Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

 We hope everyone had a good Christmas.

And we wish you the best in the New Year!

Arizona gives parents choice in where their chidlren go to school

 This is good news.

https://redstate.com/carcand/2022/06/28/arizona-secures-the-biggest-school-choice-victory-in-u-s-history-n585353

Happy New Years!

 I hope everyone had a good Christmas and best wishes for the new year.

Let Parents Choose

 I like John Stossel's column on school choice.

More data on how homeschooling is growing

 Number of students being homeschooled in Colorado more than doubles starts with:

DENVER (KDVR) — New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the number of families opting to homeschool their children is on the rise.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of households homeschooling reached 11% by September 2020. Six months prior, only 5.4% of families were registered for homeschooling.

In our state, the latest data from the Colorado Department of Education shows the number of students homeschooling more than doubled last year to 15,773. In 2019, only 7,880 students were being homeschooled.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Percentage of children being homeschooled has doubled through Covid!

Just The News reports:

The percentage of children being homeschooled in the U.S. has nearly doubled since the start of the COVID-19, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report. 

The number of students increased from 5.6% in March 2020, to 11% in Sept. 2020, according to the most recent bureau report on the issue, released in March. 

Prior to the pandemic, roughly 3.3% of U.S. households homeschooled children. 

Black households saw the largest increase. Their homeschooling rate rose from 3.3% in the spring of 2020 to 16.1% in the fall according to the report.

This is great news!!!

Students do better when parents have more choices

 In Free to choose -- and learn, Joanne Jacobs reports on a study which found that:

"The more a state provides parents with the freedom to choose their child’s school the better the state’s students score on the National Assessment of Education Outcomes (NAEP)," writes Patrick Wolf on Project Forever Free.

Hat tip: Instapundit

How big will the parent revolt be against teacher unions?

 It will be interesting to see where the parent backlash against the teacher unions goes.

Parents are pushing harder to have their children taught while teachers claim special privileges.

It is not clear to me why teachers think it is OK for hospital and grocery store workers to go to work, but some how schools are a death trap.

David Catron's column The Coming Parent Revolt Over School Reopening reviews several issues on opening of public schools and concludes with:

The parents are experiencing this callous attitude first hand. As Liesl Hickey reports in USA Today, some are preparing to sue teachers unions in Arizona, California, Illinois, and Virginia. If teachers don’t go back to work, there will be many more such lawsuits. If that fails, it’s time to start firing teachers. In the end, the inflexibility of the teachers unions is a function of its individual members. There is no significant risk associated with in-person instruction. The teachers know it, and the science proves it. Most importantly, the parents know it. If teachers remain intransigent and the Democrats acquiesce in their obstinance, parents will certainly revolt at the ballot box.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Teaching your children to pass the Marshmallow test

 I like John Stossel's video on Parenting: Delayed Gratification:

If you haven't heard of the Marshmallow test, we wrote about it years ago, and a few more times.

More evidence that higher education is suffering

Colleges Have Shed 550,000 Employees Since The Pandemic Began has a nice chart showing a huge drop.  

This line is fascinating:  Colleges Have Shed 10% Of Their Employees Since The Pandemic Began

Hat tip: Instapundit

We wish you a Merry Christmas

 We wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Around 9% of children are now being homeschooled!

Reason's column on Public Schools Are Losing Their Captive Audience of Children reports that:

Homeschooling, in particular, is booming. Once regarded as a fringe choice for hippies and religious families, various approaches to DIY education pushed into the mainstream in recent decades and reached critical mass this year. An estimated 3.3 percent of children were homeschooled in 2016, up from 1.7 percent in 1999, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That share roughly tripled this year to nine percent, in an Education Week survey. Gallup agrees, finding that 10 percent of children are now being homeschooled.

I never guessed that we'd experience a 3X jump in just a couple years.

Hat tip: Instapundit

A fun way to take care of litter

This is pretty clever:

Happy Thanksgiving

 I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving.

I felt a disturbance in the force - Colleges Have Shed 10% Of Their Employees Since The Pandemic Began

This is a pretty big shift in higher education.

Colleges Have Shed 10% Of Their Employees Since The Pandemic Began links to: Chronicle of Higher Education, Colleges Have Shed a Tenth of Their Employees Since the Pandemic Began which reports:

September, the traditional start of the fall semester, saw the continuation of historic job losses at America’s colleges just as they sought some return to normalcy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Preliminary estimates suggest that a net 152,000 fewer workers were employed by America’s private (nonprofit and for-profit) and state-controlled institutions of higher education in September, compared with August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which calculates industry-specific employee figures. The net number of workers who left the industry from February to September now sits at around 484,000.

It took ten months to lose 10% of the employees.  To put this in perspective, it took about 11 years for the same number of employees to be hired.

It will be interesting to see how the next couple years ago.  I think there is a decent chance higher education could lose another 10%, especially since people are starting to look for new ways to get an education.

Hat tip: Instapundit. 

Freshmen Enrollment Is Down 16% This Fall

Freshmen Enrollment Is Down 16% This Fall links to a post at the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center which reports:

Enrollment picture worsens, with more colleges reporting data. Roughly one month into the fall semester, undergraduate enrollment is running 4.0 percent below last year’s level, and the upward trend for graduate enrollment has slipped to 2.7 percent. Overall postsecondary enrollment is down 3.0 percent as of September 24. Most strikingly, first-time students are by far the biggest decline of any student group from last year (-16.1% nationwide and -22.7% at community colleges).

That is amazing.  

There was a chart with some details, breaking down the decline in enrollment by type of college and age group.  Those ages 21 to 24 entering public four year colleges declined by a whopping 40%.

Hat tip: Instapundit. 

I liked Stossel's report on Private School Success Around the World

 I think the trend to homeschooling and private school will be accelerated by Covid.  

John Stossel did a good report on Private School Success Around the World:

Has homeschooling hit a tipping point?

 Reason argues Homeschooling Hits a Tipping Point.  The article starts with:

With the public school year underway nationwide—or else delayed beyond its normal start by labor actions and fearful policymakers—families getting an eyeful of what classes mean this year aren't impressed by what they see. Even as school resumes, localities across the country report that parents are pulling their kids out to take a crack at one or another approach to home-based education. Nationally, the percentage of children being homeschooled may double, to 10 percent, from the figure reported in 2019.

"As COVID-19 continues to disrupt schools in the U.S., parents of school-age children are significantly less satisfied than they were a year ago with the education their oldest child is receiving," Gallup recently reported of its survey results. "While parents' satisfaction with their child's education has fallen, there has been a five-point uptick (to 10%) in the percentage of parents who say their child will be home-schooled this year."

Aware that many schools are teaching children remotely, Gallup was careful to specify that its homeschooling question referred to children not enrolled in formal school. So the survey seems to reveal a real increase in the ranks of families taking on responsibility for the education of their own children.

It is really exciting that the number of homeschoolers is around 10%!!!

Hat tip: Instapundit

Huge spike of new homeschoolers in Texas

 This is exciting: Parents Withdrawing Students From Texas Public Schools To Home-school Increases 400 Percent.  The article starts with:

The Texas Home School Coalition (THSC), which processes requests for families pulling their children out of public schools, reported a 400 percent increase in withdrawals for August leading into the 2020-2021 school year, compared to August of 2019.

The August numbers follow a record-setting month in July where their online process saw a 1,500 percent jump from July last year.

This could be the start of a new era in homeschooling!

Hat tip: Instapundit.

NHERI - article: Big Growth in Homeschooling Indicated This “School Year”

 The National Home Education Research Institute just published an article on Big Growth in Homeschooling Indicated This “School Year”.

Here is the summary:

The nationwide homeschool population has been growing at an estimated 2% to 8% per annum over the past several years (Ray, 2020). However, it appears that state governors’ restrictive lockdowns in response to a perceived health crisis, institutional schools’ responses, and parents’ and children’s experiences with crisis institutional schooling at home during the spring of 2020 will drive an accelerated and notable growth in homeschooling this coming school year. I have been telling the media that my conservative estimate is that there will be a 10% growth in the absolute number of homeschool students during 2020-2021 school year. If 10 percent materializes, that could mean roughly 2.75 million K-12 homeschool students during 2020-2021. Time will tell. 

 Regardless of the change in numbers, many new parents and children will be introduced to and enjoy the many benefits of homeschooling. If they take a reasonable and relaxed approach – and not try to reproduce institutional classroom schooling at home – they will experience a learning environment and educational process that includes more flexibility, parental involvement, customization, social capital, mentoring, value consistency, one-on-one instruction, tutoring, mastery learning, individualization, teachable moments, family time, calmness, safety, academic progress, healthy social interactions, and local community involvement than if they were involved in institutional schooling (Murphy, 2014; Ray, 2017).

It will be interesting to see just how many parents take the plunge.

Dr. Brian Ray (of the NHERI) was recently on MSNBC, with some homeschooling tips in MSNBC and New Homeschool Parents: Don’t Flip Out and Get Stressed. Relax. Covid-19 Tips.

Google may drive the final stake through traditional college education

Google Has a Plan to Disrupt the College Degree explains: Google's new certificate program takes only six months to complete, and will be a fraction of the cost of college.

The article starts with:

"Google recently made a huge announcement that could change the future of work and higher education: It's launching a selection of professional courses that teach candidates how to perform in-demand jobs. 

These courses, which the company is calling Google Career Certificates, teach foundational skills that can help job-seekers immediately find employment. However, instead of taking years to finish like a traditional university degree, these courses are designed to be completed in about six months."

later the article has:

"Google didn't say exactly how much the new courses would cost. But a similar program Google offers on online learning platform Coursera, the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, costs $49 for each month a student is enrolled. (At that price, a six-month course would cost just under $300--less than many university students spend on textbooks in one semester alone.)"

I assume the Google Career Certificates program will be able to scale up without too much trouble.  An important concept in economics is that if other alternatives become available the demand an high priced product will drop, resulting in a push for lower prices.  There are roughly about six million students in American colleges and universities.  If the Google Career Certificates program takes even just 1%, traditional higher education will suffer.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Character

I love this thought:

"Character is doing what is right when nobody is looking."
J.C. Watts

It will be interesting to see how many people are homeschooling this fall

Homeschool requests overload state government website reports:

Wednesday evening, the website for the N.C Department of Administration’s Notice of Intent to Establish a Home School was not available due to volume.

and

The homeschool movement has grown exponentially in the past two decades in North Carolina, now with more homeschool students than private school students.

I was surprised that more are homeschooling than have their children in private schools.

I think many parents over the last couple months have developed confidence in their ability to teach their children, and recognized many of the problems public schools have these days.

Hat tip: Instapundit

How many colleges and universities will survive?

NYU prof: 'Hundreds, if not thousands' of universities will soon be 'walking dead' is a discussion about a point we've talked about several times, that colleges are over priced, and so students will find other ways to get an education.

I did find this thought very sobering:

Approximating that a thousand to two thousand of the country's 4,500 universities could go out of business in the next 5-10 years, Galloway concludes, “what department stores were to retail, tier-two higher tuition universities are about to become to education and that is they are soon going to become the walking dead.”

Hat tip: Instapundit

Think about where you spend your ounce

Several years ago I came across this quote:

"You say the little efforts that I make will do no good; that they never will prevail to tip the hovering scale where justice hangs in the balance. I don't think I ever thought they would. But I am prejudiced beyond debate in favor of my right to choose which side shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight."
- Bonaro Overstreet

I love this quote.  I try to be involved in the political process.  For decades I've written letters to various state and federal officials.  

Recently I made some postcards via VistaPrint.  These were 5.5 by 8 inches.  They had a picture of the Constitution on the front.  On the back I had:

The Constitution of the United States
Ratified in 1788, the Constitution is the supreme law for the United States of America.  To help prevent tyranny the Founding Fathers crafted a form of government with separation of powers.  The Federal level was broken into three branches:  legislative, executive and judicial.  The responsibilities and powers of the federal government were spelled out in this historic document.
The Preamble of the Constitution is:  “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
(Image from: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/downloads)

Previously I had made up a bunch with the Declaration of Independence.  And after these I plan to have an image with the Bill of Rights.

I have sets of postcards where a set will have the address for my Senators, Congressmen or President Trump.  I find it easier to motivate myself to write a couple times a week.  They are sitting there on my bookshelf.  I've already paid the money.  And it is fairly quick to write a short note after reading some news about an issue which I have an opinion.

I encourage you to think about where you spend your ounce, and to look for ways to make it two ounces, or more.  We live in crazy times.  It is good to be involved.