"Time Isn't Fair"

Today started off bad and didn't get better.

I'm not exactly depressed or upset, but things just haven't been good. Even so, I've keep my smile most of the time.

We'll see if I cry tonight.

I had a fight discussion with Brittany this morning, which took time out of my morning routine. This made me "late" for work [read: I came in at 7:30 instead of 6:30], and started things off on a less than pleasant note. Toward the end of our conversation, as I was heading out the door, I asked, "Why does time fly when I don't have any?"

"Because time isn't fair," my wise wife replied.

I noted that fact and tucked it away for a blog post later.

Two hours later, during our large group meeting, we got news that shattered morale. Not fun, but not public information either. Sorry.

We've long known that life isn't fair. That's one of those lessons that we learn early on but only apply toward things working against us. We rarely remember or notice when life has been unjust in our favor.

We've also known that time is a sneaky creature as well: He never waits for us and he moves more quickly when we're enjoying ourselves. He also runs away when we could really use him. Yet I had never heard, until this morning, that time itself is unfair.

Many research claims aren't exactly fair either. My mom sent me a link to an article that says homeschoolers do better academically than their public schooled peers, suggesting that I remind parents "that homeschooling works." And homeschooling absolutely does work.

Homeschooling is great!

But I've read very fascinating articles that point out that such statistics are horribly skewed. Milton Gaither points out that if we

control for variables like family income, race, and parent educational attainment level when making comparisons with the general population ...homeschoolers usually come out looking more average on things like standardized tests and college matriculation.

Mr. Gaither further responds to the report by saying:

What [Mr. Ray] ought to be saying and what other journalists and pundits who use his studies ought to be saying is not that homeschoolers outperform public schoolers. They ought to be saying that some middle-class, white, two-parent, conservative Protestant homeschoolers who volunteered for a research study that was pitched to them as a great opportunity to show off homeschooler success to the public, score in the 80th percentile or above on standardized tests.

So, yes, my mom is absolutely right: Homeschooling works. It works at least as well as any other educational system available.

Is it statistically 30% better than average?

That has, as far as I know, yet to be empirically demonstrated.

But time isn't playing fair again, and I must leave this post for now. Just remember: Just because someone has data or some other "proof," they may not be playing fair either. The difficulty is getting to the truth, since none of us are completely fair.

~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father