Economics plays into this too. Housing in good school districts is often much more expensive, and private schools are ridiculously expensive.
COVID is another factor. Anecdotal of course, but I've only met two home schooled families since moving to our present city 3 years ago, and one of them started out of necessity during the pandemic and found that it worked well and so never went back -- but they're a one income family so one parent has the time (the only way it works, IMO, unless you co-op with another family or two, which can work if you're friends). I must say I was very impressed with their kids.
In Seattle schools have double the budget compared to the years ago, and spend more than 25K per student each year. The schools are worse than ever, which has convinced me that funding isn’t the problem. This might be a local issue though, with a very ideological school district that has ignored the basics of education.
I was responding to the part about housing being expensive near good schools, and the idea of good schools in general. Expensive housing and associated taxes often affect local school budgets, and those budgets are often stated as the reason the school is good. But my experience has been that the budgets don’t change school quality, it must be other factors. Sorry it may have been somewhat unrelated.
I don't know whether budgets change school quality, but there is a marked difference in most cities between schools with high and low performance outcomes as measured by test scores, graduation rates, etc. (not that test scores are the best measure of life in general, but they're what's available in terms of academic understanding). And if you look at the schools with high ratings and where they are located, you'll find that it correlates greatly with income, and even more so you'll find that schools with the lowest performance correlate greatly with low income. (These are averages; there are brilliant students at all these schools.)
Families with higher income have more resources and more ability to support their child's education (after school activities, tutoring, a more academically-oriented environment, and most importantly, the absence of financial stress on the family unit which can greatly affect children especially if the parents (or in many cases a single parent household) has to work multiple jobs just to put food on the table much less be able to handle much else.
I think it's really housing is expensive near good schools because people (with kids) want to live near good schools so it drives up the price.
I guess also people who buy their house based on education probably have a positive effect of the education in that area but I think it's more of a market effect of the school already being above average.
As a parent with young kids moving to a new city a few years ago, we based our house hunting process on being near the best public schools (based on academic achievements; not much else to go by), and paid quite a bit more for our house than we would have otherwise. I know it sounds selfish, but our concern is that if our kids are mostly surrounded by other kids who don't have high academic standards (through no fault of their own, just their environment doesn't support that or it's not even a goal), then they will have a hard time bucking the tide, so to speak.
This sort of aligns with some other comments here. Parents want their kids to be around other kids that are better than the average. So like kids who behave well, aren’t violent, care about grades, have attentive parents, etc. I completely support that way of thinking given what school can be like when you don’t have that, which I did not like or benefit from in any way (even though some claim that mixing with other types of people is somehow positive).
Not really. If you've grown up in Asia you're used to wearing a mask whenever you are feeling unwell or have a cold. We do that out of courtesy to others, and it makes a lot of sense (which is why the practice has continued at hospitals since COVID). My kids were both in elementary school during COVID and got used to it quickly and were just fine.
Many American parents did not consider masking their children to be OK. If you want to know one reason many more are homeschooling now: that's one reason. There's other related reasons too. All the covid reasons to homeschool:
- schools were closed for too long
- remote learning wasn't working
- forced masking of children when
schools reopened, both against
the children's and parents' will
- politicization of all things health
Probably, but what you're not factoring in is teachers being afraid of going "back to the office" (like most other people were at the time). Unless you're going to force them or fire them (and then where do you get new teachers from?).
I've seen enough pictures of mask-free politicians surrounded by mask-wearing children. Forcing children to wear masks was NEVER about protecting the adults. It was about petty tyrants up and down the power structure exercising power over the helpless and their equally helpless parents (helpless because they depend on schools being childcare). Protecting adults was merely the excuse they needed.
All the assholes who chose to force masking -without evidence!- on children don't get to cry now when parents choose homeschooling.
(There was never any evidence of masking working. Fauci himself had written a paper about how masking didn't work in the Spanish Flu pandemic and instead caused problems. Today it's understood that masking never worked. There is no reputable science that shows masking working in any significant way, and certainly not enough to justify forcing captive audiences to wear the fucking mask. Never again.)
Like I said, it wasn't such a big deal for the kids. Were your kids traumatized by having to wear a mask, or are you just generally pissed off for no particular reason?
> without evidence
Of course there's evidence that masks prevent the spread of airborne diseases -- it's not that it protects the wearer from viruses penetrating the mask, but it greatly reduces the amount of viral load that is spewed out by a sick person, which in turn reduces the amount of viral load that others are exposed to especially in confined settings. This isn't specific to COVID.
> Today it's understood that masking never worked.
Not true. Masks can't fully protect you or prevent COVID but they do reduce the amount of viral load you're exposed to depending on the environment.
There has been a considerable increase in speech delays and disorders after 2020.
Some of that is related to lack of diverse socialisation (watching/hearing different people talk) but also caused to masking. Not being able to watch the mouths/lips critically affects a kid's speech development.
> Like I said, it wasn't such a big deal for the kids.
That is a ridiculous thing to say. Many people, children and adults were very unhappy to wear those disgusting things and/or found them very uncomfortable, and "traumatized" or not should never have been forced to. And yes, being forced to wear them by "authorities" who weren't is traumatizing for some. How dare you say something so fucking offensive? Who the fuck are you to say "it wasn't such a big deal for the kids"?
Anyways, now you know: many people hated it, hated you and your ilk for being such petty, tyrannical little shits about it, and now it's our turn to do things you don't like, like homeschool. There's nothing tyrannical towards you in others homeschooling, but you are all so offended by it because it takes away your power.
> Of course there's evidence that masks prevent the spread of airborne diseases -- it's not that it protects the wearer from viruses penetrating the mask, but it greatly reduces the amount of viral load that is spewed out by a sick person, which in turn reduces the amount of viral load that others are exposed to especially in confined settings. This isn't specific to COVID.
Utter bullshit, but even if you were right it wouldn't justify forced mask wearing, especially for children.
> Not true. Masks can't fully protect you or prevent COVID but they do reduce the amount of viral load you're exposed to depending on the environment.
They cannot protect you AT ALL from covid or any small viruses. The boxes say so themselves.
> And yes, being forced to wear them by "authorities" who weren't is traumatizing for some.
maybe for some; not for any of the parents I met before, during or after COVID.
it's obvious you don't have kids who were in school at that time, so you ... are representing parents somehow??
> hated you and your ilk for being such petty, tyrannical little shits about it,
wtf? I haven't met anyone who hated me, well, I guess now I have :)
> and now it's our turn to do things you don't like, like homeschool.
Actually, I was homeschooled myself and homeschooled my eldest child (worked out pretty good too, she got a full scholarship to a top engineering college). I like homeschooling. So you really have no idea what you're talking about.
> Utter bullshit
It's actually true. Maybe once you stop your rabid screams you'll calm down enough to do some serious research.
> They cannot protect you AT ALL from covid or any small viruses
Oh my, next you'll be telling me COVID was/is a hoax and that the earth is flat.
> > They cannot protect you AT ALL from covid or any small viruses
> Oh my, next you'll be telling me COVID was/is a hoax and that the earth is flat.
You left out the part where it says so on the box. You're also changing the subject from the horrible and unjustifiable masking of children. Changing the subject is an implied concession. Making up a strawman is pretty desperate. Masking the children was horrible and unjustifiable, and you know that quite well. And you know what, I thank you and the others who engaged in it for it because now no one will be able to do that again for another hundred years. Covid Zero ended in China because the CCP found the limit of what people would tolerate without revolting -- all those petty tyrants clad in full body PPE were going to be getting killed, that much was clear. Here in Texas all that crap got nipped in the bud real quick and next time will be much quicker.
Are private schools all that ridiculously expensive though? I'm enrolling my kid into University School (a private boys only school in Cleveland) and the tuition is like 30k$ per year.
COVID is another factor. Anecdotal of course, but I've only met two home schooled families since moving to our present city 3 years ago, and one of them started out of necessity during the pandemic and found that it worked well and so never went back -- but they're a one income family so one parent has the time (the only way it works, IMO, unless you co-op with another family or two, which can work if you're friends). I must say I was very impressed with their kids.