It is true that there is no way to know which affidavits are home based versus brick and mortar. I think there is a second issue and that is the affidavits are submitted to each district and the districts then bundle the data for for the state. Schools with 5 or fewer students are not included in this data sweep. The 5 and fewer schools are not included on any kind of public database either, so there is no way to count those students. (Someone correct me if I have the process wrong. A friend works for CDE and from what she has gathered, the online affidavits are sorted at a district versus state level. Which seems counter intuitive given the submission process.)

I very much pre-date 2008 and have read every legal document I can find on that case. This gist of the ruling was that (1) homeschooling is permitted in the state as a type of private education and (2) if a child is declared a ward of the state and there are safety issues, the state can override the statutory permission to homeschool. Again, there was no determination of academic quality in the court documents that I could find. The reason the state intervened was because of physical safety of the children. ETA I am very much in agreement with you that I detest the philosophy. I am just saying that I am not so sure that it will be what limits homeschooling rights. The legal basis for all this is not what we seem to think it is or should be.

I completely and totally agree that substituting religious and character studies for academics is a travesty. And I am probably off topic here. I am in CA where probably 10% of homeschooling children in the US live (though it's impossible to have an exact figure). Homeschooling is not mentioned in any law. IOW, it's not like legislators are even discussing the academic merits or demerits. The courts are the ones who have determined legality and, AFAIK, they are not using the standard of "equivalent alternative." I am tossing this out there because while your argument is very logical and I would agree with it, it's not how it has necessarily played out in real life. The courts look ultimately to a constitutional basis and "equivalent alternative" isn't there. But again. I am off topic.

There is definitely a trend local to me where long time homeschooling families will use charters for elementary and middle school, then jump ship at 9th grade and use dual enrollment at the community colleges. However, our local district also has been relying on a homeschool charter for students who previously would have been sent to the continuation school (teen parents, teens with substance abuse/mental health issues or juvenile justice involvement). It makes sense to me that a charter could be appropriate for those students. (Specifically, teens who are in institutions are required to be educated but the state doesn't give specifics as to the quality of the education. The charter school has standards higher than most of the institutions are used to providing.)

Serious question regarding the text in red. Is this accurate? I have been researching the history of homeschooling laws in various states and it seems to me that there were various approaches to legalization. In some states it was written in as an "equivalent alternative" to compulsory education laws much as you describe. But in other states, it seems to have been granted on either grounds of due process (14th amendment) or religious freedom (1st amendment) or some combination thereof. In some parts of the country is does seem to me that legislators and courts are cool with religious training provided the children are not becoming an economic burden on the state. Which means the outcome of concern is not distinctly academic but economic. I'm honestly not sure where I am going with this except the legal situation seems far more complex and nuanced and varied than I realized. I tend to agree with you that there may be changes in oversight coming down the pike but I honestly can't figure out which way this will go. (We live in a state that does NOT legally define homeschooling, hence there is a lack of even basic demographic information about homeschooling families.)

Does anyone know what percentage are private versus charter? I was looking for that statistic the other day and never managed to figure it out. I would say in my world, over half are with charters. And we homeschool privately, so it is not like we seek out the charter world.

Social scientists call it linear regression or multivariate regression. It's used routinely.

Eh. As soon as someone proclaims what kids deserve in financial terms I immediately run that person through the Charlie Brown teacher voice generator. Wonk, wonk, wonk. Kids may deserve the moon but they get what we can afford. And they can thrive under all kinds of circumstances. Carry on, homeschooling mom.

Totally agree that face to face, individually administered is the way to go. Here in CA the WISC is not used with African American students and reluctantly if the student is an English learner. I heart the WISC but end up administering the Reynolds because of less concern over cultural and language issues when working with a diverse population. (The Reynolds is not perfect but less bias against it.) In NYC it seems like the district rotates the tests for gifted programs because prep centers are continually adjusting. It's a bit of a cat and mouse game. There are websites that pretty much disclose test questions almost as soon as they are published.

Yeah, I have one who was like this and (at age 13) is surprisingly more pleasant than I expected. I have no idea if his improvement has to do with parenting, his friends, or perhaps even the hormone surge. But he is better. Some random thoughts: (1) I gave up doing chores as a family because he would stir the pot. I told, "Son, we love you and all but the complaining is a life suck and you are really are no fun as a co-worker. You work better alone. You can do your chores any time except when the other kids are doing theirs. Sorry about that but we need our peace." (2) I gave him a huge amount of control over what chores he did. Huge. He got to pick what and mostly when. And then I tied the completion of the chore to something he wanted. Usually it was swim practice. If his chores were done, I drove him. Otherwise he had to take the bus (which I allowed) or miss practice. We have a policy that if the kids sign up for an activity and then willfully miss, they refund us the money for the miss. I didn't make a big deal about insisting he pay up because he knew if he didn't make good, we wouldn't resign him up. So eventually he would pay. And eventually he decided he wanted the ride. Currently his chores are tied to go to a part time school (!!!!) and yes he gets up early to do them. It makes no logical sense to me but it does to him. (3) Quit worrying about him being spoiled. It's all relative and kids don't understand the concept until they have broad life experience. To them, it is just nagging. Let that one go. Some day when he travels to an impoverished country or volunteers at a homeless shelter he will understand. Leave that lesson for when he can learn it first hand. (4) When he is being particularly difficult, spend time with him doing something special. My husband and I would flip a coin to see who had to spend 1:1 time with our difficult child because it seemed so unfair that he would get extra attention. But we would do it because it helped. For no reason at all, take him to the park or the library or to get ice cream. And don't discuss chores. LOL. I say that because I think a lot of oppositional children don't know how to politely ask for attention. Chew the fat, spit the bones.

I would describe the worldview of the IB Programme as pluralistic humanism more than secular humanism. Religion is studied and considered a valid way of viewing the world, but no religion is prioritized over any other.

I read aloud (still) to my teens. It produces deep and insightful conversations in a way that reading individually and then meeting later to discuss does not. Also, snacks.

The Hunger Games can be un-twaddled by having the students read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar first. The author based many of her dystopian premises on ancient Rome, and Shakespeare's characters in particular. I have moral objections to The Hunger Games in that there is no strong pacifist stance taken--as in, pacifism seems to be confused with passiveness. However, the books have a strong cautionary theme to them regarding violence. Everyone who participates pays a price and is somehow broken. They are thoughtful books in that way. It is interesting that the author grew up in an Air Force family. I find many Air Force officers and offspring to be more thoughtful and cognizant of the limitations and price of war compared to most civilians.

Make babies.

I would agree--the plagiarism problem is rampant and I think stems from a social media culture where sharing (without thought to attribution) is considered a compliment. I also think it is a lack of time spent reading academic journals. Many undergraduates don't encounter academic journal articles first hand until upper division classes, and thus don't understand the purpose. I do wonder if the solutions will be technological. And I don't mean programs like TurnItIn which do the scanning and originality scores, but actual imbedding of code in text snippets that would make it possible to track back sources. The easier you make it for people to attribute, the more likely they are to do it.

I am uninterested in either defending or criticizing outcomes for the simple reason that I don't think we know--as an aggregate--what the outcomes are. Many homeschoolers in CA use charter schools which require testing. But when I have looked at comparison samples it is hard to make sense of the data because so many families are opting out. (Both homeschooling and brick and mortar families.) Many of the stereotypes of homeschoolers even here on this thread (upper middle class, intact families) don't ring true in my world. The charter homeschool programs are used heavily within my district for teens who don't fit into regular school---teen parents, teens with juvenile justice involvement, teens who are homeless. The kids with solid academic skills tend to skip the high school route altogether and head straight to community college and are thus pulled from the samples. As far as the CA homeschoolers who file as independent private schools, I think we know even less about that population because there are no testing requirements. My feeling is that they tend to be more at the extremes: more kids with learning disabilities, but also more gifted kids too. I do bristle at some of the comments in this thread which seem to acknowledge, yes my child may not test the best because of LD's but everyone else is not doing an adequate job teaching. Fundamental attribution bias, much? It's easy to miss what a broad sample really looks like when most of us see a pretty narrow slice in terms of geography.

Right. I have taught many university classes and a shocking number of students are not prepared with basic reading, writing, and math skills. They are horrific with deadlines. Not to mention plagiarism. I don't doubt that university model schools are seeing under prepared homeschoolers. I also know that the home schooled kids I taught were very well prepared for AP (with few outside classes). Demographics. Homeschoolers are a widely diverse group. ETA Thinking about this some more. We are long term homeschoolers and would be highly unlikely to outsource 2 days per week unless a child needed friends or was struggling in a particular academic area. We host robotics programs out of our garage and the claim that homeschoolers are behind in math and science does not ring true for me at all. But, pretty sure we appeal to the families who have geeky kids looking for geeky academic and social outlets.

These kinds of threads are interesting and amusing, and likely tell us more about sampling than homeschooling. I taught an AP psych class to homeschooled students and 80% of the class earned 4 or 5's on the exam. That is not typical results and I don't take credit for it. I have taught at the university level enough to know that the particular class I had was bright, motivated, and quirky. They were great fun to teach. Good readers and solid thinkers. Where they representative of our homeschooling community? Probably not, given that most families are not homeschooling older teens and kids without at least some academic bent would shy away from advanced placement. Several teens were taking the course specifically because they were looking for academic recommendations beyond mom--meaning, they had taken few (if any) outsourced classes. My own kids tend to score unusually high in math on standardized tests but are not stellar writers. On any standardized test, you would expect 50% of the kids to be 50th percentile or lower. Because, statistics. (Most tests infer grade level equivalents from the means). So a program with 50% of the kids scoring "behind" grade level is probably an indication of a broad sample and not much more than that. JMO.

There are some good law enforcement jobs (especially federal) for individuals with tech and computer backgrounds. I would have him talk to people in the field, but I suspect a STEM background would be more helpful than a criminal justice one if he wants to go federal.

I work in mental health on the west coast and, yes, there are many biases against homeschooling. Also, against larger families. This thread us a good reminder I need to be more conscious of developing professional connections because I regularly get asked for referrals. I have no idea where I would refer an unschooling family. Professionals are so achievement oriented in conventional ways that heads might explode.

I work 20-25 hours, some from home. Dh works full time. I have most of the homeschool responsibility/oversight for our 5 because of scheduling. Kids help out a lot in terms of chores (cooking, cleaning, errands) not out of any kind of parenting philosophy but because of need. (I stay away from online parenting discussions regarding chores because it all feels like mental masturbation when help from the kids is a necessity not a luxury.) It is doable but not always fun. We are hoping our schedules ease up in the next year. The reason for my working is less to do with current financial need than health issues of my husband and the possibility I may need to be the primary wage earner in the not too distant future. Fortunately I have a career which I really enjoy. I can't stress enough that challenges of balancing homeschool/home life with work are easier to keep in perspective if the job is a good fit. Best wishes.

Fewer questions (which is what happens with the tossed sections) means the kids at either end will be disproportionately impacted. The test will be less sensitive. Word on the CB street is exactly what you are saying: blockier scores, less nuance. It's frustrating.

This. Yes. I do psychometrics as part of my professional career and I don't trust College Board either.

My son scored a full standard deviation lower than he did on the ACT. I'm not happy. It's not the end of the world given he has strong ACT's, but it feels like a wasted opportunity. If anything, the lesson for me has been to schedule standardized testing earlier, rather than later, in the high school years. The second lesson is that College Board is of the debil. But we already knew that.

Double post.