Posted: Apr 26, 2010 9:15 pm
Spearthrower wrote:Warren Dew wrote:Spearthrower wrote:I've got years of teaching experience and a passionate interest in most academic subjects.... but I would never lie to myself that I was capable of providing comprehensive tuition covering all the necessary educational areas children/teenagers need. That's why we have people who specialise in fields.
Subject matter expertise is not all that prevalent in the U.S. public school system. If it were, the homeschooling movement might be weaker.
Well, I can't claim to know anything about American public school systems, but it seems at odds with having some of the best universities in the world. Don't public school kids get placements at these universities? How many home-schoolers get into these institutes?
I'm an alumni of a fairly prestigious engineering college, got a 1510 on my SAT, and didn't encounter many problems getting in.
A homeschooler who takes SATs and SAT IIs as well as a fair share of APs encounters no problems running through even the most prestigious universities. Demonstrated skill is demonstrated skill, and its not like they stick a gun to your head at the door and demand to see your school ID (rather the opposite, actually).
Homeschoolers generally outperform public school students. I'll be the first to tell you that isn't fair (homeschoolers typically have 1.4-1.5x the income of non-homeschoolers, as well as a stay-at-home parent, and there is a fair bit of self-selection in their testing) but its hard to argue they have to have a worse outcome on the basis of available evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Homes ... _chart.gif
