Common Core Standards

[marplots]

In an age where our population is both highly mobile and highly networked, national standards are a good thing. We should all speak the same language, use the same mathematics, and understand the same basic concepts. Feel free to add a bit of local color to that if you like, but please don't devalue standardization.

 

[Minoosh]

A lot of people on this thread don't seem to know what the common core standards are. They are very broad and very rudimentary; they're not some sort of comprehensive overhaul of the system.

It's true that the standards represent a shift in emphasis vs. remaking the system. The real standards IMO are revealed by looking at assessment questions, especially if/when those assessments become high-stakes (graduating from high school). Another difference is that the assessments are meant to be taken online, which will require technical upgrades, so there are basic structural issues.

Common Core textbooks are in use at some schools; certain companies will design online tests and we'll also see more online credit formats (PLATO, ALECKS). The publishing industry to some extent will drive implementation of the standards.

ETA: The CC high school math assessment is harder than my state's current high-stakes test, but I have a feeling it will be modified before testing goes live.

 

[marplots]

You know who doesn't have access to a good education? Those poor who live in countries where public education isn't available. All those kids in northeastern Africa and elsewhere - they are all home schooled.

A solid public education is one of the great gifts civilization and stability bestows. To see it squandered over political piffles is disgusting. Here's this great boon, the chance to have one's children taught by someone professionally trained to do so. And it's tossed aside. As if all they ought to learn is limited by the boundaries of a parent's skills and skull. What revolting hubris that is.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

You know who doesn't have access to a good education? Those poor who live in countries where public education isn't available.

NOT("public education" = "government-operated schools").
I recommend:
Andrew Coulson, Market Education: The Unknown History (1999)
James Tooley, The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World's Poorest People are Educating Themselves (2009)
In general, organized violence (the State) has no useful role to play in the education industry beyond the role that it plays in the kitchen utensil industry or the lawn care industry: an original assignment of title and enforcement of contracts.

All those kids in northeastern Africa and elsewhere - they are all home schooled.

Do you contend that their lives would improve if the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in their locality (i.e., "their" government) compelled them to spend 12 years reading Shakespeare and learning History? Governments compel attendance at school in the interests of government decision makers and recipients of the taxpayers' education subsidy, not in the interests of children, generally, or parents, generally.

A solid public education is one of the great gifts civilization and stability bestows. To see it squandered over political piffles is disgusting. Here's this great boon, the chance to have one's children taught by someone professionally trained to do so. And it's tossed aside. As if all they ought to learn is limited by the boundaries of a parent's skills and skull. What revolting hubris that is.

Homeschoolers consistently outperform conventionally schooled children. Across the US and internationally, independent and parochial schools consistently outperform State (government, generally) operated schools. Across the US and internationally, competitive markets in goods and services consistently produce better goods and services at lower cost than do State-monopoly enterprises.

The $500+ billion/year US "public" (i.e., government-operated) K-12 school system originated in theocratic indoctrination and anti-Catholic bigotry. The State-monopoly school system has become an employment program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel, a source of padded consulting, contracting, and personal service contracts for politically-connected insiders, and a venue for State-worshipful indoctrination. The US State-monopoly school system survives on strident lobbying by current recipients of the taxpayers' $700+ billion/year K-PhD school system.

If this is not so, why cannot any student take, at any age, an exit exam (the GED or GSCE will do) and apply the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy toward post-secondary tuition at any VA-approved post-secondary institution or toward a wage subsidy at any qualified* private-sector employer?

Marvin Minsky
Interview
Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery (1994-July)

... the evidence is that many of our foremost achievers developed under conditions that are not much like those of present-day mass education. Robert Lawler just showed me a paper by Harold Macurdy on the child pattern of genius. Macurdy reviews the early education of many eminent people from the last couple of centuries and concludes (1) that most of them had an enormous amount of attention paid to them by one or both parents and (2) that generally they were relatively isolated from other children. This is very different from what most people today consider an ideal school. It seems to me that much of what we call education is really socialization. Consider what we do to our kids. Is it really a good idea to send your 6-year-old into a room full of 6-year-olds, and then, the next year, to put your 7-year-old in with 7-year-olds, and so on? A simple recursive argument suggests this exposes them to a real danger of all growing up with the minds of 6-year-olds. And, so far as I can see, that's exactly what happens.

Our present culture may be largely shaped by this strange idea of isolating children's thought from adult thought. Perhaps the way our culture educates its children better explains why most of us come out as dumb as they do, than it explains how some of us come out as smart as they do.

*Say, has filed W-2 forms on at least three adult employees per sub-adult employee for at least the previous four years.

 

[marplots]

I clipped out just a single paragraph because it was such a tasty opportunity to practice my critical thinking skills.

(much snipped)
Homeschoolers consistently outperform conventionally schooled children. Across the US and internationally, independent and parochial schools consistently outperform State (government, generally) operated schools. Across the US and internationally, competitive markets in goods and services consistently produce better goods and services at lower cost than do State-monopoly enterprises.

The first sentence "Homeschoolers consistently outperform conventionally schooled children" seems to imply that something inherent in homeschooling is causative. So I'll start with a related example to show where the fallacy lies.

It was once presented to me that both the diet and exercise programs used in the military were proven to extend life and increase overall health. The evidence for this was the improved health of older members of the military and those who had retired from the armed services.

Two things make these statistics bogus. The first is that you can't join up if you have a serious congenital defect. The second is that when active military members develop disabling illnesses, they are discharged. The combination represents a selection process which is similar to homeschooling.

Those most able to succeed are self-selected going in, and those who fail at homeschooling are put back into the public school system. How does self-selection work here? The very people who are interested in homeschooling are the parents interested, and active in, their child's education. Homeschooling doesn't produce better kids or parents, better kids and parents produce homeschooling.

So what about parochial or private schools? There's a selection bias there as well. The kids with parents who can afford the payments will already do better, both in school and in life. And what happens when a kid fails to meet the standards (educationally or behaviorally)? Why they get expelled and put into a public school after all.

Public schools are tasked with teaching everyone, from all areas of the bell curve, and all the bell curves in play - emotional, behavioral, intelligence and so on.

While you may laud the lack of government involvement, and like the idea of a free market, let's not forget the competitive environment extends to the kids as well. If you have a dud kid, no one wants them. If you have dud parents, homeschooling might be disastrous.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I clipped out just a single paragraph because it was such a tasty opportunity to practice my critical thinking skills.

Homeschoolers consistently outperform conventionally schooled children. Across the US and internationally, independent and parochial schools consistently outperform State (government, generally) operated schools. Across the US and internationally, competitive markets in goods and services consistently produce better goods and services at lower cost than do State-monopoly enterprises.

The first sentence "Homeschoolers consistently outperform conventionally schooled children" seems to imply that something inherent in homeschooling is causative. So I'll start with a related example to show where the fallacy lies.

It was once presented to me that both the diet and exercise programs used in the military were proven to extend life and increase overall health. The evidence for this was the improved health of older members of the military and those who had retired from the armed services.

Two things make these statistics bogus. The first is that you can't join up if you have a serious congenital defect. The second is that when active military members develop disabling illnesses, they are discharged. The combination represents a selection process which is similar to homeschooling.

Those most able to succeed are self-selected going in, and those who fail at homeschooling are put back into the public school system. How does self-selection work here? The very people who are interested in homeschooling are the parents interested, and active in, their child's education. Homeschooling doesn't produce better kids or parents, better kids and parents produce homeschooling.

Where's the "fallacy"? Homeschoolers outperform conventionally schooled children. That's a fact. Or, it's a reasonable statistical generalization. Marplots criticizes the implied explanation of that fact, that homeschooling, as a process, produces a better result than conventional schools would produce with the same material.

It's difficult to conduct controlled experiments in public policy in a free society.
When assessing the impact of homeschooling one could:...
(a) compare homeschoolers to conventionally schooled children in the same jurisdiction, controlling for as many factors as you like
(b) compare total system performance (all children) before and after easing or tightening restrictions on homeschooling
(c) compare total system performance of jurisdictions with relaxed restrictions on homeschooling to total system performance of jurisdictions with tight restrictions on homeschooling
(d) compare the change in total system performance before and after easing or tightening restrictions on homeschooling to changes in total system performance in jurisdictions than had made no policy changes.

In any case, parents in a free society can opt out of or into a group by moving out of or into a policy regime.

Seems to me there's sound reason to suppose that relaxation of restrictions on homeschooling will improve overall system performance. Consider a two-dimensional classification of families with regard to homeschooling: a continuum of means and a continuum of interest. (+, +): Parents have means and interest (these homeschool if the law allows).(+,-): Parents have means and no interest (these do not homeschool, regardless of the law). (_,+): Parents have insufficient means, and would if they could). (-,-): Parents have neither means nor interest. By the argument above, against the conclusion that homeschooling is superior, a system that allows (+,+) parents to homeschool will outperform a system that does not.

So what about parochial or private schools? There's a selection bias there as well. The kids with parents who can afford the payments will already do better, both in school and in life. And what happens when a kid fails to meet the standards (educationally or behaviorally)? Why they get expelled and put into a public school after all.

Evidence is against this explanation.
Joshua Angrist
"Randomized Trials and Quasi-Experiments in Education Research"
NBER Reporter, summer, 2003

One of the most controversial innovations highlighted by NCLB is school choice. In a recently published paper, my collaborators and I studied what appears to be the largest school voucher program to date. This program provided over 125,000 pupils from poor neighborhoods in the country of Colombia with vouchers that covered approximately half the cost of private secondary school. Colombia is an especially interesting setting for testing the voucher concept because private secondary schooling in Colombia is a widely available and often inexpensive alternative to crowded public schools. (In Bogota, over half of secondary school students are in private schools.) Moreover, governments in many poor countries are increasingly likely to experiment with demand-side education finance programs, including vouchers.

Although not a randomized trial, a key feature of our Colombia study is the exploitation of voucher lotteries as the basis for a quasi-experimental research design. Because demand for vouchers exceeded supply, the available vouchers were allocated by lottery in large cities. Our study compares voucher applicants who won a voucher in the lottery to those who lost. Since the lotteries used random assignment, losers provide a good control group for winners. A comparison of voucher winners and losers shows that three years after the lotteries were held, winners were 15 percentage points more likely to have attended private school and were about 10 percentage points more likely to have finished eighth grade, primarily because they were less likely to repeat grades. Lottery winners also scored 0.2 standard deviations higher on standardized tests. A follow-up study in progress shows that voucher winners also were more likely to apply to college. On balance, our study provides some of the strongest evidence to date for the possible benefits of demand-side financing of secondary schooling, at least in a developing country setting.

Similar random lottery experiments with tuition vouchers in the US yield similar results. Parochial and independent schools outperform government schools.

Public schools are tasked with teaching everyone, from all areas of the bell curve, and all the bell curves in play - emotional, behavioral, intelligence and so on.

The State cannot compel attendance at school without definitions of "attendance" and "school". Virtual schools play with both terms.

Let's pretend that we have a common agreement on the meaning of these terms. Now let's play with the notion of "government employee".

Given compulsory attendance statutes and State subsidization of schooling, one could imagine a polity in which 90% of students take tax support to independent and/or parochial schools. Compulsory attendance means little unless there is some school that is required to accept the 10% of students whom all other schools have rejected. Call these default-option schools "the public schools". Governments could put the contract to operate these schools out to bid every five years or so to mitigate the formation of insider interest groups.

As to:...

Public schools are tasked with teaching everyone...
...the competitive environment extends to the kids as well. If you have a dud kid, no one wants them. If you have dud parents, homeschooling might be disastrous.

Some districts already contract-out to private (parochial, even) schools the care of SMH (severely multiply handicapped) and other students at the extreme tails of the bell curve.

 

[marplots]

Where's the "fallacy"? Homeschoolers outperform conventionally schooled children. That's a fact. Or, it's a reasonable statistical generalization. Marplots criticizes the implied explanation of that fact, that homeschooling, as a process, produces a better result than conventional schools would produce with the same material.

But that's were we diverge. I am claiming that homeschooling isn't using the same "material" by dint of a selection bias. If you take a tranche that would perform well in public school (with the same home-support mechanisms), they would perform well in homeschooling with a sufficiently matched curriculum.

In fact, it's a self fulfilling prophecy where homeschooling (or even private schooling) catches on. As the students with the best potential are shifted out of the one pool, you absolutely must lower the quality in the pool which now has fewer quality students. Every success on the homeschool side is one less success on the public school side.

Seems to me there's sound reason to suppose that relaxation of restrictions on homeschooling will improve overall system performance. Consider a two-dimensional classification of families with regard to homeschooling: a continuum of means and a continuum of interest. (+, +): Parents have means and interest (these homeschool if the law allows).(+,-): Parents have means and no interest (these do not homeschool, regardless of the law). (_,+): Parents have insufficient means, and would if they could). (-,-): Parents have neither means nor interest. By the argument above, against the conclusion that homeschooling is superior, a system that allows (+,+) parents to homeschool will outperform a system that does not. Evidence is against this explanation.

The highlighted part is incorrect, if we are just shifting better performers into homeschooling.

Here are some numbers to back this up.
The following list shows the percentage by race (2012) of homeschooled only; then the percentage by race of the population at large (wiki, 2010 census data); then the percentage of bachelor degrees awarded by race (total through age 29 of those who had both graduated high school and held a bachelor's or higher degree [2011]). White is non-Hispanic in all categories to allow comparisons and links follow in order.

(Homeschooled; US overall; BS or higher - all are race% and do not add to 100% because of categories not mentioned or unreported.)

White: 68; 63; 40
Black.: 08; 13; 20
Hisp..: 15; 15; 13
Asian.: 04; 04; 57
(Sources by column: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=91 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012001.pdf (Page 15, fig 6))

If nothing else, this shows how the demographics skews the homeschooling "advantage" using overall percentages of those under 29 with a bachelor's degree as a marker for a "better education."

The percentage of Hispanics and Asians who are homeschooled match the US demographics at large, so don't affect this analysis. However, there are more white homeschoolers (as a percentage) and considerably fewer black kids being homeschooled (about 40% fewer). Since the likelihood of a white person having completed a college degree (before 30 years-old) is twice as great as it is for a black person, merely putting more whites (and fewer blacks) in homeschooling would generate the effect I am claiming is in play - even if homeschooling were as good as public schooling.

Of course, the situation is magnified greatly when those kids most likely to do well in school (any school) are shifted over to the homeschool rolls, regardless of their race.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

But that's were we diverge. I am claiming that homeschooling isn't using the same "material" by dint of a selection bias.

Correct. That's what I understood that you intended.

If you take a tranche that would perform well in public school (with the same home-support mechanisms), they would perform well in homeschooling with a sufficiently matched curriculum.

Mostly, we agree.

In fact, it's a self fulfilling prophecy where homeschooling (or even private schooling) catches on. As the students with the best potential are shifted out of the one pool, you absolutely must lower the quality in the pool which now has fewer quality students. Every success on the homeschool side is one less success on the public school side.

Again, mostly, we agree.

The highlighted part is incorrect, if we are just shifting better performers into homeschooling.

Here are some numbers to back this up.
...
...(deleted)...
...
Of course, the situation is magnified greatly when those kids most likely to do well in school (any school) are shifted over to the homeschool rolls, regardless of their race.

I have two objections: 1. The contention that homeschooling kids (or parochial school kids) would do just as well in government schools implies also the conclusion that these successfully concerned parents are systematically deluded. Here they just went and sacrificed an income to homeschooling, or they sacrificed $15,000 on private school tuition to achieve the same result that they would have achieved had they left their kids in the government school. By this theory, contrary to those deluded parents' beliefs, their kids would have done even better in government schools if they'd left their kids in government schools and spent that foregone income or that foregone $15,000 on supplements to what the government schools provided.
2. Statistical comparisons of homeschoolers and conventionally schooled children yield an advantage to homeschoolers when controlling for the variables that Marplots mentions (snipped).

 

[marplots]

I have two objections: 1. The contention that homeschooling kids (or parochial school kids) would do just as well in government schools implies also the conclusion that these successfully concerned parents are systematically deluded. Here they just went and sacrificed an income to homeschooling, or they sacrificed $15,000 on private school tuition to achieve the same result that they would have achieved had they left their kids in the government school. By this theory, contrary to those deluded parents' beliefs, their kids would have done even better in government schools if they'd left their kids in government schools and spent that foregone income or that foregone $15,000 on supplements to what the government schools provided.

I think this would be a strong point, except that one of the main reasons why someone might choose to home school has nothing to do with the quality of education, but the perceived lack of moral instruction in public schools. So a parent might very well choose all the inconvenience and extra work, not because they don't believe their kid will learn the three Rs, but because they fear their child will not get the proper religious training.

I expect the Amish, who run their own schools and stop at eighth grade, would be very much set against sending their kids to a public school. And if their kids do not perform well on standardized testing, it's of no concern for this sect, since that isn't as important to them as dispensing a strong values-based education.

2. Statistical comparisons of homeschoolers and conventionally schooled children yield an advantage to homeschoolers when controlling for the variables that Marplots mentions (snipped).

Could you repost the cite to that one? I'll take another look. So far, I haven't read anything convincing.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I think this would be a strong point, except that one of the main reasons why someone might choose to home school has nothing to do with the quality of education, but the perceived lack of moral instruction in public schools. So a parent might very well choose all the inconvenience and extra work, not because they don't believe their kid will learn the three Rs, but because they fear their child will not get the proper religious training.

Please explain. How does this sample self-selection bias generate higher performance for homeschoolers? Either the homeschool sample is self-selected for superior performance and would have done as well in conventional schools (by your argument) or it is self-selected for something else. If parents pulled the homeschool sample out of State schools for non-academic reasons (e.g., religion, safety) and their kids did better as a side-effect, advantage homeschooling.

I expect the Amish, who run their own schools and stop at eighth grade, would be very much set against sending their kids to a public school.

Where do you get this "run their own schools"? See Wisconsin versus Yoder.

 

[marplots]

Please explain. How does this sample self-selection bias generate higher performance for homeschoolers?

It's only higher performance in comparison to the average public school attendee. It would be the same if I pulled all the tall kids out and then used height as my comparison metric.

Either the homeschool sample is self-selected for superior performance and would have done as well in conventional schools (by your argument) or it is self-selected for something else.

This either/or is incorrect. The parents do have a role. In fact, for homeschooling to work, they must have a role - they've adopted the position of teacher, after all. It's a complete package, not necessarily just the innate talent of the student: parental motivation, income (ability for one parent to be free to teach and not have to work), materials used, and I'm sure there is more. But yes, I'm sure you've seen surveys that show morality and religious themes being strong selection criteria. However, there may also be parents who don't like "public school immorality" but who cannot afford to homeschool - so that isn't necessarily a determining factor all on its own.

If parents pulled the homeschool sample out of State schools for non-academic reasons (e.g., religion, safety) and their kids did better as a side-effect, advantage homeschooling.

The reason they are pulled and the outcomes might not be the same. I can pull my kid out because I think there are too many demons in the public school plumbing, but that doesn't mean my kid will fail at homeschooling. It also doesn't mean they'll succeed.

Where do you get this "run their own schools"? See Wisconsin versus Yoder.

From the Amish: http://amishamerica.com/why-do-amish-only-go-to-school-until-8th-grade/

Also, your link says much the same:

Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), is the case in which the United States Supreme Court found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade. The parents' fundamental right to freedom of religion outweighed the state's interest in educating its children. The case is often cited as a basis for parents' right to educate their children outside of traditional private or public schools.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Also, your link says much the same

No.
Marplots wrote: "I expect the Amish, who run their own schools and stop at eighth grade ...". The Wikipedia article plainly states that the Yoder children (Amish) attended government schools. The Amish claimed the right to remove them from school after 8th grade. It was Pierce versus Society of Sisters that established the right of parents to send their children to schools outside of the State (i.e., government, generally) school system. The KKK filed an amicus brief on the side of the State of Oregon. Defenders of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools (the "public" schools) have ... interesting ... friends.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

lol. It's amusing to watch this unfold, seeing the "just so" stories made up by a government school advocate.

It does occur to me that the legislature, in the Compulsory Attendance Act, specifically sanctioned homeschoolers, protecting them by ensuring no registration requirement, no teacher qualification requirement, no testing requirements...

and despite it being the elected legislature providing for that, we have the government school lobbyist saying this:

Here's this great boon, the chance to have one's children taught by someone professionally trained to do so. And it's tossed aside. As if all they ought to learn is limited by the boundaries of a parent's skills and skull. What revolting hubris that is.

We're also protected by case law, most notably Pierce v Society of the Noble Sisters...

Which invokes cruddy old things like constitutional rights. So add the Supreme Court in there with the hubris of the legislature, governor, electorate, and anyone else who disagrees with our lobbyist.

 

[marplots]

lol. It's amusing to watch this unfold, seeing the "just so" stories made up by a government school advocate.

It does occur to me that the legislature, in the Compulsory Attendance Act, specifically sanctioned homeschoolers, protecting them by ensuring no registration requirement, no teacher qualification requirement, no testing requirements...

and despite it being the elected legislature providing for that, we have the government school lobbyist saying this:

Here's this great boon, the chance to have one's children taught by someone professionally trained to do so. And it's tossed aside. As if all they ought to learn is limited by the boundaries of a parent's skills and skull. What revolting hubris that is.

We're also protected by case law, most notably Pierce v Society of the Noble Sisters...

Which invokes cruddy old things like constitutional rights. So add the Supreme Court in there with the hubris of the legislature, governor, electorate, and anyone else who disagrees with our lobbyist.

Yep. No registration requirement, no teacher qualification requirement, no testing requirements... The only thing they didn't protect the homeschoolers from was their own parents.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Yep. No registration requirement, no teacher qualification requirement, no testing requirements...

These vary from State to State. Very rural States have to give homeschoolers wide latitude, or provide very expensive school bus service.

The only thing they didn't protect the homeschoolers from was their own parents.

Some parents are abusive. So are some teachers. A job in a school is to a pedophile what a job in a candy store is to a chocoholic. In Hawaii, juvenile hospitalizations for human-induced trauma fall in summer.

 

[marplots]

With state run, collective schools, there's at least one advantage: we get to see what they are up to. For homeschoolers? Not so much.

 

[marplots]

Why does this not surprise me? (From a 2012 paper)

Surveys were returned by 18 percent of respondents, representing 396 homeschooled children. Demographic characteristics mirrored national homeschooling trends. The majority (95%) surveyed felt that education about vaccines was important. Thirty-eight percent of families had fully vaccinated children while 56% reported partial vaccination and 6% said children had received no vaccines.

Oh, I know why. Because parents are supposed to make the best decisions for their kids, even when parents might not have good information or have false beliefs. So they can simultaneously make the best decision they are capable of and still go terribly wrong.

(Quote from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X11019426 )

 

[elbe]

I don't really follow educational standards and systems but I was curious about the Common Core and its complaints. Some of the pictures and descriptions of problems claimed to be in the new standards seem strange to me but, as a personal experience, I don't see how that could mean they aren't effective; just that it's not how I learned.

As an example, recently I saw someone demonstrate simple multiplication with crossed lines, like in this random google search picture, and I don't think I'd ever seen that before. I stared at it for some time trying to work out exactly what was going on (it didn't help that that person's example was poorly drawn) as bits started falling into place. It still feels like it would be awkward to me (not that I'm particularly good at simple maths in my head) since that's not how I learned to do it. I imagine, then, that kids who learn to do math, or whatever, using totally different standards will also be able to do it, just with a different foundation. The only real problem I can see with it, and this is based on a story my mother told me, is that parents may find it hard to help their children if they aren't familiar with the methods themselves.

Oh well, that's just my observation as someone who thinks division should only be done by multiplying fractions.

 

[Minoosh]

Oh well, that's just my observation as someone who thinks division should only be done by multiplying fractions.

Ideally alternative algorithms such as yours above or the crossed-lines intersection would bring students to a more connected understanding of the equivalence of said algorithms. Vs. presenting the "right" way. I have mixed feelings about this.

At the table next to me parents are discussing exactly this topic.

I'm inclined to demonstrate the tried and true algorithms, along with conceptual underpinnings re: place value. But I also see value in children developing and testing their own methods.

It may not be relevant for this thread but large swathes of homeschooling parents have cited evangelical concerns in not wanting to undermine church doctrine re: creationism. It may be less of a factor now but does IMO raise valid concerns about a sizeable group of homeschoolers.

 

[marplots]

It may not be relevant for this thread but large swathes of homeschooling parents have cited evangelical concerns in not wanting to undermine church doctrine re: creationism. It may be less of a factor now but does IMO raise valid concerns about a sizeable group of homeschoolers.

There's a study out about this. If I recall, the number who site religious reasons as a primary motivation has fallen over the years and, if I remember correctly, it was down around 30% or so. The major reason cited is still something akin to "the corrupting influence of the public school system" with negative associations to peer behaviors. But they don't have to be specifically about religion, it might be trying to instill positive social values like discipline, the work ethic and so on, while avoiding a kind of seething criminality thought to be inherent in public schools.

We should recognize there is a parallel Christian school system on offer in many areas to service those who are focused on religious training.

Notably, there is a small segment whose primary concern is the lack of a truly deep education - the stereotype of the hard working Asian homeschooler comes to mind.