I’ve Been a Public School Teacher for 20 Years. Trust Me: Homeschool Your Kids

Homeschooling has grown significantly over the past couple decades. NCES notes the share of students homeschooled rose from 1.7% (1999) to 5.4% of children homeschooled (2020)

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That's an interesting statistic. I know in my own experience talking with other parents, homeschooling is a lot more common now than it was when I was in school, for exactly the reasons laid out in this article.

Instruction time is minimal. In many public schools is transitions, disruptions, behavior management, administrative tasks, and time-killing. We homeschool now, and we cover a full day in 1-2 hours. That's all you need.

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I'm skeptical of this. Having been a tutor myself, I know students can easily get hung up on explanations or just not "get it" for much more than an hour. Thinking of my time in public school, yes, a lot of time was wasted on dumb activities, transitions, and disruptions, but the teachers definitely gave us more than 2 hours of instruction per day. Maybe 2 hours of instruction is good enough to be better than today's public schools (I'd believe it), or good enough for elementary school, but I don't think that would be up to snuff against the level of instruction in, say, a public middle school 20 years ago.

The author came away from the privilege walk exercise with the wrong message, it seems. Ah, well. Not every exercise works for every person.

I've seen families who homeschooled very well, and I've seen families who homeschooled poorly. Similarly, there are ways that traditional schools excel, and ways that they have the problems the author lists.

Homeschooling lets you tailor instruction to the pace and learning style of the particular student. Traditional classroom schooling doesn't let the teacher individualize the instruction as easily. That's a benefit of homeschooling.

Two benefits of traditional classroom schooling that the author doesn't mention are:

1) Traditional schools benefit from the expertise of many teachers. One teacher has a chemistry degree; another, an English degree; another, a music degree; and so on . Few parents have degrees in all of these fields. (I know one family that homeschooled for the younger grades and then went to a public school for high school, and this can be one way to get the benefits of both.)

2) In this era of silos, I fear that homeschooling can be another silo. One of my children has told me that one of the best aspects of their public school experience was having friends from a wide variety of backgrounds: high- and low-income; White, Black, Asian, and Latino; Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, atheist. A homeschooling family might be able to achieve this if they were very intentional about interacting with a variety of other families, but it's more of a challenge.

I agree with the author that homeschooling done well can be very good. Traditional classrooms done well can also be very good.

Michie said:

I have a bachelor’s degree in education. I have a master’s degree in music education. I spent 20 years working for the system and taught thousands of students...

And my number one piece of advice to parents is simple:

Homeschool your kids.

And today I’m going to explain why.

Not from the outside. Not from headlines. Not from politics. From the inside. From someone who lived it for two decades.
I want to tell you who a bit about my background because the second you say anything critical about public schools, people assume you’re bitter, uninformed, or pushing an agenda.

I’m none of those things...

Like most teachers who are in the public school system always knew the best part about teaching was the students. They always made my days.

And for a long time I believed that this was a salvageable situation.

I was one of the Kool-Aid drinkers. I worked 70–80 hours a week. I killed myself trying to be the kind of teacher everyone says we need more of. The one that is present, prepared, invested.
And I defended the system.

I told parents it was great. I encouraged people to join the profession. I believed we were doing something noble.

But the longer I stayed inside it, the clearer it became:

Schools aren't about learning and they are glorified daycare centers.

What Parents Think Schools Do vs. What Actually Happens​

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Continued below.​

https://x.com/creation247/status/2012598176138535041

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I was a straight A student until the 7th grade. I went to a middle school that was majority black. I was picked on, assaulted and abused. One time they held me down and slammed a door on my head and gave me a concussion.
So I started lifting weights. School wasn’t about learning it was about survival. It got a little better in the 8th grade and by the 9th grade I was big enough that I was beating people up when they picked a fight. Nothing stopped it until I fought back. Then they started ganging up on me.
When I got to High School it was better, I didn’t get in any more fights. But I didn’t try to make As anymore, I did great on tests but I didn’t do my homework so I ended up with Bs and Cs.
if I hadn’t went through what I did in middle school I could have done so much better.
My wife is a 4th grade teacher in a public school and she shares your sentiment. The kids are horrible

My kids went to public school. All of them have college degrees, two with advanced degrees. The fact is, all successful families home school, even if their kids go to public schools.

The best predictor of academic success is a mother with an advanced degree. The second best is a father with an advanced degree. Third is economic status of the family in which the child grows up.