homeschooling

[Slim]

is it not appropriate to show statistics that prove homeschooled students have higher acceptance rates and carry a larger course load?

First off, I was talking specifically about homeschoolers doing dual placement during their Jr/Sr years of high school. That was the question asked. That was subject of my response. You jumped straight to full acceptance to college after homeschool graduation. A separate subject, but one I will address in a moment.

Secondly, I said per capita. According to research done by Dr. Rhonda Galloway, Bob Jones University, 38% of homeschooled students participate in a dual enrollment program at junior colleges, trade school, colleges and universities. Do more than 38% of traditional high school Jrs/Srs participate in the same type of programs? Exclude work/study programs where they work half a day at McDonalds, and I think your research will show you that they do not.

*I* know this is not the case in my state because, as I said, I have taught at the University level: Homeschoolers have a very difficult time getting into colleges and universities because of different laws regarding GED or if they can get a HS diploma.

The difficulty of getting into college with a GED (and every state is different about what kind of certificate a homeschool graduate earns, many award diplomas) is the great myth of homeschooling. And with few exceptions, a GED and a qualifying SAT score is all you need to get into college. And before you go listing places like Harvard and Yale as places you can't possibly get into if you were homeschooled, please do your homework.

Further research done by Dr. Galloway shows that:

- Stanford University in the fall of 1999 accepted 27% of homeschooled applicants. This is twice the acceptance rate of publicly and privately schooled students.

- Homeschooled students at Boston University had an average GPA of 3.3, and Kennesaw State University confirms that the GPA’s of their homeschooled students are significantly higher than the average.

I acknowledge your teaching experience. I taught for four years at the United States Air Force Accademy preparatory school. In four years I never had a homeschooled student...they all bypassed the prep school and went straight to the USAFA, which should tell you something. The Air Force Academy has fairly stringent academic requirements for acceptance. Homeschooled graduates have made up from 3 to 5% of the USAFA freshmen class since 2004.

I also currently work with homeschooled students as a subject matter expert.

However, I will agree that the ones that do make it often do take a higher course load because they have to in order to catch up with the requirements and often require extra hours of instructor assistance (which instructors are never paid enough for) because they simply need the help and are used to one on one help.

Sounds like you are basing this on your anecdotal experience. Mine has been just the opposite.

but they spend twice as long there basically re-doing high school.

Do you have any data to back this statement or is it also anecdotal?

Homeschooling can be very hard on the students for many of the reasons others have said above and it makes me sad for the students that really could do so much better in public school. Whatever tradeoff is being used as the reason for taking the child of school, IMHExperience is not worth the potential loss of the whole public adventure.

This is entirely your opinion, which you are entitled to, but please don't try and pass it off as fact. And, what you call a public adventure, some would call a public disaster. There are two sides to that coin.

What I don't understand is how my comment "idealizes" teachers if I stated that many of them are burnt out and worthless?

Because that is not all you stated. What you said was:

even a completely, should be fired, burnt out teacher is still going to know their material better than the average person.

Saying that a really bad teacher (with a certificate suitable for framing) is better than not having a teacher at all, is showing just a little idolization...

Indirectly answered, eh? It looked more like an attempt to deflect/ignore the question and redirect the conversation in a different direction, which is a tactic many politicians use during debates. As to who you attacked that wasn't in the conversation to defend themselves, I didn't think that was terribly difficult to understand: public school teachers. You said the vast majority of them are awful, which is, at least in MY experience, untrue.

LMAO, I'm sorry, I did not realize that the subject of a conversation had to actually be present to win here in the Off Topic Cafe...

MY experience with public school teachers has been different than yours.

And you misrepresented my statement. I said that:

Most public school teachers have long since given up on actually trying to teach...and the one's that still give a crap are hamstrung by more stupid school district policies than Carter has Little Liver Pills

Talk about a tactic many politicians use during debates...