TITLE: Homeschooling Has Increased by Over 50 Percent Since 2018
https://reason.com/2023/11/01/homeschooling-has-increased-by-over-50-percent-since-2018/
EXCERPT: Nationally, since the 2017-2018 school year, homeschooling has increased by 51 percent—while private schooling has only increased by 7 percent. Based on the available data, the [Washington] Post estimated that there are now between 1.9 and 2.7 million homeschooled children in the United States.
But many states and districts saw truly staggering growth in their homeschooling population. Notably, many of these places had schools that were closed the longest during the pandemic. D.C. and New York both saw homeschooling increases of more than 100 percent, while California saw an increase of 78 percent. In Brooklyn, homeschooling in the borough's school districts saw increases that ranged from 197 percent to a whopping 492 percent (though the total number of homeschoolers remained under 1,000 students per district.)
This growth has helped transform homeschooling into a racially and ideologically diverse movement. According to data analyzed by the Post, homeschooled students were three-quarters white in 2019. By summer 2023, less than half were white. Homeschool parents are now roughly evenly split between conservatives and liberals, while those homeschooling before the pandemic overwhelmingly identified as Republicans.
Such a rapid growth in the number and diversity of homeschooling families indicates that more and more American parents are dissatisfied with their children's education in traditional public schools—and deciding to take matters into their own hands.
"Families who choose homeschooling less for ideological reasons and more for matters of circumstance and what meets the needs of their child in the present moment will help change our conception of what it means to be a home-schooler," Robert Kunzman, a professor at Indiana University's School of Education and director of the International Center for Home Education Research, told the Post.
However, not everyone is so excited about these changes.
"Policymakers should think, 'Wow — this is a lot of kids,'" Elizabeth Bartholet, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School told the Post "We should worry about whether they're learning anything."
"I can tell you right now: Many of these parents don't have any understanding of education," added one school board member. "The price will be very big to us, and to society. But that won't show up for a few years."
While it's reasonable to want every child to get a solid education, fear of under-regulation in homeschooling makes a key faulty assumption: that children are somehow guaranteed to receive an education if they attend local public schools, or that low-performing public schools are held accountable for failing their pupils.
While allowing homeschooling carries a risk that some parents will educationally neglect their children, what often goes under-considered is that a shockingly high percentage of public schools are just as neglectful as subpar homeschool parents.
TITLE: At 15, he is defending his home – and struggling to stay in school
https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/missing-students-housing/index.html
EXCERPT: The majority of students the government considers “homeless” do indeed have a place to sleep, but it's precarious and often shared with roommates, according to federal statistics. In Los Angeles, more than 13,000 students are homeless and 2,000 of them stay in shelters, the city's superintendent said last spring.
López says she was assaulted while the family stayed in a shelter after getting evicted three years ago. That’s why she’s determined to find her own housing.
The scarcity of affordable housing in Los Angeles has given anyone with an apartment lease in their name the power to take advantage of people like López who don’t have the saved cash, references or savvy to compete for their own place and are desperate to avoid shelters.
It was Deneffy’s idea for him to stay in the apartment for weeks on end and physically block Del Castillo from throwing them out. She had once locked out López and Jennifer, his little sister, while he was at school.
“It’s scary that she could do that again and we couldn’t do anything about it,” he said. “I don’t feel safe leaving.”
Without a father at home, Deneffy, in some ways, has filled the gap. He watches Jennifer when his mom has to work. He wants a job to help pay rent. He often thinks about López dying and making him responsible for his little sister.
Jennifer already has a name for her teenage brother. She calls him Papá.
Studies show students who take on parental roles have struggled to stay in school. Family responsibilities or financial obligations have caused 35% of student dropouts since the pandemic, according to a January report from Communities in Schools and MDRC, a think tank focused on poverty and education.
Deneffy began shouldering adult responsibilities at the same time he lost control over his home and school life. He became homeless in September 2020, just a week after his mom gave birth to Jennifer.
School was online that fall and for most of the year. Instead of engaging and supporting him at that difficult moment, school was alienating. When he logged into seventh grade Zoom classes from the chaotic shelter, “I felt like they were judging me,” he says of his classmates. “I couldn’t focus.”
Seventh grade was a total loss academically and socially. Not wanting to explain his living situation, he stopped talking to friends, classmates and teachers.
That all caught up to him in ninth grade as classes became harder. He never raised his hand. He didn’t have home internet, making it difficult to complete homework. When the school gave tests, he guessed at the answers.
His school offered homework help after his grades crashed. It was assistance he could use.
But what he really wanted was a therapist.
Deneffy says he asked his school’s “psychiatric social worker” sometime in the fall of ninth grade if she could get him professional mental health counseling. But the demand for such help has skyrocketed. A full 42% of high school students surveyed in 2021 by the Centers for Disease Control said they felt persistently sad or hopeless, compared with 28% a decade before.
Instead of getting him his own therapist, the social worker pulled him out of study hall when she could — about once a month — for “check-ins,” according to Deneffy. District and school representatives said they supported homeless students, but would not comment on Deneffy's situation.
TITLE: EXCLUSIVE: Meet the women running illegal, underground Zoom schools for Afghan girls
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/afghanistan-schools-women-google-meet/
EXCERPT: Fatima described the moment the U.S. occupation ended, saying “We all thought we had reached the end of our lives … We did not believe the situation we were in. We thought it was a bad dream that would end after waking up.”
The shift to Taliban control was stark and brutal. Given the length of the U.S. occupation, many young women lived in a country where they could finish grade school, go to university, and enter the workforce.
However, under Taliban’s harsh interpretations of Islamic Law, they immediately lost what they had enjoyed for two decades. As the Taliban tightened its grasp, cracking down on the education of young women and girls, parents and teachers were desperate to find a way to help students.
Underground schools began to emerge. Fatima told the Daily Dot that some were taught in secret locations around Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and elsewhere, while others were held virtually to widen the access to classes.
Fatima first considered starting a virtual classroom in August 2022. Two months later, she taught her first on Google Meet.
“I started to create online classes. But this teaching through programs required more internet, which made most of the students, and sometimes myself, face economic challenges,” she said.
The challenges surrounding online teaching in Afghanistan are plenty. Internet for Fatima’s home costs 2,000 Afghanis, the equivalent of $26 each month, a cost the teacher’s family cannot always afford.
“Our teaching day depends on whether the internet is good or not. Sometimes, the weakening of the internet makes the teacher and the learner very tired,” said Fatima. “The internet is much weaker during the day than at night. And the electricity shortage is a big challenge for us.”
A lack of funds and electricity has led to Fatima’s internet access being cut off entirely for stretches.
The less time Fatima spends online, the harder it is for her to hold classes and stay on top of student’s homework.
“But the next day, I will try my best to make up for the day I canceled,” she said.
Relying on the internet in Afghanistan can make it difficult, but the alternative—a generation of girls losing access to education—keeps her steadfast in her efforts.
The news about Fatima’s classes stretched throughout Afghanistan. Her virtual classes made it possible for girls in even the farthest-reaching parts of the country to have access to an education.
Over the next few months, the 21-year-old taught classes six days a week for almost twelve hours. The topics ranged from English language to basic math for students aged 14-26.
“In the beginning, it was very difficult for me to teach older women because it was a new experience, and I even had a tremor in my voice. Even in the beginning, I tried not to let them know that I am younger than them because I was afraid they would consider the lessons worthless,” said Fatima. “But after a month, they welcomed my teaching so much that even I did not expect such a welcome. This is the best memory of online teaching for me.”
Fatima has told few people about her work, only divulging her illegal education system to her family and closest friends. The students who found her classes did so by word of mouth, as news of Fatima’s teachings stretched throughout Afghanistan.