Originally Posted By jonvn You homeschool. Do they ever go outside, see other kids? Interact? Get other ideas from other people? I don't think it's the best thing for kids.
Originally Posted By DlandDug My brother home schooled three of their kids until high school. They are the most personable and engaging kids you would want to meet. Their son maintained a 4.0 grade point average through college and spent a semester at Oxford. Home schooling doesn't automatically equal narrow minded people who want to keep their kids away from society. If the public schools aren't going to do the job to the satisfaction of the parents, home schooling makes a lot of sense.
Originally Posted By berol Kids can interact plenty when schools let out plus all weekend. I'll accept the article and say that it's 3rd grade where preschool doesn't make a difference. Note that as far as the article says, they didn't look at contributing factors, just if they went to preschool, too narrow of a focus, useless. Preschool would have held me back, but I was a weird kid.
Originally Posted By jonvn Yeah, I've been reading up on this a little since I posted that, and it seems that a lot of people think it does a lot of good. The NEA (a teacher's union) doesn't think so, but they are a teacher's union. I'd still rather have my kids go to school. I managed to do it and not be harmed by the process. Not much, anyway.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/JennniferRobackMorse/2006/06/05/199564.html" target="_blank">http://www.townhall.com/opinio n/columns/JennniferRobackMorse/2006/06/05/199564.html</a> >>These arguments for Prop 82 are fatally flawed. The proponents of universal preschool consistently overstate its benefits. Their favorite study is a Rand Corporation study that extrapolates the benefits obtained by a program in Chicago in the 1980's. The results of that particular preschool study have nothing to do with the results the average family could expect, or with the results the entire state of California would be likely to achieve. The Chicago preschool program was targeted at low-income, high-risk children, most of whom had unmarried parents. Finding that high quality preschool helped this group of people says absolutely nothing about the impact of preschool on the children of middle class, married-couple households. Most of those kids are already in preschool programs anyway;overall, 65% of California children are in some form of preschool. It is pointless to spend taxpayer dollars subsidizing kids who are already well-provided for by their own parents. These same kinds of studies are used to browbeat stay at home mothers into placing their kids in preschools or daycare centers. "Am I harming my child by depriving him of the enriching preschool experience?" mothers ask me all the time. No, I always reply. Just pay attention to what your child needs, and trust your instincts. Ignore the studies, unless they apply to your situation very specifically. The studies touting universal preschool are based on non-universal samples and have nothing to do with the experiences of most families. Furthermore, the Chicago program was more than an academic program. It also required parental involvement, and taught parenting skills. Some of the program’s benefits are surely attributable to the improved parenting the mothers used throughout the child’s formative years. Yet the supporters of universal preschool assign all the credit to the one year the child spent in their precious preschool program. After all, we wouldn’t want to give credit to parents. Everyone knows parents are the problem. The sooner we get kids away from their parents and into government run schools, the better off everyone will be. And by the way, Prop 82 mandates that the state determine curriculum standards for preschool. Remember, this is the state that micromanged the curriculum to the point of requiring history textbooks to include the contributions of gays, lesbians and transgendered persons. The state legislature has no common sense about the curriculum they are already responsible for, so it's important not to put the little kiddies into their hands any sooner than necessary. The supporters of Prop 82 say it will have no impact on 99.4% of the taxpayers, because the program will be funded by a special tax on the highest income bracket. Prop 82 requires a 1.7% tax on individuals with incomes over $400,000. But this claim is misleading. According to the official Legislative Analyst, these same taxpayers already pay one third of the state’s annual income taxes. Remember that the state’s solvency is deeply dependent on this handful of people. Last time we had a big recession in California, tax revenues went to hell in a basket. The burst of the "Dot Com" bubble drained wealth from the wealthiest, so these high income people no longer had the income to tax. Besides paying the taxes, these are the people who create jobs in our state. Prop 82 says, "let’s tax them some more." We might as well have a contest to see how many wealthy people we can drive into Nevada. Proposition 82 requires preschool teachers to have approximately five years of college. Proposition 82 funds would pay a half billion dollars to colleges and universities to develop new courses. There is no proven benefit to this increased credentialism. Think of what the state and individual families could do with that money instead. This is a boondoggle of massive proportions. Even if you don’t live in California, forward this column to everyone you know who does. Even if you don’t go to the polls on June 6th for any other reason, go vote no on Proposition 82. <<
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan My son has struggled in school, and this year, had a teacher that was unable to connect with him at all. It's been a nightmare. We'll be homeschooling him for the next couple of years at least because this is the best chance he'll have to succeed. My daughter has done fine in public school over the years. Both went to preschool, but one is able to thrive in the traditional public school learning structure while the other needs a different approach. I think both of them got a lot out of preschool, but I don't think it's a magic bullet for everyone. Answer: There's no one right, one-size-fits-all answer.
Originally Posted By wendebird Thank you Dug for post #20 & 22. Homeschooling doesn't mean you lock yourself in a house & have no contact with anyone else. It's actually quite the opposite. It's all about learning by doing, touching, talking, not just boring text books. I understand it's not for everyone & would never tell anyone their choice of schooling is bad for their kids. Especially without knowing all the facts. So sorry to derail this topic, so let's get it back on, shall we? Did y'all vote today?
Originally Posted By jonvn I think you'll find, if you bother to look around, that nearly everyone agrees that pre-school is very helpful to kids. Which, again, is why I voted NO.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 Ok, wait a minute. Can't we get some kind of backstory to this? You do realize not everybody here is living in California, right? I'm supposed to just understand what you're posting because I should know what's going on in California right now? At least with most of the other topics here there is some kind of explanation as to WHAT the topic is about...
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Everyone knows parents are the problem. The sooner we get kids away from their parents and into government run schools, the better off everyone will be.<< See, the arguments they were making were valid and were going along fine. Then it has to go off like this and get nasty. I hate politics.
Originally Posted By jonvn Prop 82 is on our ballot today. It would create a new tax for wealthier people that would allow for kids to go to preschool. I think it is called the "Universal Pre-School Initiative," and was a pet project of actor Rob Reiner.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Homeschooling doesn't mean you lock yourself in a house & have no contact with anyone else. It's actually quite the opposite. It's all about learning by doing, touching, talking, not just boring text books.<< Exactly, Wendebird! We've had some marvelous teachers through the years. This year, we got a dull, bookbound one.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 I meant post 30 for Darkbeer. The topic just started by dumping articles without any kind of explanation as to what was going on.
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>>>Everyone knows parents are the problem. The sooner we get kids away from their parents and into government run schools, the better off everyone will be.<< See, the arguments they were making were valid and were going along fine. Then it has to go off like this and get nasty. I hate politics.<< I'm beginning to agree...I'd rather spend my time debating religion. At least there, I know I'm backed up by 2000 years of infallible tradition.
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>Answer: There's no one right, one-size-fits-all answer.<< Ex-actly. I am a product of public schools, with no pre-school OR kindergarten! I went straight into the first grade. My brother and sister-in-law chose home schooling for their kids because their local schools were, frankly, bad. Oddly enough, they both remained active with the school system. My brother sat on a parents committee to review that district's first AIDS curriculum for elementary grades. When the material was made available for any parents to review, only one did so: my sister-in-law. I am glad I went to public school, but recognize that times have changed...
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Big Time... State Ballot Measures 35.2% ( 8144 of 23124 ) precincts reporting as of Jun 6, 2006 at 11:07 pm Statewide Returns 81 Reading/Library Bond Yes- 46.3 No -53.7 82 Preschool Education Yes- 41.2 No -58.8
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Gee, Libraries are good, but isn't the state enough in debt already....
