Covid-19 Pandemic Pushes More Parents to Go All-In for Home Schooling - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-pandemic-pushes-more-parents-to-go-all-in-for-home-schooling-11612089000

During the pandemic, as parents became increasingly frustrated with distance learning, some people decided to let their children leave school and try to teach themselves.

In North Carolina, the state’s home school monitoring website crashed on the first day of registration. According to statistics, from July 1 to January 22, more than 18,800 families applied to open a home school, which is the previous year More than twice as much. National Non-Public Education Office. In Connecticut, the number of students leaving public schools for home education has jumped five-fold this school year to 3,500. According to state education officials, the number of home-educated students in Nebraska jumped 56% to 13,426.

"The vast majority (parents) are saying,'We have been working hard to do what the school requires us to do, but we can no longer do it,'"" The National Association of Home Schools has been investigating the subject.

Since the 1970s, home school education in the United States has accounted for a small part of all school education, but it has grown from traditional education reformers and religious conservatives to families worried about bullying and violence. According to data from the National Education Statistics Center, in 2016, family education accounted for 3% of the country’s students, compared with 88% in public and charter schools and 9% in private schools.

But as

Data from multiple states shows that this disrupts the school year, and more and more parents decide to control their children's curriculum and progress for practical reasons.

Sandra Cox (Sandra Cox) said that her family had insisted on virtual learning last spring and last fall because they liked the neighboring school in Ghana, North Carolina, on the outskirts of Raleigh.

She said: "Last spring, they had to build this ship," she suddenly turned to distance learning. "But after they built the ship? It still didn't float."

During the Christmas holidays, Ms. Cox said that she and her husband decided to readjust their work schedules, choose the timetable, and start family education for their 12-year-old daughter Sierra and 7-year-old son Dwight Jr.. Getting frustrated and boring.

Ms. Cox teaches evening sewing lessons in the Sewing Room of her shop Garner. She said that she helped her daughter memorize the multiplication table on a recent morning. This skill is being tested. Cox's youth is precious, but now it is rarely emphasized in public schools. She has recruited her sister in Florida for her son to teach Japanese classes through Zoom.

She said, "It's going well so far." Then she smiled. "Ask me again in three months."

Advocates of public schools say they worry that family education is isolated from children and lack of safeguards to ensure basic education. Elizabeth Bartholet, a professor at Harvard Law School who specializes in civil rights, called for a “presumption prohibition of homeschooling” in almost all circumstances in the Arizona Law Review. She said that learning at home jeopardizes children's rights, that is, "learning what is essential to making meaningful choices for employment and future life."

Joseph Murphy of Vanderbilt University, who studies family education, said that there is very little evidence that abuse or widespread negative consequences.

He said he hopes that this epidemic will destroy education, just like the transition from an agricultural society to an industrialized society a century ago. He said that one room, super-local school buildings gave way to a standardized public school system.

He said that this time, he hopes that parents who are forced to teach their children more parent-children will continue to do so. He said that this does not mean a large-scale shift to family education. Rather, this means that in addition to public, private or home school education, there are more choices and the ability to switch between different types. For example, parents can take their children overseas for a year and get support from the school.

Dr. Murphy said: "We have started a major shift in our 100-year-old thinking of teaching children and running schools." "Parents have moved to places where they think they need to be more directly involved and take greater responsibility for what happens to their children."

After the public school is completely reopened, it is not clear how long the new self-taught family will last. Advocates of homeschooling say that some families usually drop out after first grade or when their students grow up and their parents find that they don’t feel qualified to teach advanced math and science.

New home student Sandra Kim said that she and her husband chose their house in Loudoun County, Virginia, because it is close to the strong public school of their three children Yenna, Emily and Teddy.

Last year, Ms. Jin served as a communications job in the advocacy organization "Home School Legal Defence Association" (Home School Legal Defence Association). She said that the epidemic and the family students she met there helped her take a "leap of faith." "And started family education last fall.

Ms. Jin is recording the ups and downs on her Instagram page @thereluctanthomeschoolmama. The highlight is visiting museums and learning Korean culture. People with low light have been snapping up so much that they broke into shopping bags.

She said that homeschooling is great, but "it's also a mess. Do you have "have we done enough?" "a feeling of."

Valerie Bauerlein (Valerie Bauerlein)

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The print version appeared on February 1, 2021, and was titled "More Parents Turn to Home Learning".

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