21 thoughts on “Hybrid schools”

1. “Students attend school in a classroom setting for two days per week and then are homeschooled for the rest of the week.”

   Two possible objections:

   1) what percentage of families can still actually afford to homeschool their children three days per week? Assuming that a flexible work arrangement could be found, are families willing to forego the 60% of lost income?

   2) our daughter learns best from independent parties vs. her nagging parents. E.g. she shoots a rifle much better after private instruction rather than learning the ropes from her silly father.

   • The point is choice. It would be silly to think that the model that works best for your daughter and your family is the same as the model that would be best for everyone. My kid might have different needs and abilities and thrive under a different system.

     • “The point is choice.”

       Actually, the point has nothing to do with choice and has everything to do with dollars. You are welcome to homeschool your children or send them to private schools whenever you wish. But, most people want access to their property tax dollars to fund those choices.

       For most young families, 60% homeschooling is not going to be an option when they have student and mortgage debt to service and assuming that they can find flexible work arrangements to accommodate it. That’s all I’m saying here…the hybrid model applies to a very small sliver of the population.

       Somewhat related, we need to encourage young families in the higher SES cohorts to reproduce at or above replacement rates. This hybrid model does nothing to address this for the reasons I’ve stated; it’s basically irrelevant to most people.

       • The best way to get people to have more kids is to make the SAHM option more viable.

         There is already a pretty big tax (actual taxes, commute taxes, lack of flexibility taxes, and cost of living taxes) involved in getting that second income. If you just paid SAHM what their school system was paying for their kids, that would probably tip the balance in many places. In the high cost Northeast for instance a two kid family would get $40k/year, even more in the big cities.

         In addition, homeschooling allows you to choose the values your kids are taught. Public school does not, and it’s past time in claiming that it’s non-ideological.

         It seems to me that an extra $100k in income, which is more then a lot of wives bring in, doesn’t even amount to that much after all those marginal costs. Would not take much to switch peoples minds.

         • “The best way to get people to have more kids is to make the SAHM option more viable.”

           Probably not going to happen without huge tax incentives and I’m not even sure that the SAHM approach is the right one vs. outsourcing childcare duties.

           In the major metro areas, the dual income families (particularly the DINKs) are always going to bid up real estate prices relative to what the single income families can afford. There is no getting around this and many highly educated females don’t want to be confined to the drudgery of 24/7 daycare and homeschooling. The more traditional families are going to have to search for the lower cost areas to realize their goals.

           I fully support attaching the tax dollars to the kids as opposed to the teacher’s unions, but the hybrid approach isn’t likely to move the ball in the right direction.

         • Maybe there is a fundamental difference in seeing childcare are 24/7 drudgery that will just be at the bottom of the difference here. My working assumption is people don’t work by choice, but necessity.

           I’d say that marginal tax rate on a second professional income is like 50% (federal 28%, local 7%, 15% SS & medicare). Then there is the lost benefits in some cases: stimulus checks, Obamacare subsidies, financial aid for college, etc. Then there is the cost of an extra car and commute. Costs of not having time to economize the household. Real estate cost of having to live closer to work. Real estate costs of needing a good school district.

           There ain’t much left. Slap on any more marginal taxes/benefit losses and its a fools errand.

         • asdf,

           1) A HQ pre-k/daycare is roughly $12k/yr. in the suburbs.

           2) Roughly 50% of that can be funded with pre-tax dollars via Section 125 plans and other refundable tax credits. So, all of your talk of marginal tax rates is only 50% correct as it relates to this topic.

           3) all of the moms that I have worked with or managed have always expressed a very strong preference for working over homeschooling. Working provides certain “self-actualization” benefits that cannot be replicated at home. In addition, working provides much more balance – people need breaks from the kiddos.

           4) revealed preference says a lot in this regard. I’m sure homeschooling is perfect for some moms, but is less ideal for others.

           5) as such, the break even point for outsourcing vs. insourcing child care is much lower than you imply. If she wants, she should chase that second income.

         • You can put $5,000 into a dependent care FSA (at least at my employer) and that is it. So yeah you can save a couple grand in taxes that way, but not much.
           —
           Working provides certain “self-actualization” benefits that cannot be replicated at home.
           —
           Maybe this is just a difference, I can’t imagine most jobs providing self actualization. Are TPS reports really making people happier than playing with their kids?

           In any event, the revealed preference of women seems to be that when the man earns enough to satisfice their lifestyle, they want to stay home. I can’t post a link to the chart but here is the SAHM rate for women with a degree:

           Dad’s Income:
           Under 75k: 25%
           75k-150k: 30%
           150k-250k: 40%
           250k+: 52%

           So it’s clearly about the money. You give them more money, fewer will desire “self actualization”.

         • Unless parenting IS the self-actualization.

         • asdf,

           Section 125 = dependent care FSA = cafeteria plans. We are talking about the same thing and yes, they have reasonably large tax advantages, which undermines your high marginal tax rate argument.

           The stay-at-home moms in the $250k cohort are mostly trophy wives (aka the marketing majors). Smart enough to get a college degree, but mostly valued for their looks vs. intellect. Trust me, have lived in many of these communities in the SF Bay Area.

           Why sacrifice the high IQ females to the relatively simple task of homeschooling when they can create so much more economic value doing other stuff (if they so choose)?

         • Dependent care FSA expenses are capped way below your second marginal income. So, once you’re exhausted all of our deductions, the marginal tax rates apply.

           I think you and I may be far apart on our perception of the value of most modern work. I don’t think most people find it self actualizing and I think a lot of it is red queen zero sum race.

           My perception is the second income is something we do because if we don’t someone else will outbid them for zero sum goods like housing, and that it’s a prisoners dilemma where we are stuck in defect/defect.

         • asdf,

           You’re right – if I had been stuck at home for the last 7 years working on pharma formularies, I’d probably feel miserable and unsatisfied too. There is something to be said for an in-person job experience doing something that you enjoy.

       • “For most young families, 60% homeschooling is not going to be an option when they have student and mortgage debt to service and assuming that they can find flexible work arrangements to accommodate it.”

         Isn’t that still choice? An implicit choice to not be able to home-school because of a prior choice, e.g., to buy a large home in an expensive area with good public schools?

     • Choice is not the point.

       Public schools are paid for publicly. The point is to maximize the utility to the community, not to any particular child. The community working out how to get it done, and the children working through it together is a a big part of the point. Those things are more valuable to our common civics than whether we create individual solutions that get somewhat better math grades.

       Figuring out ways to deconstruct and individualize one of the most durable and powerful community and civics building exercises in our culture is probably not such a good idea, especially now.

       • There is literally nothing about public schools that bring people together. Fighting over curriculum and ideology doesn’t bring people together. Worrying about housing values and redistricting battles doesn’t bring people together. Sometimes we get along best by leaving each other alone to do our own thing.

         A couple of years ago my county had a straight party vote on whether to teach transgenderism to children. The blue areas voted for and the red areas against, and since the blue areas have slightly more population than us they rammed it down our throat against out will. How did that bring people together? It sure didn’t seem to teach civics to anyone. I think we would have been better off if people that didn’t like that could have pulled their money out of the schools. A lack of funding might change some minds.

         And of course I need not mention this entire year of public schools not actually providing any school for no good reason.

       • “The point is to maximize the utility to the community, not to any particular child. The community working out how to get it done, and the children working through it together is a a big part of the point.”

         lmao – are you serious? For no scientific reason whatsoever, the schools have been out of service in the blue states for a year now with no end in sight. This pure evil and no part of “working through it together” will ever offset this.

         • One last thought: I’m thinking that the teacher’s unions in California need to figure out how to teach the 3Rs at some level of proficiency prior to embarking on unnecessary and racist curriculum like this. Maybe I’m asking too much?

           ***
           Next week, the California Department of Education will vote on a new statewide ethnic studies curriculum that advocates for the “decolonization” of American society and elevates Aztec religious symbolism—all in the service of a left-wing political ideology.

           The new program, called the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, seeks to extend the Left’s cultural dominance of California’s public university system, 50 years in the making, to the state’s entire primary and secondary education system, which consists of 10,000 public schools serving a total of 6 million students.

           In theoretical terms, the new ethnic studies curriculum is based on the “pedagogy of the oppressed,” developed by Marxist theoretician Paolo Freire, who argued that students must be educated about their oppression in order to attain “critical consciousness” and, consequently, develop the capacity to overthrow their oppressors.

           https://christopherrufo.com/revenge-of-the-gods/

   • 1. Prenda is similar and 5 days/week.

     2. Our daughter is the same. I still squeak in some math tutoring, though.

2. Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School
   -Jane Kenyon

   The others bent their heads and started in.
   Confused, I asked my neighbor
   to explain—a sturdy, bright-cheeked girl
   who brought raw milk to school from her family’s
   herd of Holsteins. Ann had a blue bookmark,
   and on it Christ revealed his beating heart,
   holding the flesh back with His wounded hand.
   Ann understood division. . . .

   Miss Moran sprang from her monumental desk
   and led me roughly through the class
   without a word. My shame was radical
   as she propelled me past the cloakroom
   to the furnace closet, where only the boys
   were put, only the older ones at that.
   The door swung briskly shut.

   The warmth, the gloom, the smell
   of sweeping compound clinging to the broom
   soothed me. I found a bucket, turned it
   upside down, and sat, hugging my knees.
   I hummed a theme from Haydn that I knew
   from my piano lessons. . . .
   and hardened my heart against authority.
   And then I heard her steps, her finger
   on the latch. She led me, blinking
   and changed, back to the class.

3. Fine report on how some part time schools are working, both secular and religious.
   Some touching on full homeschooling, and especially how many homeschoolers oppose Vouchers and other gov’t money – due to fears of gov’t interference.

   Then a transition into the need for homeschoolers to join, politically, with hybrid schoolers.

   I think concerned parents need to be running for School Boards, and “Superintendent” so as to get more non-Woke decision makers. Similarly, most Reps need to become K-12 teachers.
   Perhaps especially those conservatives who feel over pressured in colleges and community colleges. The HUGE need for quality teachers means there’s a lot more conservative K-12 teachers than college professors.
   It’s easy! It’s not that easy, not really.

4. “I think concerned parents need to be running for School Boards, and ‘Superintendent, so as to get more non-Woke decision makers.”

   Exactly!!

   I’m in a 66% red city and the woke school board tried to slide a CRT curriculum under the table as a result of an isolated n-word video in 2018 from some juvenile and asinine female students.

   We are supporting non-woke candidates for the upcoming May school board election with our sweat and money. It takes courage and commitment at the local level.

   The media accounts are hilariously biased (surprise!):

   https://news.yahoo.com/texas-school-district-proposed-diversity-100050047.html

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