019 for the general
population."

Kids from disfunctional families and illiterate, impoverished families
are
included in the "general population." Home-schooled kids almost
exclusively
are not.

Yes, but how does that fact prove that home schooling is
detrimental to children?

The assertion was not that home schooling is detrimental. It was that it was
superior. And that is not supported by the facts, Robert, because there is
no control on the groups being compared.


Another case of lying with statistics.

I don't know of any laws against "disfunctional families and
illiterate, impoverished families" home schooling.

Robert, I think you've just hit bottom in the reality department. g How
are illiterate parent(s) in dysfunctional families going to home-school
their kids? They're lucky to get them dressed and out the door.

They
don't, but that's because of the combination of not wanting
to and not being able to.

Ah, yeah, no kidding.

If you dropped the "disfunctional
families and illiterate, impoverished families" from the
comparison, the results would probably be about equal
between the home schooled and publicly schooled children.

I see no reason to believe that's the case. Do you have facts, or just
speculations?

No one knows and no one can know, because the computation
can't be done.

Of course it can. You can take a slice of socio-economic profile from each
and compare them. It isn't easy, and I doubt if anyone has both the money
and the motivation to do it, but don't say it can't be done. That's the kind
of analysis that's done all the time in economics.

One of the things you have to do is normalize for class size. What's the
average class size in home-schooling? Take comparable-sized classes in
public schools and compare them. You can mathematically adjust for class
sizes based on samples. BTW, one of my wife's classes contains four
students. My son is in an AP History class with seven. So there are some
small classes to compare.


The usual slam against home schoolers is that THEY are the
disfunctional, illiterate families and that home schooling
somehow damages their children. All the stats show is that
home schooling doesn't damage their children - at least not
academically. The only apparent damage done is to the
financial health and political power of public education.
THAT is what fires up the school boards and teachers' unions
- not the welfare of the children. (My opinion, of course.)

There's much more to it than that. The premises of public education date
back a little over a century. It was something that was necessary for the
public good. Times have changed, and it's time to re-examine the premises.

But that's not what the argument is about. It's about an entrenched
bureaucracy in conflict with a philosophy of bitter, resentful malcontents.
There is no real argument, in other words, because they aren't honestly
addressing the same things. Neither does either side acknowledge or examine
the real premises of public education, nor their status in a changed world.

Ed Huntress