Why is home schooling becoming so popular?

If I could not afford to send my girls to a private school, then I would definatly homeschool. There is no way I would let them step into a public school in New Orleans...No way in hell! A friend of mine has her daughter in a magnet school, (Also known as an advanced study school) and I bring her daughter to school about 3 days a week because she has to be at work earlier than the before care opens. The school is next door to my daughters' school so I don't mind bringing her. However, I DO NOT like the attitude of the people who are with the children in before care and I spoke to my friend about it. Her daughter is in the second grade and this is her first year at a public school, she went to a private school from PreK-1st. My friend hates the school, the daughter doesn't like it much, and they are considering putting her back into private school after this school year is over.

I am not saying that all public schools are bad, I'm saying that the public schools in New Orleans are horrible and they don't have enough funding to make the changes needed to make the schools better. Thankfully, Gary and I can afford the tuition, but it's not without a lot of sacrafice on our part. We have never been on a vacation with our daughters and we live in a small house because if we move to a bigger one, then we would have a bigger mortage. The tuition payment is the same as my mortage payment. If we sent the twins to a public school we could use that money towards a bigger house, but look at what we would have to give up. I would constantly be concerned about their safety and they would not get the same quality of education that they get now. The teachers at the private schools are their because they want to be, a public school teachers sallary is double the amount of a private school teachers sallary.

PJ's Kindergarten teacher left and went to public school because the sallary was double. She stayed one year and went back to PJ and Emmie's school. When I asked her why, she said she couldn't take the public school any longer. She spent more time disiplining than she did teaching and she was miserable.

I am fortunate that we can send our daughters to a private Catholic school. It is very expensive but well worth it. 

I know a few people who homeschooled their children because they couldn't afford tuition but didn't want their children in public school. I understand and agree with them.

Emmie is sick today, she woke up with 101.1 fever. I called my Mom to ask if she would keep Emmie so I could go to work, so that is where Emmie is today. When I told Emmie that she couldn't go to school today she cried. I explained to her that there was no way I was letting her go to school with a fever and she told me tht she "felt good" and could go. My poor baby was lying on the sofa sobbing (litterally) because she couldn't go to school. I took PJ's temp just to make sure that she wasn't running a  fever also. She wasn't so I said "You're ok, you can go to school" she replied "YESSSS!"

My daughters love school, I don't think they would if they had to go to public school. There is so much more hands on learning that is fun for them that the public schools just don't have the funding for.

Small towns that have schools usually are very good schools. Small schools have small classes and the teachers can spend more time teaching. Also, everyone knows each other which I'm sure is very comforting.

In a city like New Orleans they are packing the kids into the classrooms. Combine that with parents that just don't care (plenty of that here!) and the teachers are fed up. My daughters are where they need to be and I no longer apologize for it. For a while it felt like I was always debating with public school parents constantly on why I sent mine to private school. Now, I just don't care what others think, I am doing what is best for my daughters. The greatest gift I can give them is teaching them about God and giving them a good education. God is in our daily lives, we go to Mass every week, and they go to a wonderful Catholic school that has an awesome reputation and amazing test scores, they have made straight A's on every report card they have brought home, I couldn't ask for more. Gary and I are doing our job as parents and if others want to debate me, then they are just trying to make themselves feel better. I don't judge them for sending their kids to public school, some people have no choice, but I do.

I can't afford private school.  The public schools in WV were terrible.  Next year, who knows?  But we are finishing out the year homeschooling.  I drove past the public school.  It is larger even than the HS dh went to in Honalulu.  It is enormous.  I don't really want to send my kids to such a huge school knowing they already have challenges.  Parents shouldn't have to defend their choices regardless of where their children go to school. If I felt my teenager was headed down a bad path which led to drugs/crime/sex, I would pull them out of the situation too.  I would rather homeschool than bail my kid out of jail, have to take them to the ER for ODing or have to raise my baby's baby.  I don't know what these parents are facing, but I'm sure they are doing it to protect their kids.  Kids with disabilities can easily fall through the cracks in public school.  Back in WV, a child had to have delays of 50% or more in two areas to even qualify for assistance.  My kids, of course, need extra help, but don't qualify for it.  If dh and I have to pick up the slack for the school system, we might as well do it all ourselves.

Lenora, you have always said how bad the schools were and you did what was best for your children, just as I am doing what is best for mine. I have no doubt that you will continue to do what is best for them, either homeschool or sending them to a public school.

If I couldn't afford private school then I would probably homeschool. Gary's family has a few public school teachers and they all say the same thing to me; keep them in private school. One is a drafting teacher at the public high school and he tells me all the time how bad it is. He also was a teacher at a private Catholic boys high school for a while and he said it was like a vacation compared to the public school. He can't afford to teach at a private school because the sallary isn't enough, but once he retires from the public school system (he only has a couple more years) he has plans to return to the private school because he enjoyed it so much.

New Orleans public schools are the worst...

I understand the schools here are pretty good, but the public school my kids would go to is the size of a freaking mall.  I can't imagine how big the junior high and high school are.  Some of my cousins send their kids to public school and some to Catholic school.  I know Catholic school costs a bundle here.  If I were Catholic and I could afford it, I would definitely send my kids to Catholic school rather than the mall school. 

Tuition goes up every year, we should get the tuition cost for next year in a week or two. It cost $315 just to register them for school each year, $255 per child for a "building fee", (I pay $510 because I have two) whatever the tuition is going to be for this year, (Last year it was about $6,000) plus all of the other misc. fees that they throw in. Just their workbooks for last year was $250. After all is said and done, we pay over $7,000 a year. It's crazy expensive...

Ohio does have free online homeschooling which is really online public school.  There are some good online homeschooling programs.  My dd goes to Time4Learning.  I can track everything she does, what she does, how much time she spends on each subject and how's she's doing in every aspect of every subject.  It lets me generate reports which keeps me in compliance with all state laws in every state.  They make it easy to homeschool.  All I have to do is make sure she logs in everyday.  I control her grade level in every subject.  For example, she has always been really bad at math, so I put her back in kindy math, but she's in 3rd grade social studies and science and 2nd grade language arts. 

I think kids who have never homeschooled just think it's one big playtime all the time, but it isn't. My dd spends just as much time learning as they do.  However, I think it is much less stressful, because there aren't all those social issues kids sometimes get caught up in in the public schools.  There's no competition or pressure to do as well or better than someone else.  If a kid is bullied, I can see where homeschooling could seem like a dream come true, because no one is being mean to them all day. 

Bullying is such a huge problem in the schools today.  I don't think it was that bad back in the 70s when I was in school.  Now, they say like 70% of kids are bullied.  That could be why these parents are pulling their kids from school especially in light of all the kids who have committed suicide after being seriously bullied that you read about in the news almost everyday now. 

I don't know, Elaine. I guess it could be a combonation of all of those things. If homeschooling my girls would mean that they are safe, then I would do it. If it was because they just wanted to sleep late and not go to school, I wouldn't let them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grace 

I understand the schools here are pretty good, but the public school my kids would go to is the size of a freaking mall.  I can't imagine how big the junior high and high school are.  Some of my cousins send their kids to public school and some to Catholic school.  I know Catholic school costs a bundle here.  If I were Catholic and I could afford it, I would definitely send my kids to Catholic school rather than the mall school. 

The schoold that PJ and Em go to has Pre-K3 through 8th grade. The PreK 3 and 4 has it's own area, Kindergarten has it's own section, 1st and 2nd are in a section, 3rd through 5th are in another part of the school, and 6th through 8th has it's own building that is refered to as the middle school. Each is seperated and don't "mingle" with each other. I like the way that they do it because my girls aren't with the older ones, they stay with their own age group. Maybe the school that your girls would go to does the same thing? The twins school is quite large for a private school, but the way that they have them seperated is like it's three seperate schools.
 

I am not really a good fan of homeschooling either. I don't like the idea of having the children miss social life-experiences which they should undergo while they are young. I know a lot of reasons have been given to move the kids from traditional classroom setup to homeschooling environment but I don't think that's gonna be any helpful in the long run.

I think there's like 200 or 300 kids in each grade.  I think about 1,000 kids go there.  It's K-5.  I'm sure it's an okay school, but I don't think my kids would do well there.  I don't think they would get the extra help they need. 

Homeschooling has been pretty big here for quite a few years and does seem to be gaining momentum.  I think alot more people are doing it now since it has gotten easier with all the online schools.

Some families may be doing it for financial reasons, especially if the child that is being homeschooled has younger siblings. If both parents have to work, or if they live with a single parent, the  older child may need to get the younger one off to school in the mornings and take care of them after school until the parent comes home. Daycare and before care/after care at school is expensive, parent(s) simply may not be able to afford it. Online homeschooling an older child so they can babysit younger ones could be the diffrence that ables them to buy food for the week.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heather 

Some families may be doing it for financial reasons, especially if the child that is being homeschooled has younger siblings. If both parents have to work, or if they live with a single parent, the  older child may need to get the younger one off to school in the mornings and take care of them after school until the parent comes home. Daycare and before care/after care at school is expensive, parent(s) simply may not be able to afford it. Online homeschooling an older child so they can babysit younger ones could be the diffrence that ables them to buy food for the week.  

that is true.

Homeschooling has become popular for many reasons. How successfully a child who receives homeschooling becomes well socialized will depend on several factors. But in the end it reduces to the choices made by parents as well as available resources.

I may be stepping on some toes here but as a former public school teacher, I have to speak.   

You say what about socialization? One could say the same about public schools. 
It’s hard to argue nowadays that modern schools are safe or healthy places for socializing children. Too many events have happened over the years involving violence in schools. As long as the parents are careful to provide a solid curriculum, they are often in a better position than schools to educate their own kids. Indeed, homeschooling gives both the parent/teacher and the students more freedom to explore the world. Aside from teaching their kids the fundamentals, parents can take them to many places that show them the world firsthand.

There are often many support groups comprised of homeschool students . A particularly interesting fact is that the social activities of homeschoolers tend to include more of a diverse group. For instance, many students are willing to actively interact with other age groups. Public schools don’t seem to advocate for this because of two reasons. It seems they don’t encourage it and many peers pressure each other to avoid interacting with younger ages. 

Socialization doesn't mean learning to sit in a room all day every day with kids whose birthdays coincidentally fall within 1 year of your own or learning how to stand in line, and it doesn't take 13 years to learn those things. It means learning how to communicate with others on many different levels. Homeschoolers learn to communicate with a wide variety of people. For example, my sons are in homeschool bowling league for kids of varied ages as well as a Nature Study Explorer groupp that meets in town (not to mention our homeschoolplaydatee group). 

You can join homeschool groups in your area (secular or all-inclusive), attend co-op classes, attend classes at a science center or rec center, attend special events at museums, and things like that. Some libraries (like ours) have story times for children up to age TWELVE, not just age 4. You can find art classes, drama clubs, chess clubs, Lego clubs, summer camps, etc. You can go to a public place during normal school hours, look around to see if there are any kids who are obviously school-aged, and talk to their parents, because they're probably homeschoolers. There are a zillion ways to find friends and socialize as a homeschooler!  

Let ask one question for those who dislike homeschooling. Have you spent one day with a homeschooling family firsthand to see what their day is like. To me someone who hasn't and says they dislike homeschooling is like a child who hates a vegetable that he has never tried to eat.   

Welcome back, Sandra!  It's great to see you again!

I heard from the Baby U Alumni on Facebook you were missimg us over here so I thought I'd keep you company.  
I remember the days when I was asking Dawn (the former Baby U owner) for a Homeschoooling Board here 10 years ago. 
Now there are Homeschooliung forums everywhere!
  

There's about five of us here on and off now, but I think I'm the only one here almost everyday.