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Comment by overrun11 | Hacker News Reader

The stats I've seen show that homeschooled students do substantially better on tests than their public school counterparts. I'm open to the possibility that those stats are wrong but you should at least address that if you're going to take the "homeschooling produces only indoctrination" line.

If most homeschoolers are flat-earthers teaching their children that fossils aren't real and are STILL crushing public schools on science, math and reading tests– then that is an embarrassing indictment of public schools.

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Being able to pass a standardized test on a basic subject isn't the same thing as being able to think critically.

> being able to think critically.

That was strongly discouraged long ago when I was in school. Completely unheard of when my daughter was in school. Sounds like you're grasping at straws here; standardized test scores are pretty terrible but you're suggesting kids are able to think more critically now that they can't do arithmetic?

Arithmetic doesn't require any sort of critical thinking at all, so the point is moot. Advanced maths do, but those aren't usually taught in K-12; however, not getting those critical thinking skills young can make it more difficult in college to apply what you've learned to more complex problems. I'm speaking here as someone with a math degree who tutored college level mathematics for 3 years.

As to the other point, you're right that many teachers don't encourage critical thinking or individualism. That's a fault of those teachers, and of our society that tends to frown on questioning authority.

All that said, kids who only socialize with their own family and maybe their neighbors don't develop the skills that come with having their views challenged and needing to defend them.

>The stats I've seen show that homeschooled students do substantially better on tests than their public school counterparts.

Do those stats account for the fact that parents who choose to homeschool tend to care way more about their children compared to people who send their kids to public school?

If you take students of equivalent socioeconomic status, then no the homeschooled doesn't perform better on average. They tend to do better on social subjects and worse at STEM subjects, but on average the results are the same.

Shows that STEM education in school is the most important part of school since the rest you can learn better at home, so homeschooling is significantly worse at the most important part that the student wont just learn as an adult on their own later.

> If you take students of equivalent socioeconomic status, then no the homeschooled doesn't perform better on average.

Source? Documentation? Evidence?

There is plenty, just google and you find a lot. Why is this so hard to believe, it is fairly obvious that the moms that teach will teach better at subjects they like and worse at subjects they hate, and most moms hate math.

Here is an article writing by a homeschooling association where they noted this: https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/the-homeschool-math-gap...

Here is a result of home schooled kids being behind on science, they don't major in science in college nearly as much, the difference is a staggering 33% majoring in STEM for non homeschooled and just 13% for homeschooled: https://www.educacaodomiciliar.fe.unicamp.br/sites/www.educa...

So if you wish for your kids to have the best possible career potential don't homeschool, that greatly lowers their chances at a good STEM career.

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