[Vision2020] Why Do Politicians Always Want To "Fix" That Which Is Working?
John Harrell
johnbharrell@yahoo.com
Fri, 17 Jan 2003 23:23:48 -0800 (PST)
I just came across this cool .pdf with six pages of charts and stuff
with much more information than I could ever hope to generate.
Check it out.
http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/comp2001/HomeSchoolAchievement.pdf
Why would politicians want to destroy that which works? Beats me.
Maybe one of them out there could help us all understand why they feel
the need to "help us" so much.
Cheers!
John Harrell
--- John Harrell <johnbharrell@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Why Do Politicians Always Want To "Fix" That Which Is Working?
>
> Take homeschooling as an example. In all studies performed, homeschoolers
> fair much better than their public educated peers. Oh sure, every now and
> then a student in either the public schools, private schools, or homeschools,
> doesn't perform up to his/her potential, but this occurs in all environments.
>
> (I could create quite a list of the failures in the public schools - just
> like with homeschooling. I could also create quite a list of successes in
> the public schools - just like with homeschooling.)
>
> But when something is working, why do the politicians insist on fixing it?
>
> Their regulation always ends up creating a mediocre system, with more
> bureaucracy, and all the associated NEW TAXES that goes into administering
> the new bureacracy. And as always, the new bureacracy will grow and the
> funding required will grow, and the mediocre system gets worse and worse.
>
> In this study, parents responded to a questionnaire requesting background
> and demographic information.
>
> Major findings include:
>
> the achievement test scores of this group of home school students are
> exceptionally high--the median scores were typically in the 70th to 80th
> percentile;
>
> 25% of home school students are enrolled one or more grades above their
> age-level public and private school peers;
>
> on average, home school students in grades 1 to 4 perform one grade level
> above their age-level public/private school peers on achievement tests;
>
> by the time home school students reach grade 8, their median scores are
> almost 4 grade equivalents above their public/private school peers;
>
> the achievement test score gap between home school students and public/
> private school students starts to widen in grade 5;
>
> Students who have been home schooled their entire academic life have higher
> scholastic achievement test scores than students who have also attended
> other educational programs;
>
> this group of home school parents has more formal education than parents
> in the general population;
>
> the median income for home school families is significantly higher than
> that of all families with children in the United States;
>
> and almost all home school students are in married couple families.
>
>
> Table 3.3 shows the median scaled score (DSS score) for home school students
> on the Composite with Computation, Reading Total, Language, Mathematics
> Total with Computation, Social Studies, and Science subtest scores by grade.
> The corresponding percentiles shown in the table are the within grade
> percentile scores for the nation that correspond to the given scaled scores.
> For example, home school students in Grade 3 have a median composite scaled
> score of 207 which corresponds to the 81st percentile nationwide. The median
> home school student in third grade out- performs 81% of the third graders
> nationwide. As an additional comparison, we provide the national median for
> each grade in the last column. By definition this is the 50th percentile of
> students nationwide.
>
>
> Table 3.3
> Median Scaled Scores (corresponding national percentile)
> by Subtest and Grade for Home School Students
>
> Grade Composite Language Soc. Stud. National Median
> N Reading Math Science
> 1 1504 170 (91) 174 (88) 166 (82) 164 (81) 166 (80) 164 (78) 150 (50)
> 2 2153 192 (90) 196 (89) 186 (80) 188 (85) 189 (81) 195 (86) 168 (50)
> 3 2876 207 (81) 210 (83) 195 (62) 204 (78) 205 (76) 214 (83) 185 (50)
> 4 2625 222 (76) 228 (83) 216 (67) 220 (76) 216 (68) 232 (81) 200 (50)
> 5 2564 243 (79) 244 (83) 237 (69) 238 (76) 236 (71) 260 (86) 214 (50)
> 6 2420 261 (81) 258 (82) 256 (73) 254 (76) 265 (81) 273 (84) 227 (50)
> 7 2087 276 (82) 277 (87) 276 (77) 272 (79) 276 (79) 282 (81) 239 (50)
> 8 1801 288 (81) 288 (86) 291 (79) 282 (76) 290 (79) 289 (78) 250 (50)
> 9 1164 292 (77) 294 (82) 297 (77) 281 (68) 297 (76) 292 (73) 260 (50)
> 10 775 310 (84) 314 (89) 318 (84) 294 (72) 318 (83) 310 (79) 268 (50)
> 11 317 310 (78) 312 (84) 322 (83) 296 (68) 318 (79) 314 (77) 275 (50)
> 12 66 326 (86) 328 (92) 332 (85) 300 (66) 334 (84) 331 (82) 280 (50)
>
>
>
> Reference:
> In "The Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of
> Home School Students in 1998"
>
> An independent study by Lawrence M. Rudner, Ph.D., Director of
> the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation
>
> 20,760 student achievement test scores and their family demographics
> make this the largest study of home education to date!
>
> http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n8/
>
>
> Cheers!
> John Harrell
>
>
>
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