> I agree so much with the idea that Americas public schools are no place for kids that my wife and I juggle our careers so that we can homeschool.
It really depends on where you live. I will concede the vast majority are likely no place for kids, but there are noteworthy exceptions. My personal experience with being amazed by what public schooling can do is from both attending and observing school in Howard County, Maryland. They have incredible opportunities for kids to get engaged in STEM fields and otherwise customize their public school experience away from the "standard" curricula, and those opportunities aren't extra-curricular activities either. They're as much part of the schooling as "standard" subjects and factor into graduation requirements just as much.
I'd argue that unless you've got a good amount of money and time to invest in setting up a warehouse full of equipment and hiring knowledgeable industry veterans just for your kid(s), homeschooling can't come close to what a program like the ARL can offer to kids.
I know homeschoolers from Howard County, Maryland who are still far exceeding the public school graduates in their achievement in higher education and careers. Thinking just about the "M" (mathematics) part of STEM, I'm pretty sure that in Maryland most of the county winners each year in the state mathematics contest for high school students, and also the MATHCOUNTS winners among middle school students, come out of an informal coaching program that is run by a homeschooling parent. Maryland devotes an exceptional amount of money (including federal money) to its public school systems, and has some great public schools by the meager standards of the United States, but even at that there are families that still find homeschooling a more challenging academic choice for their children.
Mathematics is an example of one of the fields that doesn't require significant investment to enable "hands-on" learning. Suppose your child's interest is piqued by chemistry or engineering, though. Math is certainly necessary there as well, but in order to explore concepts on more than a theoretical basis, expensive equipment is usually required. Maybe hacker spaces and similar community collectives that pool resources to obtain otherwise prohibitively expensive equipment can help fill that void.
I'd argue that unless you've got a good amount of money and time...
But that's what you have and that's what it takes. Its strange how little parents will do for their children when I'd argue they need it most (in their early years) and how much they'll sacrifice later for that degree in Art History.
It would be a fascinating experiment to put that $100k into K-12 instead of University and see what happened.
Comments
> I agree so much with the idea that Americas public schools are no place for kids that my wife and I juggle our careers so that we can homeschool.
It really depends on where you live. I will concede the vast majority are likely no place for kids, but there are noteworthy exceptions. My personal experience with being amazed by what public schooling can do is from both attending and observing school in Howard County, Maryland. They have incredible opportunities for kids to get engaged in STEM fields and otherwise customize their public school experience away from the "standard" curricula, and those opportunities aren't extra-curricular activities either. They're as much part of the schooling as "standard" subjects and factor into graduation requirements just as much.
I'd argue that unless you've got a good amount of money and time to invest in setting up a warehouse full of equipment and hiring knowledgeable industry veterans just for your kid(s), homeschooling can't come close to what a program like the ARL can offer to kids.
http://arl.hcpss.org/
I know homeschoolers from Howard County, Maryland who are still far exceeding the public school graduates in their achievement in higher education and careers. Thinking just about the "M" (mathematics) part of STEM, I'm pretty sure that in Maryland most of the county winners each year in the state mathematics contest for high school students, and also the MATHCOUNTS winners among middle school students, come out of an informal coaching program that is run by a homeschooling parent. Maryland devotes an exceptional amount of money (including federal money) to its public school systems, and has some great public schools by the meager standards of the United States, but even at that there are families that still find homeschooling a more challenging academic choice for their children.
Mathematics is an example of one of the fields that doesn't require significant investment to enable "hands-on" learning. Suppose your child's interest is piqued by chemistry or engineering, though. Math is certainly necessary there as well, but in order to explore concepts on more than a theoretical basis, expensive equipment is usually required. Maybe hacker spaces and similar community collectives that pool resources to obtain otherwise prohibitively expensive equipment can help fill that void.
I'd argue that unless you've got a good amount of money and time...
But that's what you have and that's what it takes. Its strange how little parents will do for their children when I'd argue they need it most (in their early years) and how much they'll sacrifice later for that degree in Art History.
It would be a fascinating experiment to put that $100k into K-12 instead of University and see what happened.