[ABANDONED] Freedom of Education Act

[Maowi]

OOC:

Barely 24 hours of drafting? Seriously?

Without further input from others, pretty much.

Not everyone has the time to log into NS every day. People have lives. Wait and I'm 100% sure you'll get more people coming to give feedback.
Anyway, people have been giving you advice or suggestions, but you're not listening to them. If you want this draft to get anywhere I suggest you read back and try and actually understand and use the advice people have given you.

[Kyundao]

OOC:

Without further input from others, pretty much.

Not everyone has the time to log into NS every day. People have lives. Wait and I'm 100% sure you'll get more people coming to give feedback.
Anyway, people have been giving you advice or suggestions, but you're not listening to them. If you want this draft to get anywhere I suggest you read back and try and actually understand and use the advice people have given you.

I know and I've been doing that, but Terttia - no offensive Terttia - hasn't been speaking in common sense nor clear and concise English, making it hard for me to apply whatever input he's trying to offer.

[Imperium Anglorum]

From a political and argumentative perspective, I think there are lessons to be learnt from CD's proposal on the topic: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=385697&p=29513826&hilit=education#p29513826. N.b. don't plagiarise. Can you show to us the reason why people have a right to indoctrinate their children in generally unaccepted ideas about society and the world?

[Kyundao]

From a political and argumentative perspective, I think there are lessons to be learnt from CD's proposal on the topic: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=385697&p=29513826&hilit=education#p29513826. N.b. don't plagiarise. Can you show to us the reason why people have a right to indoctrinate their children in generally unaccepted ideas about society and the world?

I can see the similarities between clause 4 of CD's resolution and clause 3 of this draft, but other than that, are you sure I've plagiarized? I haven't copied CD's failed resolution.

As for generally unaccepted ideas about society and the world, I'm pretty sure that many in the WA outside fascist/Nazi circles function in such a manner.

[Tinhampton]

From a political and argumentative perspective, I think there are lessons to be learnt from CD's proposal on the topic: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=385697&p=29513826&hilit=education#p29513826. N.b. don't plagiarise. Can you show to us the reason why people have a right to indoctrinate their children in generally unaccepted ideas about society and the world?

I can see the similarities between clause 4 of CD's resolution and clause 3 of this draft, but other than that, are you sure I've plagiarized? I haven't copied CD's failed resolution.

IA is advising you against plagiarising from other sources; he is not accusing you of plagiarising in your current draft.

[Kyundao]

I can see the similarities between clause 4 of CD's resolution and clause 3 of this draft, but other than that, are you sure I've plagiarized? I haven't copied CD's failed resolution.

IA is advising you against plagiarising from other sources; he is not accusing you of plagiarising in your current draft.

Okay. How is my draft doing so far?

[Attempted Socialism]

IA is advising you against plagiarising from other sources; he is not accusing you of plagiarising in your current draft.

Okay. How is my draft doing so far?

Quite frankly? Terribly. You have some errors of basic drafting, and some issues with policy.

First, the clear errors.
You haven't defined homeschooling or schooling in general, meaning there's no limit as to what can be considered homeschooling (Primary school? Secondary school? Tertiary education?). A nation seeking to be non-compliantly compliant could define homeschooling as schooling that takes place by educated teachers in a school building. Your second clause conflicts with your third, because what the parents may consider the best quality education can easily conflict with the national curriculum. National curriculum could also require some formal education or subject expertise by the teachers, which then conflicts with the first clause. These are just the obvious ones, there may be conflicts with other resolutions as well.

Policy issues are also aplenty. Your "Acknowledging" line is wrong, to the best of my knowledge. Homeschooling is AFAIK mostly used to indoctrinate and infantilise children by fundamentalist parents. Parents are also generally not educated in all schooling subjects. When you allow parents to pursue the best quality education for their kids, this could easily rule out homeschooling just for that reason. Last, if you really want to give parents the right to teach their kids whatever, why follow the national curriculum? You just claimed that the parents may pursue the best quality education, which you allege is outside the curriculum.

I'm also against this idea in general, as I would much rather abolish the notion of homeschooling altogether, but that's unrelated to the flaws in the draft as-is.

[Terttia]

*snip*

OOC: In my opinion, it’s common sense that parents aren’t able to teach their children like teachers can. I’ve been stating “resources” in my arguments nearly the entire time in this thread; teachers are resources.

[Kyundao]

I've added definitions in regard to schooling as well as additional statements on the values and beliefs of member nations.

[Kyundao]

I may as well submit the proposal and see what happens.

[Terttia]

I may as well submit the proposal and see what happens.

OOC: Good proposals usually take weeks/months to be drafted. GH has already alluded to not submitting.

IC: Phantomsom has a surprised look on his face. He then states, “Private schools are usually for-profit institutions. This will probably bring about many costs for them. Terttia is opposed.”

[Asterguard]

Barely 24 hours of drafting? Seriously?

Without further input from others, pretty much.

I suggest waiting at minimum 2 weeks before submitting so that more eyes can see it. Otherwise its bound to fail this point.

[Kyundao]

Without further input from others, pretty much.

I suggest waiting at minimum 2 weeks before submitting so that more eyes can see it. Otherwise its bound to fail this point.

That doesn't sound too bad actually.

[Unthank]

"... children who are homeschooled tend to fare far better than children who attend public and/or private schools not just in mental health, but also in the educational subjects they have learned."

Not wishing to be negative, but does anyone have stats back this up? Or indeed to disprove it?

[MineLegotia and Equestria]

Would vote for if enters the voting process, but I disagree with this

Knowing as well that children who are homeschooled tend to fare far better than children who attend public and/or private schools not just in mental health, but also in the educational subjects they have learned;

Any studies to back it up?

[Yohannes]

"... children who are homeschooled tend to fare far better than children who attend public and/or private schools not just in mental health, but also in the educational subjects they have learned."

Not wishing to be negative, but does anyone have stats back this up? Or indeed to disprove it?

From Taylor & Francis Online, peer-reviewed journals; I'm using my work password for free institutional access (I can always look up more peer-reviewed journals or online book chapters if needed). Quite a few research articles which essentially say that ...

Knowing as well that children who are homeschooled tend to fare far better than children who attend public and/or private schools not just in mental health, but also in the educational subjects they have learned;

... is not a truth universally acknowledged / is not true in many cases

“Homeschooling is a form of private education that is parent led and home based. Because of this, homeschooling does not rely on either state-run public schooling or institutional private schooling for a child's education. Up until the 19th century, home-based education was common, if not the norm, for most of the nation's [American] children.”


Ray, B. D. (2012). Evangelical Protestant and other faith-based homeschooling. In J. C. Carper & T. C. Hunt (Eds.), Praeger handbook of faith-based schools in the United States, K-12 (Chapter 12, pp. 123–135). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, ABC-CLIO.

“Things changed quickly, however, during the late 1800s and into the 20th century. By the 1970s, homeschooling was nearly nonexistent, with perhaps only 13,000 schoolchildren attending school at home (Lines, 1991). A dramatic change began around the late 1970s, one that resulted in slightly more than 2 million homeschooled students in grades K to 12 in the United States during the spring of 2010 ...”


Ray, B. D. (2011). 2.04 million homeschool students in the United States in 2010. Salem, OR: National Home Education Research Institute. Retrieved from http://www.nheri.org/HomeschoolPopulationReport2010.pdf

“Researchers have gone beyond simple descriptive data regarding homeschooled students’ test scores. When analysed ...”

“1. There were no statistically significant differences in achievement by whether the student had been home educated all his or her academic life, whether the student was enrolled in a full-service curriculum, whether the parents knew their student’s test scores before participating in the study, and the degree of state regulation of homeschooling (in three different analyses on the subject).”

...

“3. There were statistically significant differences in achievement among homeschooled students when classified by gender, amount of money spent on education, family income, whether either parent had ever been a certified teacher (i.e. students of non-certified parents scored higher), number of children living at home, degree of structure in the homeschooling, amount of time student spends in structured learning, and age at which formal instruction of the student began.”


Ray, B. D. (2010a). Academic achievement and demographic traits of homeschool students: A nationwide study. Academic Leadership Journal, 8(1). Retrieved from http://www.academicleadership.org/emprical research/Academic Achievement and Demographic Traits of Homeschool Students A Nationwide Study.shtml

Ambassador of Yohannes: "Opposed"

Edit: There were a couple of other research articles with samples from outside the United States, but they all pretty much boil down to the above. Therefore, the Ambassador of Yohannes said, "Still opposed."

[Unthank]

Thanks. I had a suspicion this might be the case, but it's dangerous to rely on intuition.
Anything on mental-health outcomes?

[Attempted Socialism]

I've added definitions in regard to schooling as well as additional statements on the values and beliefs of member nations.

OOC: You have yet to resolve the rest of the issues I mention. Sure, a nation can no longer facetiously claim that homeschooling is done by teachers in a classroom, but the rest still stand. A part of the drafting process is for you to make sure that, win or lose, you can say that what was voted on was the best possible version of the draft.

I may as well submit the proposal and see what happens.

As the quote goes, resolution drafting is not a sprint, it's a marathon. You are trying to rush something in a community where many influential members (Both in terms of gate-keeping and amounts of votes) will vote against any rushed legislation on principle. You are setting yourself up for failure with this attitude.

"... children who are homeschooled tend to fare far better than children who attend public and/or private schools not just in mental health, but also in the educational subjects they have learned."

Not wishing to be negative, but does anyone have stats back this up? Or indeed to disprove it?

(...)
“Researchers have gone beyond simple descriptive data regarding homeschooled students’ test scores. When analysed ...”

“1. There were no statistically significant differences in achievement by whether the student had been home educated all his or her academic life, whether the student was enrolled in a full-service curriculum, whether the parents knew their student’s test scores before participating in the study, and the degree of state regulation of homeschooling (in three different analyses on the subject).”

...

“3. There were statistically significant differences in achievement among homeschooled students when classified by gender, amount of money spent on education, family income, whether either parent had ever been a certified teacher (i.e. students of non-certified parents scored higher), number of children living at home, degree of structure in the homeschooling, amount of time student spends in structured learning, and age at which formal instruction of the student began.”

Ray, B. D. (2010a). Academic achievement and demographic traits of homeschool students: A nationwide study. Academic Leadership Journal, 8(1). Retrieved from http://www.academicleadership.org/emprical research/Academic Achievement and Demographic Traits of Homeschool Students A Nationwide Study.shtml

Ambassador of Yohannes: "Opposed"

Edit: There were a couple of other research articles with samples from outside the United States, but they all pretty much boil down to the above. Therefore, the Ambassador of Yohannes said, "Still opposed."

Huh. I had fully expected home-schooling to be significantly worse than actual school, regardless of most factors. I'll have to try and dig up where I got that notion from and compare.

Edit:
A quick'n'dirty search on a critique of Ray gives this:
Lubienski, C., Puckett, T., & Brewer, T. J. (2013). Does homeschooling “work”? A critique of the empirical claims and agenda of advocacy organizations. Peabody Journal of Education, 88(3), 378-392.
The most damning bit is here:

Although there is little dispute that homeschooling children typically attain higher test scores on average, the question is whether homeschooling causes better achievement (or engagement, or higher education participation, etc.). Outcomes such as increased achievement and engagement may simply be a reflection of the advantages that homeschooling families typically bring to their children—advantages that would make it likely that these students would succeed academically and in life even if they were educated in schools.

For instance, according to research results produced by proponents, homeschooled children “score above national averages on standardized achievement tests” (Ray, 2000, p. 74). However, although advocates suggest that above-average test scores demonstrate the success of homeschooling, what is known is that the most important factors influencing student performance rests on socioeconomic predispositions like family income, parental educational attainment, and so on (Coleman et al., 1966; Sacks, 2007; Wrigley, 2011). Accordingly, although there may be a correlation between the act of homeschooling and higher academic outcomes, researchers, and advocates have yet to demonstrate a causal relationship between these two factors. What is more likely is that those parents who choose to homeschool are more invested in the educational outcomes of their children, can afford supplemental materials, have the financial flexibility and benefits to forgo a secondary income, and have higher educational attainment—factors that we know are true of the homeschooling population (Ray, 2010). These factors are likely the explanation for higher test scores rather than the practice of homeschooling itself. That being said, high-achieving students who are homeschooled might very well still reap the benefits of their socioeconomic advantages if they were enrolled in a public school. It follows that the children of parents who homeschool could fare at least as well in public school as they do in the private realm of the home.

Perhaps the best way to test for any causal relationship of homeschooling on these outcomes would be to conduct randomized trials that naturally account for the influence of confounding factors. Yet, by definition, homeschooling families are those that are motivated to self-select into the “treatment” group, making it virtually impossible to construct a useful comparison group with the same attributes and motivations, thereby undercutting the possibility of identifying homeschooling as the causal mechanism in improving outcomes. Alternatively, in trying to isolate the impact of homeschooling itself, researchers could attempt to control for all the other factors known to influence academic outcomes. However, researchers can more easily control for observable factors in comparing groups and treatments; they face significant obstacles with unobservable factors like motivation, initiative, and commitment to education—extremely important predictors of academic success that are known to be well represented in the homeschooling community. Therefore, any attempts to discern the impact of homeschooling are extremely limited, if not fatally flawed.

That is to say, any positive statistical results of homeschooling is unreliable, because the parents who choose homeschooling are a particular group whose children would likely have achieved the same good results in regular school, and who have resources that are uncommon for the (US) population.

[Yohannes]

---

Huh. I had fully expected home-schooling to be significantly worse than actual school, regardless of most factors. I'll have to try and dig up where I got that notion from and compare.

Edit:
A quick'n'dirty search on a critique of Ray gives this:
Lubienski, C., Puckett, T., & Brewer, T. J. (2013). Does homeschooling “work”? A critique of the empirical claims and agenda of advocacy organizations. Peabody Journal of Education, 88(3), 378-392.
The most damning bit is here:

Although there is little dispute that homeschooling children typically attain higher test scores on average, the question is whether homeschooling causes better achievement (or engagement, or higher education participation, etc.). Outcomes such as increased achievement and engagement may simply be a reflection of the advantages that homeschooling families typically bring to their children—advantages that would make it likely that these students would succeed academically and in life even if they were educated in schools.

For instance, according to research results produced by proponents, homeschooled children “score above national averages on standardized achievement tests” (Ray, 2000, p. 74). However, although advocates suggest that above-average test scores demonstrate the success of homeschooling, what is known is that the most important factors influencing student performance rests on socioeconomic predispositions like family income, parental educational attainment, and so on (Coleman et al., 1966; Sacks, 2007; Wrigley, 2011). Accordingly, although there may be a correlation between the act of homeschooling and higher academic outcomes, researchers, and advocates have yet to demonstrate a causal relationship between these two factors. What is more likely is that those parents who choose to homeschool are more invested in the educational outcomes of their children, can afford supplemental materials, have the financial flexibility and benefits to forgo a secondary income, and have higher educational attainment—factors that we know are true of the homeschooling population (Ray, 2010). These factors are likely the explanation for higher test scores rather than the practice of homeschooling itself. That being said, high-achieving students who are homeschooled might very well still reap the benefits of their socioeconomic advantages if they were enrolled in a public school. It follows that the children of parents who homeschool could fare at least as well in public school as they do in the private realm of the home.

Perhaps the best way to test for any causal relationship of homeschooling on these outcomes would be to conduct randomized trials that naturally account for the influence of confounding factors. Yet, by definition, homeschooling families are those that are motivated to self-select into the “treatment” group, making it virtually impossible to construct a useful comparison group with the same attributes and motivations, thereby undercutting the possibility of identifying homeschooling as the causal mechanism in improving outcomes. Alternatively, in trying to isolate the impact of homeschooling itself, researchers could attempt to control for all the other factors known to influence academic outcomes. However, researchers can more easily control for observable factors in comparing groups and treatments; they face significant obstacles with unobservable factors like motivation, initiative, and commitment to education—extremely important predictors of academic success that are known to be well represented in the homeschooling community. Therefore, any attempts to discern the impact of homeschooling are extremely limited, if not fatally flawed.

That is to say, any positive statistical results of homeschooling is unreliable, because the parents who choose homeschooling are a particular group whose children would likely have achieved the same good results in regular school, and who have resources that are uncommon for the (US) population.

Yes Attempted Socialism, I know. I was trying to soften the blow (check telegram inbox)

@Unthank: You're welcome! I'm editing my report at the moment. I will look it up after

Edit:

Honestly, I am excessively unimpressed by this field of study.

I agree. I think we can both agree that:

Knowing as well that children who are homeschooled tend to fare far better than children who attend public and/or private schools not just in mental health, but also in the educational subjects they have learned;

is patently untrue

[Attempted Socialism]

Thanks. I had a suspicion this might be the case, but it's dangerous to rely on intuition.
Anything on mental-health outcomes?

As per the study I quoted above, data are at best unreliable due to self-selection among homeschooling parents. So as Murphy points out when concluding his review of the literature,

We investigated the educational outcomes associated with homeschooling. We were careful to the point of redundancy in exposing the incipient and immature nature of the research on homeschooling. We reported that for many domains of homeschooling, most especially those in the family of outcomes, the amount of research is quite limited. We also explained that the body of work undertaken to date has left a good deal to be desired in terms of methodological rigor. The overall message is one that at best only allows us to report that research “suggests” certain finings. Existing findings need to be subjected to more scientific study. Given these limitations, the evidence currently at hand leads us to be cautious about too readily accepting the claims of homeschool critics that the academic and social well-being of youngsters is harmed by homeschooling.

Murphy, J. (2014). The social and educational outcomes of homeschooling. Sociological Spectrum, 34(3), 244-272.
(Emphasis mine)

With that in mind, however, Murphy tries to evaluate social and psychological claims with regard to homeschooling.

Keeping in mind the caveat we have introduced and reinforced about the limited body of high quality research studies, almost all of the evidence amassed over the last 30 years leads to the conclusion that homeschoolers do not suffer from poor self-concepts.

Again, we have clear distinctions though. There is nothing to suggest that this is due to homeschooling, rather,

Within the homeschool group, [Taylor] found that socioeconomic status matters. Specifically, higher socioeconomic status was significantly related to higher self-concept. He also discovered that self-concept decreases for homeschoolers as they increase in age and by grade.

concluding,

A moving-forward hypothesis then seems plausible. For a number of reasons, home-based education appears at least as capable of nurturing self-concept as conventional schools. It is distinctly possible that homeschoolers perform even better in this area than their peers do in traditional schools.

Now, I don't know what likelihood can be assigned to "distinctly possible", but with this many caveats it's a poor bet at best.

Like Ray, whom Yohannes quoted, this review also concludes that studies of academic achievement is inconclusive, though Murphy goes a bit further in a general critique of the studies:

For all of the reasons discussed herein, all of the current studies on homeschooling must be viewed as non-definitive. All of the work in this domain falls considerably short of the standards of scientific investigation. Experimental designs have never been employed. Quasi-experimental designs are conspicuous by their absence. Until researchers employ more rigorous research designs that control for selection bias, claims about academic effects of homeschooling simply cannot be evaluated. Fourth, we want to revisit our cardinal caveat: there are a number of valid reasons why it is inappropriate to privilege academic achievement in the algorithm we craft to assess the impact of homeschooling.

From a very quick search, I can't find any good later studies of psychological effects, so I would wager this is still inconclusive (Though maybe I didn't look hard enough). One article caught my eyes about cultural capital, but when I read the methodology it turns out to be exactly as fatally flawed as other statistical studies, relying on self-selecting, self-reporting parents and shitty controls.
Hamlin, D. (2019). Do Homeschooled Students Lack Opportunities to Acquire Cultural Capital? Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey of American Households. Peabody Journal of Education, 94(3), 312-327.


Honestly, I am excessively unimpressed by this field of study.

[Aclion]

This proposal barely provides freedom to homeschool. It falls way short of providing Freedom of Education.

Promotion of Basic Education, Res 80 only states that all citizens have a right to basic education. It does not specify where that education come from, be it government schools, private schools, internet, homeschooled, or meditation with the Great Auk.
So, why do we need something which only states “You can do it like this one specific way!”. In my eyes, this appears to be pointless duplication.

Because promotion of basic education only states that all citizens have a right to a basic education. It still allows members to meet those requirements whichever way they see fit. They could put every child in state run boarding schools until adulthood if they saw fit. Citizen agency in the manner of their education is not provided under Promotion of Basic Education. It does not even appear to be duplication.

Okay. How is my draft doing so far?

Quite frankly? Terribly. You have some errors of basic drafting, and some issues with policy.

First, the clear errors.
You haven't defined homeschooling or schooling in general, meaning there's no limit as to what can be considered homeschooling (Primary school? Secondary school? Tertiary education?). A nation seeking to be non-compliantly compliant could define homeschooling as schooling that takes place by educated teachers in a school building.

Could they? Would that definition qualify as good faith compliance?

Huh. I had fully expected home-schooling to be significantly worse than actual school, regardless of most factors. I'll have to try and dig up where I got that notion from and compare.

It likely would if you picked students at random and homeschooled them. Have to remember that people home-school because they are unhappy with the actual school. so there's some self selection bias going on. Shit schools are far more likely to have a lot of students homeschooled.

[Republica JIM]

I think it's a good idea but it need some kind of regulations.For example, have to have some control that the kid is learning and improving his knowledge in science, maths, history, etc.

[Attempted Socialism]

This proposal barely provides freedom to homeschool. It falls way short of providing Freedom of Education.

Promotion of Basic Education, Res 80 only states that all citizens have a right to basic education. It does not specify where that education come from, be it government schools, private schools, internet, homeschooled, or meditation with the Great Auk.
So, why do we need something which only states “You can do it like this one specific way!”. In my eyes, this appears to be pointless duplication.

Because promotion of basic education only states that all citizens have a right to a basic education. It still allows members to meet those requirements whichever way they see fit. They could put every child in state run boarding schools until adulthood if they saw fit. Citizen agency in the manner of their education is not provided under Promotion of Basic Education. It does not even appear to be duplication.

Quite frankly? Terribly. You have some errors of basic drafting, and some issues with policy.

First, the clear errors.
You haven't defined homeschooling or schooling in general, meaning there's no limit as to what can be considered homeschooling (Primary school? Secondary school? Tertiary education?). A nation seeking to be non-compliantly compliant could define homeschooling as schooling that takes place by educated teachers in a school building.

Could they? Would that definition qualify as good faith compliance?

I think it would be poor faith compliance, but still not quite as bad as some justifications I've seen for "creative" compliance. However in retrospect I think a better case for "creative" compliance would be to define the first mandates' "best quality of education" as excluding homeschooling, which then makes "freedom of education" redundant (It becomes the "freedom" to pick one option from a list of public or private school). Regardless, the lack of definitions at the time I posted that post enabled this questionable behaviour.

Huh. I had fully expected home-schooling to be significantly worse than actual school, regardless of most factors. I'll have to try and dig up where I got that notion from and compare.

It likely would if you picked students at random and homeschooled them. Have to remember that people home-school because they are unhappy with the actual school. so there's some self selection bias going on. Shit schools are far more likely to have a lot of students homeschooled.

I haven't had an experiment before an ethics board yet, but I think I know why these kind of data do not exist. I agree with the thought experiment though; it likely would.

[Araraukar]

1. Public schools as schools operated and maintained by the government of a nation;

OOC: I've never heard of a school, public or otherwise, that was "operated and maintained" by the government. Usually schools are operated (that's a very weird word to use of a school, btw) by teachers and maintained by maintenance staff, and financed by municipality/county/province/state, possibly all of the above. Also, do you understand that "government", "state" and "nation" all mean different things? Some overlap, yes, but they're not synonymous.

2. Private schools as schools operated and maintained by teachers and private owners;

Again, maintenance staff does the maintaining. And you're still leaving out the financing.

3. Homeschooling as the home-based education of a child led by the parent(s) or legal guardian(s);

...so a private tutor hired to teach a homeschooled student means that such a situation isn't addressed by this proposal at all?

1. All members of the World Assembly provide parents and legal guardians with freedom of education in the pursuit of the best quality of education;

That's fine. The students still have to go to school. Their parents and legal guardians don't.

2. All members of the World Assembly allow homeschooling as an alternative to public and private schools;

As defined, actual public schools are not caught by the proposal at all, so students still have to go to public schools.

3. All members of the World Assembly not only implement provisions to ensure that the homeschooling of children follows the necessary curriculum, but also implement government oversight in regards to the homeschooling of children.

You know what is the easy way to ensure all kids follow the necessary curriculum? Making them attend school!

Also, the preamble has some issues with wording and grammar.

[Kyundao]

I've made some changes, but the overall goal is and will remain the same.