What are the laws about educating children?

Question

I am confused as to why someone needs a college degree to be a teacher, but any parent is allowed to teach their children. What do the parents have to do to qualify?

Can you home school in groups, like one mom teaching 6 kids from the block?

Answer 1

Every state has different laws about educating children.

All teachers may have degrees (not sure about this), but all teachers are not certified by the state. In many private schools the only requirement to teach is a college degree. I homeschool my son in the state of Illinois, and I don't have a college degree; however, Illinois is one of the easiest states to homeschool in. There are no parental qualifications for homeschooling in Illinois.

Other states have many rules/laws that homeschooling parents must follow. Please see the links below for homeschooling laws in Illinois vs. homeschooling laws in New York:

http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp?State=IL

http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp?State=NY

It is possible to homeschool in groups depending upon the state laws/regulations. Some parents enroll their children in coop classes for one or more days a week. Often, these classes are taught by other parents who may or may not have a college degree.

My son attended a private Christian home learning center for kindergarten with nine other children. Prior to this, he had attended a private school for 3 to 6 year olds for his kindergarten year. When the school closed due to low enrollment, the former owner who also happened to be his kindergarten teacher offered to teach him and nine other children, ages 3 to 6, in her home. Some would consider this to be a form of homeschooling. In the state of Illinois, home schools are considered to be legal, private schools.

In other states, homeschoolers must use an "umbrella" school in order to homeschool their children. Yet other states require that the parents have a high school diploma, a college degree, teacher certification, etc. If they don't, then they have to teach their children at home via a public school independent study program, a church school etc.

I hope the above is helpful.

Answer 2

Teaching in a group is called a coop.
Yes, that does happen in many area's since many home school parents like to share their time, and talents with each other, as well as develop friendships.

Teaching the children on your block would be called a private school, you can start one as well; many private schools are successfully run without "credentialed teachers".

Why do you need a teaching degree?, good question.

As I understand it this is a requirement set by a group of people, who have decided that to teach in a public school, college, or university, you have to fill the following squares; X, Y and Z, which equals a teaching degree.
Who sets the standards? Check with many colleges, most have different requirements.

Does a teaching degree make you more qualified to teach a specific subject, no.
A teaching degree has very little to do with actually having any experience in the subject matter, but rather focuses on how to "manage" a group of kids in a classroom setting, while providing a preset curriculum dictated by a teachers guide.

Most teachers are far from subject experts.
Any person reading the guide can lead a guided discussion/lesson, or provide the information to another.

Home school parents have the same materials available to them, they just do not on a day to day basis manage a large group of children.

I have asked on numerous occasions, and never have received a satisfactory answer to the question yet, so I'll pose the same question to you;
"If the conventional schools do such a great job, and all who have graduated from there have received such a wonderful education, how come they would assume, or even question our qualification, and if we are not qualified, would that than not indicate that the education we received is not adequate; if that is the case why would we subject our children to the same?

Answer 3

Uh, why would a parent need a degree in order to teach their own children? Next thing you know, you're gonna propose that there ought to be a law against having kids without a college degree. Do you know how ridiculous that question sounds?

And, the laws differ from state to state about group teaching. Frankly, I think we'd all benefit from allowing that more regularly. But most states limit teaching the children of other people unless you are registered with the state as an state-approved authorized teacher.

Answer 4

The reason places require degrees, be it public schools requiring education degrees or private schools requiring some other form of degree, is to ensure a certain minimum level of education for the people who are BEING PAID to educate a whole bunch of children. This doesn't mean that somebody who doesn't have a college degree can't be a good, or even a GREAT teacher. It's all about a person's drive and willingness to learn, their ability to connect with their student. A devoted parent is going to connect to their child more than a teacher in school will. There are also plenty of high school-aged tutors out there who are GREAT teachers to those they tutor.

Parent qualification for homeschooling will depend on where you live. Where I live, that you are a parent with custody is enough. It doesn't even matter if you have a high school diploma or not. Why? Because education isn't limited to what we learn in school. Thomas Edison didn't have a high school diploma; after being taught the basics, he was unschooled. Afaik, he never went to college. Would you have trusted him to give science lessons to school kids? I sure would have.

As for homeschooling in groups, whether you could homeschool 6 kids from the block full-time or not would depend on the laws where you live. My guess would be that many places would require you to be a private school. (Of course, in at least a few states, you're already considered a private school if you are homeschooling, so it really would be fine.) If you function like a school, with set hours and all that, then it really would be a private school and you'd have to follow the laws concerning private schools. There are a lot of people that set up what are called co-ops where they meet as a group once a week for lessons. This still fits in with homeschooling.

Answer 5

Bwahahahah...hahaha! oh wait...hahahaha!

I mean, honestly. The only reason teachers need to go to school to teach is so they can learn how to teach the MASSES. The classes are on classroom management, how to give tests, what certain disabilities are...I think i took ONE class on HOW to teach. The rest is all beauracracy. Teaching one or two children is completely different, especially when you know that child intimately, which no public school teacher COULD do until a month or two into term IF they had time to spend one-on-one, which they don't if they have 30 kids in there.

Most private schools don't even require teaching degrees, only a degree in the subject that they are teaching. That's because they recognize the truth, that a passion and love for a subject is a much better motivator than a degree for teaching, much less certification. The same is true for colleges and universities. But for some odd reason, if a child is under 18 and in public schools, the only requirement is a teaching certificate? NCLB has changed that some, that's true, by mandating 'highly qualified teachers', but in the real world, the same teachers are still teaching science and math and history without the background IN THAT FIELD...just a certificate saying they know how to teach.

As for what parents do to qualify, it depends on where you live. However, studies through NHERI show that even parents without a high school diploma have children who score on standardized tests as high or higher than public school students. Why? Because they have a passion for their kids. Parents would run into a burning building to save their child, why would they not do all they could to ensure that they were fulfilling their potential? They learn alongside their child, and both are fulfilled.

As for homeschooling in groups, it depends again on where you live. but in most states the onus is simply to make sure the child is proficient, so if they wanted to learn in groups, it wouldn't be illegal. Make sense?

Answer 6

This is a good question but most likely, even with reasonable answers, it will not change the minds of people who think that a college degree creates a good teacher.
The only way I can answer is by giving you our story.
I am a product of public school. I was a good student. I basically have a compliant personality. Most elementary classes were taught by the teacher explaining the material, classwork worksheets, homework reading and written work, and review of material. My high school classes were taught in similar style,except with more homework. The teachers needed to know the curriculum. It helped if they were enthusiastic and caring.
I homeschool my 15 year old son. He and I are very different in personalities. He was in public school until the 8th grade. He gave up on learning in early elementary. The teachers gave up on him learning in mid-elementary. He was tested for LD and did not qualify for extra help. He had a couple of teachers who cared enough to offer afterschool tutoring. He did well in small groups or personal individual attention. He learned very little in classroom situations.
We worked each night for 2-3 hours on homework. The school suggested Sylvan. It was cheaper and easier for us to simply teach him in the style that he learns best without wasting the classroom time, both for him and the teachers.
I have a high school education. I have been able to teach my son both in tutoring while he was in school and by being his 'teacher' now that he is home. It is a more efficient way of teaching for him.
Many public schools are learning that there are alternate ways of teaching. It is very difficult for any teacher, no matter how gifted and educated, to give each student the attention that they require.
Homeschooling is the answer for some of those students. Teaching, tutoring, guiding, correcting, and parenting can be done in the home with a parent who can read and has a desire to learn.
By the way, my son's social life has improved because he now has more time. His afternoons and evenings are not spent learning what should have been learned in class.
He has learned in the last 2 years. Not only does it show in his school work and everyday life, the standardized testing required by our state shows his improvement by 3 grade levels.

Answer 7

It's a parents rights issue. In most areas you are not allowed to teach someone elses child full time unless you meet the qualifications as a teacher.

You can do it parttime as a tutor.

Goverments sets up rules and regulations for the "good of the people" to prevent abuse and misuse of the people.

They regulate WORDS

You can't use the words Psychologist, social worker, counsellor, guidence, etc. unless you are licensed by the state meeting certain critera.

There is, however, no law that says you can't put up a sign and charge a fee to be a

Guide Throught Life's Difficulties

You can then charge a fee as basically do the work of a psychologists or social worker SO LONG AS YOU NEVER USE THE REGULATED TERMS

You can hang out a sign that says

Music Instructor

You can hang out a sign in MOST AREAS saying

TUTOR

But you can't hang out a sign saying

SCHOOL

or

TEACHER

with meeting state rules

Answer 8

You might enjoy a bit of history on this one. Actually, the law requiring public school teachers to have certification is very recent. I remember when the bill was moving through the legislature. It was only about 10 to 15 years ago. There was great concern among homeschoolers at the time because the wording of the original bill was vague enough that it could be interpreted to apply to homeschoolers and private schools. The impact to homeschooling would have been devastating because there wouldn't be just one certification to deal with but an impossible series needed. Elementary education certification would have had to be followed up with certification for every subject for the high school level. Studies had already borne evidence that homeschoolers with certified teachers as parents scored statistically the same as those without it but with a bachelor's degree (in actual numbers, the kids of the certified teachers actually scored a bit lower). Homeschoolers were ready to engage in battle with that bill's wording to be sure it did not apply to homeschoolers. For the first time in history, the federal switchboard was actually shut down because of the flood of calls from homeschoolers, teachers, public schools, and private schools. This was not a popular bill! If the original vague wording had not been cleaned up, it never would have passed.

Have public schools improved in the last ten to fifteen years because of certification laws? I don't thinks so. Statistics still bear witness that, among homeschoolers, certification of teaching parents doesn't give a statistical advantage to homeschool students.

What do parents have to do to qualify? Take enough interest in their kids to feel committed to giving it a try for a while to see if they see improvement for their children. The vast majority of these families do exceptionally well.

Can you homeschool in groups? Certainly! Some states will have laws that stipulate what percentage of a student's education can be done by non-custodial instructors. My own state has only recently lifted a law like this. Now homeschoolers here are free to 'hire out' even 100% of their student's education if they so chose. Many homeschoolers hire tutors for subjects they feel uncomfortable with, sign their children up for college classes, enroll in an online private school with a homeschooler option, co-op locally, or even co-op nationally via online course co-ops using online classrooms. The great thing about it is feeling like you have the final say who will be the child's instructor. You don't HAVE TO accept the public school teacher that your child is assigned to who may have passed a certification test but obviously isn't wired to teach in a real classroom. Free market rules apply!

Answer 9

http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/commerce.web/publication_details.aspx?pubID=4932

The link above is to a homeschool study done in Canada and the United States that was updated this year. One of the findings was that kids who were homeschooled by parents without a highschool degree did much better than their peers who went to public school and had parents without high school degrees. It is an advantage to have parents with college degrees, those kids scored higher, but homeschooling seems to mitigate some of the disadvantage of being born into a low socio-economic background and poorly educated parents.

College education for teachers, qualifies them to deal with the logistics of handling a large classroom of kids.

Answer 10

Your question would be a legitimate one if teaching certification were not a total joke in this country. According to the report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce released earlier this year, the average SAT score of a new K-12 teacher in this country places him/her in the BOTTOM THIRD of college graduates. The National Survey of America's College Students found that education majors had the LOWEST average prose and quantitative literacy scores of all majors studied. When Massachusetts started requiring prospective teachers to first pass an exam testing 10th grade English and Math, an astonishing 59% flunked!

Why aren't you outraged about the abysmal quality of teachers in government-run schools (who educate 85% of the children in this country compared with the 5% being homeschooled)?

For what it's worth, studies of home educated students found that there is NO significant difference in standardized test scores of children taught by a parent with a teacher's credential compared with those taught by a parent with a bachelor's degree in another subject.