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Ask HN: How do you make educational choices for your kids?

4 points by imagineerschool ↗ HN
I have been interviewing parents and found wildly different approaches.

How do you make choices for your childrens education and futures?

16 comments

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imagineerschool
Some parents have told me they make choices for religious reasons.

The most common story I hear is of parents who get a lot of information and try to make a good choice, but ultimately get overwhelmed and choose 'at random' from what's available.

giantg2
Try to use good information/facts. Then apply ideals/concepts to those and determine the best choice.
imagineerschool
What are the ideals and concepts important to you?
giantg2
I think this would be highly variable from parent to parent. I think it's also not easily defined in a concise fashion - you'll have people give you an answer of "civil rights" or "freedom" and they can mean almost opposites for different people when you did into the details. I'm not sure that will be useful to you or anyone else.

That said... I want a school with a reasonably good rating (indicating that other kids/parents care), that is safe (again, tied to general parental oversight of their kids), not overbearing by having well thoughtout policies (for example, blacklist foods in the classroom where people are seriously allergic to it as opposed to having a whitelist of approved snacks that exclude entire groups of food), is more about education than indoctrination, and has an overall environment that will facilitate learning (very open ended and subjective).

imagineerschool
Thank you! What ratings would you trust?
giantg2
Standardized test scores, metrics on college and tech school admissions/outcomes, public opinion, and some of those Zillow-type ratings all factor in. You can even request a tour of the school, course offerings, etc.
rawgabbit
Sent my kid to a small Catholic school for 8 years. One teacher sucked but the rest were fantastic. Chose the school as the wee ones looked happy and upbeat and not beaten down by the staff. Academics were OK. I spent a LOT of time helping him with homework. My kid is now in a Jesuit high school. Chose that one as I liked their philosophy of educating the whole person. Academics is at college level. I like the staff who are mostly young and enthusiastic.
zoshi
I'm not going to make choices for them. They should make their own choices, and I'm here to provide guidance and support.
m33k44
> They should make their own choices

From what age onwards? And what should they do for choices before that age?

aristofun
What an irresponsible behaviour.

Kids by definition require parents to take responsibility for choices among other things.

If kids are to make their own choices - they are not kids anymore.

zoshi
The question was about educational choices.

Of course I taught my child to read and write. Beyond that, I am not forcing them to get up at 7am and memorize what other adults want them to all day every day. My child can learn about whatever interests him. I pay attention to what he is doing and provide advice, guidance, resources.

For example, if tomorrow I learn that my son has taken an interest in playing guitar, I will encourage him to take lessons, and provide what he needs to do that. I may expose him to music theory or other things I think align with his interests.

I will try and encourage him to cultivate skills and interests, but it is up to him what he wants to do.

aristofun
I see your point and generally agree.

But in the end of the day - its up to a parent to make some critical decisions while kid is just a kid.

imagineerschool
Thank you for speaking up! You're exactly the sort of thinking parent I'm looking for! I'd love the chance to have a conversation with you - please contact me at petroff.ryan at gmail - thank you again!
rdtwo
Honestly I think your best bet it to talk to teachers and see if the administration in the school is functional. It’s kind of like work if the admin/leadership is good problems get sorted out and good people can do good work. If the admin is bad and chaotic then good people can’t do good work problems fester problem kids disrupt the process.