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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Wife Swap and Homenoschooling
I blogged earlier about one of my favorite television shows, Wife Swap. In it, mothers from two very different families swap homes, and experience life in a family from the other side of the tracks. There is often an interesting class divide between the families, something that doesn't receive enough attention in our discourse. And in addition to the class issues, there are big conflicts on personal hygiene, cleanliness of the home, ambition, and discipline of children.
I watched the fourth episode tonight where one of the families profiled by the show home schooled. And yes, homenoschooling was present, again: Home schooled kid at public school: ...the days are like really long compared to home schooling... I find this interesting, in part because in a former job, I worked with home schooling organization. The organization was interested in privacy. I always thought it was because they didn't want the government learning that they were teaching crazy religious shit about jeebus. But could it be that they're hiding extreme laziness? Days of hour-long instruction followed by lunch and television? Maybe a future episode of Wife Swap will tell. Until then, will someone call child social services on the families featured by Wife Swap? The families featured are engaging in parent-sponsored truancy! |
10 Comments:
Yeah, no accountability at all probably isn't a good thing, the opposite side of the spectrum of the constant standardized testing that's passing for education in the public schools.
Maybe they should require homeschools to obey Bush's no child left behind testing scam? Get that accountability going.
11:19 AM, September 20, 2006
Sigh. . . and I was so hopeful after reading your "denialist" piece.
Yes, we are homeschoolers. Unschoolers even! Shocking!
Sorry to say we don't watch the Wife Swap garbage. But if you want to know more about homeschooling, there are better sources available.
Read a little. Expand your mind. :)
Nance
9:43 AM, September 21, 2006
Yeah, homeschoolers get pissed every time we blog on this.
The question is, what does the data say on homeschoolers?
Buck isn't saying Wife Swap is a legitimate source of scientific information, just that it's interesting in the limited number of shows that have incorporated it, how bad it's come out looking. In his first post he mentions that the homeschoolers he's known have been some of the brightest people he's worked with. So that leaves us with a few questions.
1. How are standards in homeschooling enforced, if at all? (from what I can tell there is highly variable state-based regulation)
2. Where is the systematic study data on homeschooling, and it's effectiveness across different groups? There is the NHERI which appears to present mostly PR data, no cold hard literature here. The NCES data which shows a rapidly increasing population of homeschooled kids but not a lot of data on how they're performing. They cite this Rudner paper a lot, but that was performed on a pretty homogeneous set of kids using Bob Jones University (ack!) to administer it (although tests were taken unsupervised), with pretty much everyone in the sample christian with a high proportion of fundamentalists as the data set. That isn't representative of everyone who does this, and the achievement looks inflated vs national statistics because of the homogeneous sample population. In addition, not everything in the survey is positive, including the numbers of kids who had never used a computer (40% for homeschoolers vs 16% nationwide at 11th grade). Sorry, in this world, it's important to be exposed to computers to complete one's education.
3. Finally, how much of homeschooling is done to maintain the bigoted and insular fundamentalist worldview preserved among the kids? You worry that a growing population of people in this country are growing increasingly isolated and hostile to the modern world, and homeschooling represents something of a withdrawal from society at large. Whether or not the education is the same you have to worry about this trend sociologically.
Buck isn't saying all homeschooling involves lazy parents, but it is disturbing that lazy parents do this. It really only should be for motivated parents who have enough education themselves to effectively educate their children. And even then this desire to isolate oneself from the world is a bit disturbing.
4:41 PM, September 21, 2006
As an unregulated industry, homeschooling is bound to have all sorts, but checking the Carnival of Homeschooling every week gives me hipe - most of those are very conscientous educators.
5:25 PM, September 21, 2006
LOL -- yep, we're so isolated and lazy.
And we do pooh-pooh the magic of "standards."
You got us! :)
Of course, there are the diligent homeschoolers who look schoolish enough to satisfy your notions of what we should be doing and they have test scores to prove it.
We, otoh, have none of those things! We can't prove anything to you. And, here's the secret, shhhh . . . we don't really need to. The kids are terrific, flourishing, growing, learning, happy! But I haven't got a scrap of paper to prove it. In our home, learning and living are not about proving anything to you or some school agency. We call it freedom and we like it!
But, since you know all about hsing, never mind. Continue in your views and never let the facts of the matter intrude!
We are off to the beach today! Off to meet up with a few other unschoolers and skim board and splash in the sun. Then we have to hustle up a bit to get packed up for the Tae Kown Do tournament on Saturday. Big packing issue? Which books to bring for the ride.
And, yep, we'll be ready for a nice lazy Sunday after that.
So, no time to talk right now -- I have to go be isolated somewhere! :)
Nance
9:53 AM, September 22, 2006
Wow,
Way to take a reasoned, balanced response and go off the deep end Nance.
What is with this paranoia of the homeschoolers about being attacked by outsiders? Really, we don't care. Buck was just pointing out there is no system to monitor whether or not homeschoolers are doing a good job. You say the kids are happy, flourishing, smart, whatever, but everybody says that about their kids.
Sorry, but without any real data or study of the technique, it is just ripe for abuse or just plain incompetence. The Rudner paper is not a single-variable study of homeschooling. The proper control should have been non-homeschooled kids from similar geographic areas and backgrounds, not national averages. NCES has no data on efficacy. There is simply no public information that shows that the schooling is consistently good for kids.
Further, we are clearly not attacking homeschoolers at all, we're just suggesting that there should be some measure of accountability when parents do this, to make sure they don't ruin the education of their kids through incompetence or negligence, because there is such thing as incompetent and negligent parents, even with the best intentions. We didn't say homeschoolers were lazy, we just said that was their representation on this TV program, and there is no data to prove it otherwise, which would seem to me to be a major problem that homeschoolers should want to address and correct.
Homeschoolers should want data that demonstrates in a single-variable and unbiased experiment that their system is legitimate. Instead, every time you mention them, they act like they're being subjected to a pogrom and there is some conspiracy against them. What is with this persecution complex? We're merely asking where is the data that shows this is effective? All we get in return is anecdote after anecdote, and, as they say, the plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data. Your assurance that everything is fine simply isn't good enough. The government would be remiss if they didn't show a bare minimum of due diligence in ensuring this type of education is performed correctly when over 1 million kids are currently being homeschooled.
We are not attacking you, so chill out. We're responding to the public representation of homeschooling by a TV show, and simply asking, "where is the data?" That is not a freaking inquisition, that's a very simple question that should be asked and answered in an open and honest way.
3:10 PM, September 22, 2006
Let's see here. Where did we leave off? You weren't attacking me and you were basing your questions on a TV show. Hmmm. . .
There aren't too many things on TV that should be the basis of any sort of serious inquiry. I'm pretty sure Wife Swap isn't a good place to start.
The data that is available is generally positive. But data is not available for many homeschooled children. That is a problem that many people have had with homeschooling for at least as long as I've been doing it. But your curiosity is not enough to justify an invasion of my privacy. Or my children's.
There have been some good discussions about what hsers do or do not owe anyone as far as "accountability" or citizenship. You will find one here:
http://www.nhen.org/forum/topic.asp?
TOPIC_ID=614&SearchTerms=aera
And I'll add that data collection is really not the way to get to know people. Certainly not a community as diverse and widespread as hsers. You'll find all sorts among us. If you want to look. But you won't find out about us by crunching numbers.
The one comfort you might take from the lack of data on hsers (and private schoolers, for that matter) is that there is plenty of data on public schoolers. But maybe that's not really all that comforting. And/or much of a reflection of who public schoolers really are. . .
Nance
11:26 AM, September 24, 2006
Sorry, I don't really care about knowing people, I think that's just an extension of arguing from anecdote. I want data, not stories.
This is a science blog, we want data. That's why we started from a stupid TV show (which for some reason Buck loves) and asked the question, what is the data on homeschooling?
It was merely a way to get the conversation started, and most people, unlike a bunch of scientists running a blog, won't inquire beyond the representation on the TV show, which means you've got a serious image problem.
The data is positive, but it's exceedingly flawed. I've looked at the basic research now and it simply doesn't pass the smell test. Experience with science often gives you an instinct for when people are creating trials or studies designed to give a specific result. With the homeschooler data, the emphasis on national averages is the critical flaw in all the arguments.
The single-variable case control study has not been performed. The kids, from the same neighborhood, or relative geographic and socioeconomic strata have not been compared. This is the very basis of science, the single-variable experiment. Then, when this flawed data is challenged, we get anecdotes, paranoia, and a persecution complex. Woah, now there's a serious danger sign. When people argue from anecdote, or start acting like they're being persecuted when someone merely asks a question, that usually means they simply don't have a leg to stand on and know it.
The arguments against regulation, testing accountability, etc., end up coming across as paranoid and self-defeating. Ultimately, openness and a bare-minimum of oversight will go a long way towards demonstrating that this is a good educational alternative for motivated parents who have the time and money to do this right, especially if their local schools suck. To say that homeschoolers are somehow beyond reproach because they're just darn good folks, and diverse, or to claim they defy study is just ridiculous. Objective study should be performed and if there is nothing to hide, then things will look good and confirm the technique.
If things look bad, well, then you still have the right to do this, the Supreme Court has said so. But you won't get the same respect for the techinique without some modifications to improve the outcomes.
It's funny that you started with a complement of the denialist post, then immediately jumped into emotional appeals to justify homeschooling (even when we're not really attacking it). We simply will not be impressed with these arguments. We want to see data, from well-designed studies that proves a positive benefit or basic equivalence of the two methods of educating kids in comparable populations from an unbiased source. That's all.
12:35 AM, September 25, 2006
Nance et al,
I'm not saying that all homeschoolers are lazy. I'm saying that every homeshooler I've enountered is an excellent person. But there's this underbelly of homenoschooling that I never knew existed. It's just a funny observation. And of course Wife Swap is trash. But how did they find four different homeschooling families that do homenoschooling? Bizarre!
1:40 AM, September 25, 2006
Rev. Dr.:
We simply will not be impressed with these arguments. We want to see data, from well-designed studies that proves a positive benefit or basic equivalence of the two methods of educating kids in comparable populations from an unbiased source. That's all.
12:35 AM, September 25, 2006
Well, there’s your problem.
Not my problem, btw. You may think we have a “serious image problem” but more and more families are choosing to homeschool. We’re still a tiny portion of the whole -- about 2% of all school-aged children is the latest figure I remember. But whether or not there are more and more homeschoolers is not a concern of very many hsers. Most of us are not trying to recruit anyone, no headcount money depends on how many families decide to homeschool, most of us aren’t selling anything or offering services for a fee. So whether you and others who object to homeschooling ever change your minds (and your questions are asked all the time -- did you get a chance to read the information I linked?) doesn’t really effect our choice -- we’re in the minority and always will be.
But back to your problem. You are posting on a science blog and want data. Terrific. If we were making widgets or weighing pigs that would be possible. But since we are talking about the learning going on inside individual children’s minds, all you can ever get is some science-y information.
The HSLDA-generated studies that you keep referring to are, and have always been, seriously flawed and useless.
We get the same sort of “data” through the NCLB process. All sorts of numbers and rankings that pretend to tell us what the children learned and end up telling us a tiny bit about how well they have been prepped to take a standardized test and a lot about which zip code they live in.
Useless as far as evaluating one education method versus another.
Which brings us to homeschooling. Some homeschoolers, the ones you would approve of, are trying to replicate school at home. They set up little classrooms and have a daily schedule and follow a standard curriculum, the same as or similar to the local public school system. And, surprise, they do well on the same standardized tests the ps system uses.
Now, some of these families also manage to turn out some really smart, thinking kids. Some are only good at testing. But you get something that looks like “data.” It’s useless data but there you go.
Many of the rest of us, however, have moved beyond the need to prove “a positive benefit or basic equivalence of the two methods of educating kids .” We do not value standardized testing or standardized teaching. We see your underlying assumption that the public school system is something valuable to be measured against as faulty. It is largely irrelevant to how we live.
So, many of us refuse to change how our children are learning and living to accommodate your desire for data. And you are left with data that is incomplete, faulty and unrevealing and you want more.
But you have hit the nail on the head, I think. This is not an area that can be analyzed in a really scientific way. (And maybe this discussion doesn’t even belong on this blog.) Some things just don’t lend themselves to that sort of analysis. As much as we might want them to.
As NCLB-inspired data collection on public school students is a useless waste of time and money, it is even less useful when discussing homeschooling.
I’m sorry this doesn’t satisfy your desire for data but many families are happy with this choice and will continue to learn rather than become useless data points.
Nance
P.S. Buck, if you mean unschooling, there are a growing number of us. No, I can’t tell you an exact number. :)
10:22 AM, September 26, 2006
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