One of the biggest arguments for a public school system is that it ensures a homogeneous educational environment for our voters. But there is no test for voting, so even totally stupid people, who flunked third grade over and over again, can still vote. Which means our political system is primarily set up so non-elected groups (the Electoral College and our higher courts) can override the stupidity that emerges from voters. Read more
The NYT app is my favorite thing on my phone. It provides a great summary of the five most important stories of the day. I always know who in the Trump administration lied that day, and one of the five items is always devoted to interesting quantitative research. Read more
The New York Times has a story about Germany’s outdoor preschools. The article cites research I’ve talked about here, like the book Last Child in the Woods. The article also features a Ph.D. dissertation from 2003 by Peter Häfner at Heidelberg University that shows that graduates of German forest kindergartens had a “clear advantage” over the graduates of regular kindergartens, performing better in cognitive and physical ability, as well as in creativity and social development. (I assume he has a book deal by now.) Read more
I’m so frustrated with homeschooling now that my son wants to go to graduate school for science. Now things are serious. Read more
Most of the people I know who can earn enough to support a family and homeschool at the same time were already earning a lot of money before they started homeschooling. So they took a pay cut to work from home and but they’re still making pretty good money. Read more
We can all agree that Mother’s Day is a manufactured day for people to support the chocolate, flower, and jewelry industries. But we can also agree that a mom ignored on Mother’s Day is not a happy mom. Read more
A really difficult thing about homeschooling is that a huge swath of my professional network disappeared once I announced I was homeschooling. I thought it was because they assumed I would be useless to them. Read more