Who’s Too Dumb To Teach? Homeschooling Parents Clap Back, Citing Lower Test Scores Among Public School Students

A recent post by a self-proclaimed teacher suggesting that 90 percent of parents are not smart enough to teach their own children is igniting a fierce debate among parents, with homeschooling defenders pointing out that homeschooled children typically outperform public school students on standardized tests.Coming at a time of low SAT scores and declining enrollment, the comment from a teacher — who has since made her X account private — has elicited thousands of reactions and cross-comments.“Teaching is a licensed profession that requires training and preparation,” wrote the Chicago-based educator and congressional candidate, Patricia Easley, under the X handle P Rae. “I have an M.Ed and I know I’m not smart enough to teach my child chemistry like her teacher at school. Worksheets, apps, and field trips can’t replace a well trained educator.”“This is a common misconception,” retorted an attorney and conservative commentator, Payton Alexander. “The majority of children who are homeschooled aren’t taught by their parents, but by tutors and other teachers.”While requirements vary, most states require a parent to be the primary instructor of their children and homeschooling parents need nothing more than a high school education. But the number of available curricula, which can be personalized and modified, and options for extracurricular programming are extensive. “The beautiful problem of homeschooling is there’s more materials than you can possibly make an educated choice about. It’s overwhelming,” a homeschooling mom and communications consultant, Bethany Mandel, told The New York Sun.The number of Americans who are homeschooled is meager compared to the public school system. Though statistics vary, about 6.8 percent of primary school students are homeschooled, representing roughly 3.4 million students, compared to approximately 49.5 million public school students.According to polls, a vast majority of homeschooling parents say that they removed their kids from the public system because they were concerned about the school environment, specifically citing safety, drugs, and negative peer pressure. Others say they want to emphasize family life and morality. More than seven in 10, however, cited dissatisfaction with academic instruction, an irony not lost on parents in jurisdictions where the public school system has authority over homeschooling rules.“In Baltimore County, 84 percent of children are not literate in high school, and Baltimore County are the people who oversee homeschoolers in Baltimore County,” Mrs. Mandel said. “I just think it’s funny that the school districts that can’t educate public school children are the ones who are responsible for overseeing if we’re doing an adequate job as homeschool parents.”Despite a modest recovery post-COVID, SAT scores are still below 2019 levels. Homeschooled kids outrank their public school peers by 15 to 25 percentage points on standardized tests, and a much higher percentage of homeschoolers attend and graduate from college compared to the general population. All this is forcing teachers to defend their credentials amid complaints that they are the unqualified ones.According to the National Center for Education Statistics, education majors have among the lowest SAT scores when entering college. Only a few college degrees, including parks, recreation, and fitness degrees, security and law enforcement, construction trades, and some agriculture subfields, underperform education majors. At the same time, decades of research show that students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in education post some of the highest GPAs of any major.For critics, this may be the result of grade inflation. Most students in college education programs are women and many of them require loans to attend school, leading some academics to suggest that their scores are being artificially lifted to help them keep their loans. Others suggest that the field itself is less rigorous than math and science programs, with coursework emphasizing practical teaching methods, lesson planning, and observation rather than strict methodologies, making for more subjective grading.At the same time, IQ testing shows that school teachers rank with “superior intelligence” compared to workers in other professions, though they perform below doctors, lawyers, chemists, electrical engineers, and some technical professions.As the debate over teacher qualifications simmers, critics argue that homeschooled students benefit from self-selection bias. Demographic factors such as educational backgrounds and income levels of homeschooling families allow homeschooled students to benefit from their circumstances. Parental involvement and focused learning are also credited with success that public schools can’t afford.“It is a privilege to do it,” Mrs. Mandel said, noting that public school parents also have to carry a large mental load put on them by the school system, “but it’s not something that people who have a library card can’t do.”For some homeschool advocates, however, it’s not a question of privilege, but the opposite — parents ensuring their children do better than they did. “As a parent whose kids were homeschooled by a person (their mom) with a little bit of college and in her second language,” wrote the owner of South Carolina-based Long Story Farms. “The lack of teacher training is really not the issue. The issue is recognizing that you will, if you are successful, get to a point where you truly aren’t smart enough to teach your kid.”“As someone who comes from a family of teachers and is a teacher, YOU are your child’s first, best, and most important teacher,” added a teacher and education advocate who provides early learning curricula, Hannah Ward. “We live in the easiest time in history to homeschool. Take it seriously and you’ll do fine.”

Who’s Too Dumb To Teach? Homeschooling Parents Clap Back, Citing Lower Test Scores Among Public School Students

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