Bethany Mandel, the controversial right-wing pundit, home-schooling advocate, and prolific social media poster, is running for county school board — as a Democrat.
Though the school board race in deep-blue Montgomery County, Maryland, is technically nonpartisan, Mandel’s campaign published a graphic on Tuesday listing her as a Democrat. The move quickly raised eyebrows online, and prompted a community note on X (formerly Twitter) stating, “Bethany Mandel has identified as a Republican numerous times on her personal Twitter account.”
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Those who know Mandel recognize her for writing molten-hot takes and far-right political commentary. The most infamous was a column, published in the wake of the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, titled “We Need to Start Befriending Neo Nazis.” (Mandel is Jewish.) Her content can be cringey, like her column defending Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ wife: “If Casey DeSantis is a Karen, she’s our Karen.” She’s posted dehumanizing rhetoric, too. “Not nuking these fucking animals is the only restraint I expect and that’s only because the cloud would hurt Israelis,” she’s written about Palestinians.
Isn’t it amusing that nobody down-voted the user who replied to me attacking homeschooling, literally blanket calling everyone who engages in it child abuse without any merit and giving zero credible evidence or statistics, themselves?
I wonder, are you going to ask them for statistics?
And sure; merely a google search away:
https://www.thinkimpact.com/homeschooling-statistics/#:~:text=The average performance of homeschoolers,for students from public schools.
https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/
Edit: See? Down-voted for literally giving sources while zero has been given as a counter-argument in return and literally not one substantive counter-point or even an acceptance to have an honest conversation so far. Just ad hominems against me and anonymous dissent.
(If this is true that’s very alarming) But a few lines later it reads:
There are plenty of other examples of contradicting statistics and strange grammar on this page, it makes me feel like it was written by someone homeschooled…
Considering there are kids who’ve gone through high school and done it in a third of the time or less, I seriously question how many substantive hours of engaged learning is actually occurring. Quality (and with it, engagement), not just quantity is all that matters. At the end of the day, isn’t it more concerning to you that such amount of time is sufficient to outperform the average public schooler?
Edit: Moreover have you considered the fact that there is a 1:1 teacher ratio, and a teacher who has an invested interested in seeing their own child succeed? That the learning environment can be adapted according to that child’s needs? That there is literally the aggregate of all human knowledge and online learning programs and homeschool co-ops and that homeschooled kids can utilize public school facilities and even join sports teams? Shit, I did theater…
Most critics don’t. They only see the ones that make the news or people that “act” differently to them.
But is it 72% learn for 5 hours a week or 50% learn for 25-40 hours? Both can’t be true.
Having a student teacher ratio 10x-20x greater than public schools one would hope that homeschoolers drastically outperform public school students, rather than just have marginally better academics. It’s also worth considering that many families can’t afford to have a parent teaching instead of working.
In my state, there are no reporting or testing requirements, and parents themselves issue highschool diplomas for their kids. With such lax rules in most states, how trustworthy can surveys even be about the academic performance of homeschoolers?
That’s a fair point and without delving into which source this comes from in the article, my guess is they meant to say, “72% learn for at least 5 hours a week while 50% learn for 25-40”.
But yeah that’s fair. As I wrote from the start homeschooling is not without its downsides and definitely circumstantial. For example, if both parents are working full-time jobs, then it’s probably not feasible in most cases. Either way, the general data does conclude that outcomes are better, which ultimately is all that really matters for the sake of this discussion.
In the state I lived most of my childhood, we had to do standardized testing like public schooled kids, and in addition be evaluated every end of year by a certified teacher who reviewed our learning materials (an end-of-year portfolio, basically).
In my later years, we moved to a state that like you mentioned has minimal requirements. This can of course be abused but also be a blessing under certain circumstances where an education be adapted to unique life situations.
Well your second link can’t be trusted because it’s from a biased source. Literally paid research by the home education group.
The first one is interesting in that it seems to be a hirable think tank. But, does at least seem to be pulling data from sources.
Now you did in fact supply sources more than the people you are arguing against but you started with emotional responses and then angrily stated that you provided resources elsewhere which isn’t a great look and will build bias against you. So now you are facing a losing argument to pivot to “facts” late and with bias just makes it really hard to take your side seriously at this point.
Take a step back and let it go or start over. And know starting over is also gonna be uphill with the hole that’s been dug. Sorry man. Humans are emotional at their core. All of us.
While I can understand taking with a grain of salt on a level of trust, the fact is, I’ve provided evidence and nobody here has been able to provide a modicum of evidence to the contrary yet. I appreciate your recognition of this. I think it’s also worth pointing out that being biased does not preclude being right (e.g., a climate scientist could be considered “biased” on their case for climate change; but their evidence still strong.)
To be clear, I feel I responded to that user with an assertive, passionate response that was proportionate to the amount of substance and emotion they put into their own comments. I question if you gave a second look at what they actually wrote, what evidence they provided, and what “emotion” they brought to the table. I freely admit I’m passionate about this; but I also know for a fact that I know more on this subject-matter than any individual here that has replied to me. Sorry if that sounds arrogant, but it’s frustrating when you see the same tropes play out over and over again. As you can imagine, this isn’t my first discussion on this topic.
So in the end I ask: to How should I have responded that would satisfy you and meet the equivalent level of detail the user I replied to gave (and was up-voted)?