23 Comments

I volunteer as a tutor and for the last 3 years I've been working with the same student. Last summer I finally had enough trust from her family that I was able to pick her up on the weekends for the remedial math that I could tell from our sessions she hadn't picked up the first time around. I spent our first session giving her a basic assessment to see where she needed work - she started having trouble at subtraction of one-digit numbers, she didn't know her times tables above 5, and she didn't understand what a fraction was. Reader, she was 15. She's not stupid, she works hard, and she takes her education seriously, which was why she was willing to work with me every weekend in summertime.

In theory she is finishing up her geometry course this year. In practice I have *mostly* gotten her up to the standard her public "school" claims she is at, but if it weren't for me she would still think 1/4 > 1/3. I get the argument that parents are the ones responsible for their children at 7th and last, but surely after being forced to pay 20k/year/child for mandatory public education and being forced to send those kids there 40 hours/week for 40 weeks a year for 13 years, parents deserve to see *some* return on their investment. We shouldn't need private tutors to teach 15 year olds how to use numberlines.

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When my grandchildren were in the first three years, I was told that teachers did not correct the spelling and grammar in their written work. The reason was that they wanted the students to get used to writing, and seeing so many corrections on their work would make them give up and not try to produce a better written product. I made all the corrections at home and we discussed them. The children did not cry or give up. They became better writers. So much education needs to be supplemented at home.

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Horrifying, isn't it? Both of my boys' printing is atrocious. They were never taught how to properly form their letters. We are working on this now, but it takes a ton of time to undo bad habits and form new ones.

I hope grandmas everywhere will come together as a cadre of support. You have a place in this war -- take it.

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Fantastic piece. Especially because any teacher anywhere in the world could have written this. A profound insight into the reality of public school life, everywhere.

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I wish it wasn't the truth in the United States, but it is. Our children are suffering. They are prevented from seeing their innate greatness. I'll never do enough penance for my participation in this system. Even as an outlier, my presence lent the system legitimacy it shouldn't have.

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It is everywhere. It needs to be seen and said. There is hope, as millions of parents and teachers see. It is a new beginning.

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You sound like a great (might I say "old-fashioned") teacher, a rara avis these days. Your students have been lucky to have you!

I was in college in the 1970s, and even way back then, I noticed that those students who were coordinated but perhaps not the most highly intelligent, often were physical ed majors. Those of quite modest intelligence, probably the lowest intelligence in any major, and who lacked coordination were education majors. We need to attract intelligent, dynamic people to the teaching profession, people with good knowledge of subject matter. I believe that abolishing the federal Dept. Of Education is absolutely necessary. Leave education to the States and communities, where it belongs. Give education dollars directly to parents, not to school districts.

An anecdote for you: My mother graduated from a two-year teaching college in North Dakota in the 1950s and taught school in a one-room schoolhouse without indoor plumbing or central heat. She worked for about 18 months, then married and left the area. Later in life, she returned to the teaching profession as classroom aide. She was assigned to work 1:1 with a 6th-grade boy who could not read at all and exhibited disruptive, sometimes violent behavior in the classroom. She succeeded in teaching him to read, his classroom behavior improved markedly, and the boy's parents were very happy. When the school discovered that she taught him to read using the old-fashioned phonics method, rather than the district-approved method, they fired her.

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I was immediately infuriated by your anecdote, but then I sighed. It totally makes sense.

I don't think anything fixes this. I worry about parents getting money from the state because that gives the state the rationale to insert itself into the family home. Niggly detail, but what might work is a tax credit but only if it's significantly less money than the local public schools receive per child or we open this up to massive graft.

Really, we need to just take responsibility, which means paying our way as we find it.

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Dad of homeschooled kids * here. Just arriving to the stack/blog. Thank you. I hope you inspire a bunch of families who may still wrestle with the decision to get on with the process of educating their own kids.

My "kids" are now in their 20s. One finishing a PhD in math. One with a MS in public health, working for my state's department of epidemiology. And one who INSISTED on a BA in music from an area university who has returned to "community" college for a certification program as a medical radiology technician. (At some point late in his education, the arithmetic kicked in and he started doing numbers on pay rates...) Anyhow, success story for what inspirational value it may have.

The library of family memories includes both success stories and horror stories. Let me know if you want samples.

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I'm just trying to tell them the truth. People like you are the inspiration. Please feel free to send me any stories you think are worth sharing (either that pushed you to leave the toxic K12 environment or where you've seen the enormous benefit of making the sacrifices necessary to homeschool.

I'm so glad you were able to make this happen for your children. It's a gift that I pray more parents will emulate and that the effects will ripple off into the future, the way this nation's founders intended.

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I’m glad to see you posting this. Schools and parents need to hear this. As as 17-year teacher mostly at private schools in affluent communities, I see the problems you mention. I teach English, and kids are not reading. I’ll be reading more of your stuff. Thanks.

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I think the headline stuff is so scary -- the comprehensive sex ed, data-mining through SEL, oppressed/oppressor binary -- people forget that the worst crime of all is that their childhood is absolutely wasted.

When "no one gets a zero" policies became de rigeur, reading became optional. We need to go hard on essay exams -- but no teacher wants to do that because the workload on that is insane if you're not a content expert, which few teachers are now. We're so far down the rabbithole I don't think public school can be saved.

It's up to parents to investigate the quality of the education being provided. If they won't do that, they get what they get.

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Right now my admin and colleagues are going crazy with AI. I think I am the sole teacher resisting it. I won’t let my sixth graders use it. It won’t make them writers

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Oh no. I busted a kid for stealing an essay from Chat GPT because he didn't know how to ask it questions that would get him and appropriate answer. Kids lack the foundational knowledge to ask good questions. For that reason, Chat GPT is a really, really, dangerous shortcut.

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This is why I homeschool, it is hard work juggling childcare, household duties, teaching duties. Even more so when pregnant or nursing infants, but it is well worth the effort to persevere.

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I'm so glad there are moms out there like you. Whether or not you ever recommend it to others, they see you and your kids. <3

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Private schools are the same. The AP curriculum has destroyed high school education. Parents believe they are getting an accelerated course for their smarter-than-the-average-bear child. They are not. All they are getting is very specific knowledge about the test, which is in the stupidest format in the world, made fun of by other countries, and is some cases doesn't even require the course to be taken. It does not teach mastery and the information is quickly forgotten by the students. Then there are the colleges. Parents who strive to get their child admitted to the Ivy League know children can't afford to have anything other than an A on their transcript, especially if they are white or Asian. It doesn't matter what the child learns in school or if they learn anything as long as they have the transcript to get them admitted - which requires APs if the high school offers them. The more the better. The entire high school experience and college experience is a sham. When touring recently we asked how the schools (Ivy's) were integrating technology into their curriculum to prepare the students for the world they would be entering. We received blank stares for students and admissions officer. The only thing they could regurgitate was "AI can be used as an aid is some classes." The students had been so programmed to think in terms of cheating they weren't even aware of the technological revolution taking place. It was depressing. When one girl at Columbia referred to the Inferno's circles as levels, my son laughed. This was Columbia University and it was a tour - and it cost 90,000 a year. The entire educations system is broken. DEI has taken over the system, and the teachers don't know what they are talking about. In my son's biology class they are teaching outdated science about things like chlorestorol. I have to deprogram him daily - in a 55K a year school. If you want to blame people here are the culprits - Administrators and the unions. We all know this. Beyond that - the NAIS, they "guide" curriculum choices and started the war on the Western canon, Bill Gates and his Common Core - he against deep learning, read how he actively kept teachers and parents out of the Common Core decision making process, the College Board, they make over 2 billion a year at your expense, and the government, both parties are corrupt, for allowing the Universities to become massive hedge funds, where educating kids is a byproduct, not a primary objective.

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Yes to all of this. It's a huge knotted ball of nylon mesh to untangle, but at the end of the day -- and this is hard to hear -- we deserve it all for offloading our responsiblity for offshoring our children. We literally handed them our kids and said, "Teach them all the things." There was no way these mediocre bureaucrats weren't going to take advantage of that in every way they could. As far as I'm concerned, K12 is the Ring of Power. The State will either get everyone to go along with its agenda or dumb the citizenry down so hard it's damn ear impossible to mount an effective resistance.

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I agree. I homeschooled by kids and started a small micro school for about twenty kids. But it is difficult to do and it does make it harder to get into college - which is a scam but also one of the only places your child can be with their peers. It is not so much parent's fault - it is the government. They took away the power for individual school districts to teach relevant skills and curriculums in the 1980s. The department of education was designed, not to help students, but to control information. Now school districts are hampered by bad, uneducated teachers, stupid admin and even stupider parent bodies.

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Just discovered your work and you put to words what so many have noticed: kids aren't learning and here's why.

I have to keep exploring what you've put together especially as it relates to reading.

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I hope it helps. I have to say, it's so obviously true that I have to say it all, but I take no pleasure in it. If you ever have questions, please don't hesitate to send them my way.

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Nov 5
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You're right. For what it's worth though, teacher reliance on tech was the final insult that made me sacrifice millions of dollars in pension and healthcare and salary.

I watched my eldest be relegated to the digital babysitter because he was ahead in every class from the 3rd-6th grades, but 6th -- the first year of middle school -- was particularly egregious. He'd finish a two-week digital project in two hours, then surf YouTube for the remaining work time.

Nope. Not on my watch.

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Nov 6
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Are you kidding? In California that's $27,000 in revenue GONE if you let a kid jump a grade. Not happening.

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