[Vision2020] Why Do Politicians Always Want To "Fix" That Which Is Working?
Tom Hansen
thansen@moscow.com
Sat, 18 Jan 2003 06:37:19 -0800
Gee. A website for the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA. I
wonder if their statements, charts, graphs, and statistics might be slightly
biased.
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
> -----Original Message-----
> From: vision2020-admin@moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-admin@moscow.com]On
> Behalf Of John Harrell
> Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 11:24 PM
> To: John Harrell; vision2020@moscow.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Why Do Politicians Always Want To "Fix" That
> Which Is Working?
>
>
> 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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