Comments on: Public opinion of homeschooling slipping?

By: Dana Hanley

Dana Hanley — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:17:59 +0000

And who says we aren’t any good at PE? Says some gymnastics coach who trains girls for the Olympics:

“If we really want to do this right, to train at 5 in the morning (for three hours) with her skill level is too dangerous,” Eaton said. “With my experience the last time, home school is a must if you’re really going to make this a realistic goal. You have to do everything right, otherwise it’s too hard on these kids.

By: Sebastian (a lady)

Sebastian (a lady) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:57:37 +0000

Dana,
Although you might notice that the approval ratings for homeschooling has gone up in the local column while going down in the United States AND the spread between United States and local has closed in this year’s numbers.
Given the tendency for people to say that public schools over all are doing well but they are satisfied with their local schools, I think that I could actually write almost any headline I wanted from these numbers and justify it.
APPROVAL OF HOMESCHOOLERS IN US DOWN
APPROVAL FOR NEIGHBORS WHO HOMESCHOOL RISES
HOMESCHOOLING VIEWED AS BETTER CHOICE THAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
LOCAL HOMESCHOOLS FARE NO WORSE THAN NATIONAL
or my personal favorite . . .
BRING ON THE BIBLE: POLL FINDS CHURCH SCHOOLS DO BETTER THAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
It might actually be amusing to collect the actual headlines used to report this poll.

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:29:13 +0000

“No difference” and “Not sure” were ranking pretty highly in the poll, but didn’t make it to the comparison chart. (Table 2).

In fact, more people thought they were all the same (for better or for worse) than thought homeschooling was the best option. And twice as many people didn’t know.

Just because people do not see homeschooling as the best option for these areas is not the same as thinking homeschooling is bad, however. I was just interested that in all of the areas, including those who think homeschooling provides and excellent education, slipped a few points from the last time the poll was done.

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:24:13 +0000

This Harris Poll® was conducted online within the United States between May 5 and 12, 2008 among 2,602 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

The results are actually similar to the results of the recent EllisonResearch poll which has been going around, but with more detail as to what people are actually thinking about different areas.

By: Sally

Sally — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:45:12 +0000

Yeah, Sebastian, and are the people who were polled in 2008 the same ones who were polled in 2006? And how many of the respondents had any experience with homeschooling or homeschoolers, OR experience with public or private schools? Except for what I see in the kids in my town, my only public school experience is what I went through many years ago, and I have had no private school experience. So how could I answer these questions based on anything but my impression? This poll has too many variables and is only reporting on people’s perceptions. The title of the chart should be more specific about that, I think.

Also, with Walmart and McDonalds being the two companies in America with the highest number of employees, that tells me that in general, these are the jobs the government schools are training our kids for… If I want to prepare my kids for employment I won’t using the ps system to do it.

By: Sebastian (a lady)

Sebastian (a lady) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:22:15 +0000

I also noticed that a lot of the questions don’t come near 100% across the three school types. So in response to these questions, presumably 25% to 40% are giving some answer like unknown or no preference.
Plus there is little breakdown of demographics for the respondants. Are these folks with children in school? Grandparents? Singles with no children? Employers?
Seems like a survey that will get lots of media time but really shows less the more you look at it (about any of the types of schools profiled).

By: Susanb

Susanb — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:00:14 +0000

Kahlenberg isn’t the only one. Reading the constant mantras about the need for UP to be “school ready” (socialization) and how ’sheltered’ our kids are makes me think that socialization has climbed up the rungs of ‘public school education’ to high priority.
Illinois legislators (via the 2003 IL Children’s Mental Health Act,) and the IL State Board of Education et al, have included Social Emotional Learning Standards at the same status with English Language Arts, Fine Arts,Foreign Languages, Physical Development & Health, Mathematic, Science, and Social Science. Other states are less in your face than IL, but with the same creeping. That bothers me much more than the Senior Fella, Kahlenberg.

http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ils/Default.htm

By: Dana

Dana — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:35:32 +0000

What my first impression was that this is the result of a media-influenced opinion of education rather than one which has been thought through. The media is constantly telling us the public schools are failing…Nation at Risk, NCLB, the nationwide push toward “accountability.” “Public schools are failing” we are told every day. So we believe it.

When asked to actually think about education, however, the stats look a little different. Because people are being asked to think just a little bit rather than respond with their “feelings” about public education, homeschooling, etc.

I certainly hope that they don’t all think that phys ed and socialization are the two most important parts of education. However, if you look at the money we spend on extra-curricular activities, I suppose you could make a pretty good case for that.

Kahlenberg (the guy quoted in the Parade article) puts socialization as a primary function of education, which is why he supports the public education model above any other.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:02:11 +0000

Yeah, what Shawna said — that’s what I was trying to get at as well.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:00:16 +0000

In response to Sebastian, I know a few people who homeschool or are considering it because their local schools are very bad. My dh grew up in Hawaii, but his family moved back to the mainland when he entered HS precisely because the ps was so bad, and they could not afford to put all four of their children through private school. I seem to suffer from the opposite problem; my town is very proud of its public schools, and the fact that I homeschool is taken as a slight (nevermind that I was homeschooling before we moved here and my reasons for homeschooling have little or nothing to do with anyone’s school.)

What interested me about these numbers is in the first three categories (getting along with people of different backgrounds, social skills with peers, and PE) public schools clearly outranked both private and home schools. Then in the next three (special needs, citizenship, and preparation for employment), things begin to even out, and in the rest of the categories (all academic) opinion favors homeschooling and private schooling. (I’m just watching the homeschool numbers go up and down on their own curve, since hsing is still propotionately smaller and still considered “alternative”.) Interesting that of the three categories in which ps is favored over hs (and private school, two are the “hot button” issues which are used to argue against hsing. So, looking at these numbers, and thinking of all the vehemence we’ve seen over socialization, I have to wonder: are socialization and sports more important to the majority of people than academics?