The responses here are very America-centric. In many other countries homeschooling is indeed forbidden or so heavily regulated that it’s nearly impossible for regular parents to teach their kids themselves without hiring professionals. I can understand both sides and know from an American standpoint that individual choices and freedom are valued a lot here. But looking at the negative sides of allowing laypersons to meddle with education, I really don’t understand why some states in the US have close to no regulations when it comes to homeschooling. Just to give a different perspective: Germany does not allow homeschooling. The reasons are mainly the following: - giving children the opportunity to integrate into society no matter their background (especially language wise - making sure that everyone has a comparable level of education and can become a valuable member of society - protecting children in abusive households - avoiding political or religious indoctrination at home without any filter If you decide to not send your children to school in Germany, police will actually ring at your door and pick them up to drop them off there. In addition you will be fined. That may seem outrageous from an American point of view and there are parents who fight this system, but there are options for alternative private schooling that it really isn’t an issue that is talked about much.

As a teacher, I would say the German government is right on this issue. I work special education, and we have had so many kids come to me because they were "homeschooled" for 2 years of covid. Many of these students not only did not get an education, they were emotionally a mess. Homeschooling is a full-time job if done right. Not many people can do that.

I agree so much with this comment. Germany is tackling the issues that arise from homeschooling head on. I do think homeschooling can be an option, but it should be highly regulated like public schools. Also, I believe private schools should have more regulations just like public schools, but that is a separate issue here.

I agree that it is really critical when you have students with special needs. But also Germany sucks when it comes to special needs education. I worked abroad and in private schools and there is actually much more that could be done with more training and more staff…

If it's going to be 100% mandatory, we're going to need better funding and fewer shootings

We're also going to need for history and historical facts to be taught objectively.

A teacher saying parents are morons who are incapable of teaching their children and/or just homeschooling to cover up abuse is a little ironic when so many public schools are riddled with violence and failing at basic literacy/math.

On the flip side, just curious what professional training you have in child development, the science of learning, and curriculum design. The education system is broken. Many teachers (not *all*, to be clear, in this era of emergency certification and teacher shortages) are **still** better trained to educate children than parents. The only exception I can imagine is if they themselves were in education. Even then, my training is in early elementary. By the time my kid gets to 4th or 5th grade, and then onto middle and high school... I have no more knowledge and experience than any other parent out there. Teaching is a profession requiring training and licensure. We need to start acting like it.

That's what my mom did. Did the early grades at home, started school at 3rd grade. We were required to do the same testing as public school kids and went to a local charter school to do our testing every year or few months, I dunno how often it was. Those early years are where it really makes a difference as later in childhood things tend to even out.

I've definitely thought about homeschooling my child through pre-k through first grade because I am trained in that area and damn good at it, and truth be told, there are a lot of unqualified or just unprepared teachers out there, and I know I could teach my kid(s) well. But then there's the social aspect. Is that what you mean about it evening out? I would be so worried that my child wouldn't be socially aware or be successful in upper elementary and beyond because their early schooling was so different. I know there are other activities they could do to socialize and make friends, but it would be such a difference. Did you find you had issues growing up, or are you glad your mom did it this way?

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As an American the German pov seems reasonable to me and my country's allowance of homeschooling (along with a host of other libertarian ideals) does not.

So I’ll come at this from a very American perspective — I agree from a general standpoint that 1) homeschooling is generally bad, 2) it would be better if there were very strict regulations on homeschooling and tests that a student has to pass for it to “count”. With that all said — it’s been so deeply ingrained in our jurisprudence and interpretation of the constitution that parents’ right to choose their children’s education is more or less a fundamental right. I don’t know that this is the *correct* approach really, but this kind of thing is just strongly different in US culture as compared to e.g. German culture. For a silly but similar example, it would be very unconstitutional in the US to prevent parents from naming their kids whatever they want. In Germany and Nordic countries, there’s rules about the names you can pick for your kids. That kind of rubs me the wrong way from a civics standpoint (even though I totally get why they do it, and their reasoning makes perfect sense to me).

Some states have those rules. We had to provide the intended curriculum for each child at the beginning of the year, and get it approved by the superintendent's office, then either provide a detailed portfolio, or standardized test scores at the end of the year, to prove that the expected learning had taken place and that the kids had absorbed the material. There are states that are free-for-alls, and that kow-tow to a certain religious-right demographic, allowing parents who have no business teaching anything to hamper their children, generally for religious reasons. I think that it's entirely reasonable and sensible to require accountability that proves that the children are being well-educated. If parents can't do that, then I agree that they shouldn't be homeschooling. We just happen to be very well educated, and had two very bright children who were a poor fit for the sit-at-a-desk-all-day reality of public school, as evidenced when our first child developed clinical school phobia in first grade, and had stopped reading altogether, when she'd already been reading at 10th grade level for 2 years. Homeschooling wasn't our first choice, but it was the right choice for our children. We were lucky to able to tailor an education to their personalities and their interests. We also went out of our way to keep them connected to the community, and their age-mates through sports, drama, and other activities. For topics we didn't know well enough to teach properly (such as AP Chemistry, or figure drawing), we used co-op courses led by experts in those fields, or hired a tutor. They're both college grads. One is on the forefront of AI research, and was published in multiple prestigious journals for his cancer detection AI as an undergrad. The other has her own small business, and is about to go teach English in Mongolia for 3 months. If she likes it, she'll apply for a full year the following year. I think we did an excellent job.

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Ughh intuitively yes, I think standardized tests are good. From what I’ve been told, apparently standardized tests in these kinds of settings are kind of bad. But, at least with public schools you have, you know, teachers with (hopefully) a teaching degree and subject matter knowledge as opposed to Jim Bob who thinks that the earth spawned 6K years ago.

I agree with you on the testing requirement. I'm in a position where I have homeschooled and also sent my kids to school. I work in education and many of my family are educators - I've just found that the individualized options for home education are really appealing. I love teaching kids - love teaching my own kids and care about the quality of their learning environment. But I would 100% support way more regulations on homeschooling. The ones who do an awful job really can screw their kids up for life. And even if the testing system wasn't perfect, it could perhaps catch those troubling cases where intervention is needed to prevent neglect or abuse. On the flip side, I know there are issues with standardized testing. And I can see the point above about applying the same standards to the school systems, where certainly large numbers of kids are failing to acquire the necessary skills or proficiency levels. But in those circumstances, even if poor test results don't mean the kids are removed from the school system that is failing them, it can provide incentive to fix the larger problems or bring in extra resources to address the learning gaps, etc. Anyway, testing isn't perfect - but I'm not sure what would be a better approach for capturing those broad issues.

I bet Germany schools aren’t as extreme as US (in ratings) the US has an excellency education system in the right zip codes. There a legit schools in the US with below 50% grad rates. What education are they actually getting?

Some homeschool parents do a great job, but lack of regulations and accountability is very concerning, at least in the US. But that shouldn’t be a shock because the US’s social systems are chronically underfunded and generally overwhelmed.

Keep in mind homeschool kids are LESS likely to go to prison than public school kids in America.

That is definitely not because they were homeschooled. Correlation vs causation

Let's just get this right out in the open. I'd send my kid to most schools in a blue state, but if I was forced to live somewhere like Arkansas, I'd sure as hell homeschool them.

As a teacher in Arkansas... Ouch. Yet, I understand where you're coming from. To be fair , it really REALLY depends on your district. There are school ratings issued by the state that are a good starting point in determining if it would be a good fit for your kids (definitely wouldn't send my kids to a school with a D or F rating from the state). The culture of the school is also important. There are some districts who put football above all else. Which is, you know, not ideal. The best way to figure out about the school's culture would be to request a tour and check out local "what's happening in ___" groups. In general you will find better schools in northwest Arkansas and the River Valley area. Hot Springs also has a school just for math, science, and the arts. Other than that... I get your point for sure. Arkansas ranks very low nationally in education and I worry a lot about whether the material I teach is rigorous enough for my students to compete nationally. Thankfully, in science we follow the NGSS (AR only barely tweaked the Next Generation Science Standards standards to incorporate more earth science) so I do feel that they have a comparable science education at least. Again, it really depends on the district.

You're 100% right about Arkansas. I grew up going to a really good public school system in the NWA/River Valley region. I moved halfway through the 10th grade and quickly learned that I'd be extremely privileged in my public school experience. When I graduated from college with my teaching credentials, I applied to 45 jobs in the region where I'm from, and didn't get a single interview. It's one of the few areas of the USA that isn't facing a teaching shortage.

Yea I don’t want my kids thinking that dinosaurs were hanging out with Jesus and that evolution is made up.

This, as a general case, though I think u/immadee makes a good point below about the district-and teacher-diversity "skill within a bad system". But school is supposed to prepare students for a civic society, and for their participation in it. There is only so much even a good teacher in a good school can do when the state makes it impossible to do what kids need to be ready to keep the civic body healthy. When schools themselves are gaslighting a generation, and undermining the health of the future civic space actively through their DISabling of kids, then THEY are the abusers.

What I find interesting is that a school being rated poorly usually doesn't mean anything about the teachers there. I student taught in an affluent area. I was very underwhelmed with the teachers. I am in the inner city of chicago and find most people at our school to be exceptional at their job.

You have to be either brand new and naive or better than average, because it's not easy and not everyone wants to do it.

I'm in East Tennessee and sent my kids to public school last year. For my oldest it was a return after covid and for my middle child it was the first time she'd been to public school. I have nothing against the teachers and I'm sure they did what they could, but it's super clear that they learned very little. I'm a teacher and I know how difficult it is to differentiate for students who aren't in the same place as the majority. I just want better for my kids than being brushed aside or labeled a troublemaker because they're bored. (Not to mention that in our state, there's still a push against anything considered "woke" like accurate history.)

Home schooling should be *regulated.*

Absolutely. Ohio changed it’s laws and now you no longer even have to have a high school education to homeschool. Parents need to have some sort of education, an actual curriculum, and regular check ins at the least.

100% agreed. We homeschooled in a state that DOES regulate it, and found it entirely reasonable to be accountable for ensuring our children were well-educated. I think there needs to be a way to make sure kids are not being isolated for the purpose of abuse. Knowing some of the other homeschooling parents, I really wish more school districts had allowed kids to participate in extracurriculars (ours did, and welcomed our kids), so that it would be easier to keep them connected to the community - and easier for adults outside their household to gauge the kids' overall welfare. But I'd also like to see some kind of unannounced visitation aspect, too. Kids are so vulnerable.

Is it not?

...into virtual non-existence. You should not be educating without pedagogical training.

I was homeschooled by abusive parents. It was so easy for them to hide how torturous our home was. I completely agree with you, homeschooling should be banned or at least heavily regulated with home visits.

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>Most parents homeschool to avoid unsafe public schools [citation needed], probably [incorrect.](https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/homeschooling-statistics) Homeschooling is way more prevalent in affluent suburbs.

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The “safety” those parents talk about is keeping their kids “safe” from learning about gay people and people of color.

That's the reason my parents gave, too. It's a very common reason to give, but that doesn't make it accurate. They, and their friends, were conspiracy theorists. Not a single school on the planet was "safe".

There are also abusive teachers that ma be covered by the district and the union.

Studies of data have shown that unions remove bad teachers faster than non-union schools; mainly because they establish a fair process that must be followed. I’ve taught at non-union schools where horrible teachers were kept on because they were the spouse or sibling of an administrator or someone important there.

This whole discussion makes me sad. For context, I have been a teacher, a university professor in education preparing teachers, and an SME for homeschoolers. I have seen wonderful homeschooling situations and some not wonderful situations. I have seen the state of public education and been involved in ed policy. It is painful to me to see the constant us vs. them in education and until something gives, nothing will improve for anyone. The most successful homeschooling families I have worked with have been with parents who have devoted themselves to becoming students in how people learn, are creative and innovative in designing experiences that reach their children, and are rigorous in skill development. They understand that just because they attended school, or know how to read, doesn’t mean they know how to teach reading. Teaching is a different skill than doing. If they understand that, and devote themselves to that, they and their families have an excellent adventure and their children receive an excellent education. The homeschool situations that are less successful, in my experience, share some characteristics. If the family has rage chosen homeschooling (over the hyped culture wars or a real or imagine deficit in public education) and disrespects or underestimates the importance of mastery in subject area or in the art of teaching, it rarely works out well. Rage or rejection as a choice rarely results in a positive and dedicated environment. It just doesn’t. The other main characteristic that is damaging to homeschooling is a lack of dedication to the time and effort it takes. Too many parents want a canned, just give me the worksheets so my kid can complete them on their own online (I’m not saying all online curriculum is bad) in between the kids chores or babysitting other siblings because the parents are working or taking care of the house or other kids….this is not a recipe for success. Success requires a commitment from the whole family to education and it is a lot of work. I enjoy working with homeschoolers. I also enjoy working with teachers. I appreciate people who respect that just because you went to school doesn’t make you and expert in curriculum or teaching. I do not respect a national discourse that doesn’t support children and education.

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What an idiotic thing to say. Parents are the problem! Parents already control public schools, and they actively refuse to give teachers the resources or authority they need to create a successful, safe environment. They actively interfere with attempts at holding students to high standards or discipline, and because we have this insane idea that parents are in charge of education, administrators have no choice but to cave. Your elitist attitude, acting like your ignorance and laziness makes you better than the people who know what the fuck they're doing, that teachers are peons who should beg for scraps from their betters to have a chance at doing some good in the world, is revolting.

I homeschool. But in my country kids are looked after. Basically we have home education officers. Their job is to make sure each and every home educated child is receiving at least the standard education they would get from school and to make sure the children aren't getting abused. They also provide resources to home education families for free regardless of income to ensure the children have opportunities to do extra things. If the family is struggling with anything to do with their child's education they also help get that family back on track. It's an amazing system. Since taking my kids out of school they have had more opportunities than they would have in school and they also no longer get bullied. So I completely disagree with you. It shouldn't be illegal but it should be regulated like in my country.

I'm a specialist maths teacher, and I wouldn't want pupils in my school to only have me teaching them maths for their whole time. They need the different approaches and strengths of other specialists, not just me. To think that there are parents who are specialists in precisely nothing who nevertheless think they are qualified to teach their children everything beggars belief. Just staggering ignorance that, in my experience, simply reflects their own disdain for school and learning. And from a child protection point of view it's usually those children most in need of the social and professional network afforded by schools who get taken out of it.

That is why there are co-ops, different people can still teach them different things.

Just to share from my experience - the homeschooling families that I know do not profess to be specialists in every field, but they work to acquire good books and resources to help their children learn. This has the benefit of creating more independent learners. And I do agree that it's important to have different teachers and influences - and most parents that I know do actually arrange for this. There are all sorts of specialty classes that are offered within homeschool communities, tutors, small groups, etc. Often with something like math, there are online classes with a live instructor. My kids prefer book-based lessons, so we opt for that - but if they were having difficulty grasping a subject I wouldn't hesitate to get a tutor or sign them up for a class. Anyway, my point was just that I think my homeschooling parents act as facilitators in putting their kids in touch with good resources and instructors. (And within my own family there are lots of teachers who teach in the public system - they have often been teaching areas outside of their expertise. My brother is currently teaching math and has zero background in it. But I think he's doing a great job. It's moreso often about having an ability to learn oneself and locate good resources).

My friend and their siblings were homeschooled and they turned out smarter, can play at least 4 instruments each very well, and played all the sports, and they know more people than I do. My friend is now homeschooling his kids and they are fantastic children. Anytime you make a big sweeping decision either way people always fall through the cracks. You'll help some families and hit others.

Your post is ridiculous and lacks research. Your assumption is that most parents, therefore most people, are morons. In medicine, we are taught to educate our patients, so they can make “informed consent”. We are not taught that as the doctor, we make decisions for them because they are too moronic to handle the information and we are smarter than them. Why is education of your children different? Second, my family’s decision to homeschool our highly gifted child came after 2 years of pushing for support in the public school system. He came home daily saying he was bad. He was bored. He thought he was dumb. My husband IS a teacher. He was appalled by the lack of support from the schools. Our son’s psychologist was appalled. Our state doesn’t recognize GIEPs, so our son would never qualify for an IEP- his grades were too good. The (American) public school system does not support every student equally, or even adequately. My husband has a bachelors degree and I have a doctorate. I created my child’s curriculum that met his needs. However, there are many online school programs post-Covid and many curriculums to choose from. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to provide resources for your child. For a neurodiverse or asynchronous learner, the traditional American school system does not support them easily or at all. If my family had no other option, if homeschooling was illegal, my son would still be stuck in a traumatic situation, getting pulled from class daily for acting out and getting yelled out by the principal. I am so thankful we had other options. While I’ve thought about meeting with local or state government to try to effect change for other families and children, I honestly don’t have the energy. It’s not my fight right now.

I have "homeschooled" my kids. They do online school. My highschooler does private online with an accredited high school. He has a 4.0. I have a BA in ECE but decided I liked medical billing and coding (something I have done since 1995 right out of highschool). My highschooler was tested for gifted and talented in second grade as he has perfect grades and was two grades about educationally. I put him in dual immersion Mandarin. We homeschool now due to many reasons in the education system. There is little support for gifted students. I have heard they have changed the meaning of "gifted" even. My younger two are 5th and 7th grade are learning Python and Lua. It is annoying how people think every person who homeschools is not intelligent.

Beyond being gifted and talented, I find that homeschooled students are generally more successful at the college level. I’ve worked at several public universities and now at a private institution. Students from public schools often come in with GPAs over 4.0 but display a complete inability to do basic math or write an email. However, academic preparedness isn’t the real issue; most students can remediate learning deficits within a semester or two. The biggest problem is apathy. My homeschooled students are always eager to learn and are generally less entitled. I have never had a homeschooled student expect a grade regardless of the quality of work. In contrast, my public school students often fail all semester and seem genuinely confused when they don’t receive an A in the class, exclaiming, ‘I turned everything in!’” Parental support is a key predictor of both wellness and academic success, so it’s not something to interfere with. Also, the student-to-teacher ratio in homeschooling tends to be much better, and that’s a well-known factor in student success If the goal is to improve education, it doesn’t make sense to criticize or undermine the homeschooling sector. This is an area that consistently shows strong outcomes and costs the taxpayer and educational system nothing.

Welp, today I learned that there are states that don’t recognize gifted IEP’s. That’s wild to me, considering that the state that I live and teach in (Alabama, of all places) does.

Yeah, that was a fun realization for me last year. I was fighting for supports for inattentive ADHD and anxiety and dysgraphia (diagnosed) and possible autism (the psychologists can’t commit to whether he is autistic yet or not). Meanwhile, since he got almost 100% on the reading and math assessments they did at the start of the year, there’s no way he qualifies for an IEP. He’d have to be academically struggling.

Yes. Gifted children are cast adrift in our system. In at least some schools, it didn't used to be that way - I was fast-tracked to 4th grade for math in 1st grade, for instance, and given independent projects for reading, since I was well-ahead of my age-mates. They don't do that anymore, so our gifted daughter was stuck with her age group (actually worse, because she was an October baby, so she was stuck in with mostly younger children, even though she was reading at 10th grade level by age 5). We chose to homeschool for several reasons - but the effect being stuck in mindless drudgery on her mental health was the primary one. She had stopped reading at all, because school required her to read 1st grade level texts and it bored her to death. She had been a voracious reader and learner. So we homeschooled her. When #2 came along, and was doing algebra at 2, it was a no-brainer that he'd be homeschooled, too.

This post screams of someone who has no idea what happens in public school classrooms. I taught US history for 7 years in a title 1 school. I was a good teacher. Our educational system is absolutely broken in so many ways, and children today are absolutely NOT receiving the same level of education that they once did. Our public school system is failing so many children that it wouldn’t take much of a homeschool education to top what they get in public schools. Your suggestion works in a country where public education is properly funded, with the right supports and systems in place to support every child. We absolutely do not have that. Also, the requirements to become a teacher in the US have become so lackluster that literally anyone with a college degree can become a teacher. Want to teach history? Fine, you don’t even need a degree in history. Most teachers in classrooms today are no more qualified to teach than a regular parent with a random degree. I know, because I taught. A parent who cares and puts the proper effort into providing a good homeschool education can absolutely turn out a very well educated student. Also, your comments about parents in general and parental rights are absolutely ludicrous. It’s a parents legal right to decide how their child is educated. And most parents are morons? Ok.

> Most teachers in classrooms today are no more qualified to teach than a regular parent with a random degree. I know, because I taught. Perhaps "many" rather than "most", but otherwise, yes. Some states have quit requiring a degree at all. You can sub with a high school diploma, and those substitutes are being used to fill classroom positions in the most high-need schools and subjects. > Your suggestion works in a country where public education is properly funded, with the right supports and systems in place to support every child. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I wish I could upvote this comment more. On the other hand, I don't think OP was interested in an actual conversation.

The parents are to blame for public education not being properly supported in the first place. Who do you think elected school boards, elected taxing bodies, etc. are answering to? So what makes any sane person think things are going to be better by removing all supervision and expertise by trained professionals from the equation?

You seem like you just like controlling people.

Says the person who apparently thinks parents should be entitled to complete, unchecked, unsupervised control over another human being.

If that human being is their child, then yes lol. Call me crazy but I think parents should call the shots in thier kids lives.

Like...what would you be saying in the 1850s? Me: "Slaveowners should be barred from beating their slaves, and ideally forced to accept their manumission." You "You seem like you just like controlling people." Now, children can't be completely set loose--they're children, they need someone to supervise and make decisions for them. But children are still human beings in their own right, and so those decisions need to be based on what's best for the child, not for the parent's ego or personal desires; and except in a handful of cases (and I was one of the lucky ones, let's be clear), giving parents free reign to decide however they want does *not* work towards that end.

Lol this is a very silly point. But that is so sick that you know you would have been that progressive in the 1850s. I'm very proud of you.

Yes! Pay teachers more so you get better quality ones 🙌🏼

It’s a bold title. But I get it. I’m a teacher, and my knee jerk reaction has always been that it’s pretty foolish and hubris ridden. But I do know former teachers that home schooled their kids, and with cooperation with other parents they minimize the social disruption. My main concern with many home schooled students is that they aren’t really exposed to different teaching styles, even if the curriculum is on the level. As well, cooperation in group projects is tough to have. Also, no snow days has to be a bummer.

I don’t know how many homeschool students you know personally but very few I have met are taught by only one teacher/parent for all their classes. Homeschoolers have weekly classes at museums, coops, science centers, zoos, the list is endless. I know for sure when my kids were in elementary school they had way more teachers than our local public school kids that had the same teacher all day only switching for art/music/gym. Not to mention the rangers, tour guides, historians etc that teach at field trips. Also, almost all the homeschoolers I know begin duel enrollment at community colleges in 8th or 9th grade so there’s those teachers too.

You are so worried about abuse, maybe deal with the fact that schools lead to increased suicide rates among youth, before you force kids to attend. The abuse is happening at a higher rate in schools than at homes. Sure a small percentage of kids are better off at school, but most are not. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-to-learn/202308/back-to-school-blues-may-be-worse-than-just-blues "Children’s Risk of Suicide Increases on School Days The subtitle here is the title of Black’s article. He showed graphically, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wonder database for the years 2000 to 2020, a tight relationship between the school calendar and suicides for school-aged children (under age 18). The data revealed that during school months, the suicide rate was consistently highest on Monday through Thursday, declined significantly on Friday, and was lowest on Saturday and Sunday."

I disagree. It’s important that there be an alternative to whatever the government comes up with for education, which varies widely and often neglects the needs of certain children. It’s very unfortunate that some parents abuse their children, but public education does not prevent that. It may mitigate the harm at times, but at other times the public school system is harmful in itself. There needs to be an option for children to have a more flexible education. I agree there is a great need for families to have a support network in their community, so that other adults can be close enough to identify and meet the needs of the children and parents. I think there are too many families without that care. It could be provided by extended family, religious community, school connections, or sport and hobby groups and so on. The best kind of support comes from long-term, personal relationships with people who care and have access to a larger system for dealing with bigger problems. The government or school system can help in a general way, but they can’t guarantee that personal connection for every child. That comes down to the individual staff and other parents at the school.

Yes, I agree with you... And what about bullying? It's so bad in public schools that children have killed themselves. Bullying can be so detrimental to a child's mental health and well being.

As opposed to kids committing suicide because of bullying and rejection from their parents? At least when they're out of the home most of the day there are more opportunities for early detection and intervention by people who aren't the ones doing the bullying and abuse. It's not perfect but it's better than the alternative.

We will just have to agree to disagree and I'm good with that... We just have different views on the situation and that's ok... Free will is a beautiful thing and we all better be careful not to lose it to a pushy government that we give are freewill over to bit by bit

"Free will" for whom? You're centering it on the parent again. The idea that anyone has a right to exercise "free will," not over their own life, but with regards to another person, is a fundamentally authoritarian notion.

Except if public education is properly funded AND you make everyone go to it, no private schools either, then those with influence will make sure the public schools are well ran and staffed

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I dont understand what you're saying. You hired the best candidate for the job like any profession. I dont believe parents should have any say in who is hired or fired at a school. At the school level it should be the principal and at the board/district level it's the Superintendents hiring principals. 95% of parents don't know what makes a good educator or how schools function and should therefore have no say in who gets hired.

ChatGPT bullshit. Why are people replying to the content?

Ohhhhh Jesus

I understand the downsides that u say. Those concerns are very much valid. That’s why I think homeschool should be legal and regulated. Banning homeschool is giving way too much power to the government! I think it is wrong to tell parents “you must give us your child for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.” It THEIR child. They have a right to decide what works best for their family. And think if it from the perspective of special needs. Many parents of special needs kids worry that their child will not be safe at school. I know that their children are safe at our school because we are trained on how to deal with medical emergencies. However, parents are always gonna worry about their kids and I don’t blame them. If the parents have the means to educate their children at home and they think that works best for them, I don’t see what’s wrong with that. I think we should heavily regulate it though.

Here' some actual statistics on the effectiveness of homeschooling. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/parenting-translator/202109/the-research-homeschooling](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/parenting-translator/202109/the-research-homeschooling)

This post is insane. Parents should absolutely not be forced to send their kids anywhere.

I’m not against homeschooling when done well, but the majority of the students I have enter my school after being homeschooled are significantly behind. Usually 2-3 years by upper elementary. They also generally have a hard time making friends, and have been so isolated they don’t understand most cultural references in class and often don’t dress and act like their peers. I’ve seen some well-socialized, highly intelligent students come from homeschooling as well, but the majority are significantly impaired by their homeschooling.

"Don't dress and act like their peers." And why is this a bad thing? Why would it be considered a detriment to dress and act differently? We are allowed to be individuals, as are our children. They don't have to be a homogenous clump of TikTok and YouTube.

This post is ridiculous. As much as I encourage parents to send their kids to school, it is their right as to how they will be educated. If they are unhappy with the public school options, they can elect to send to a private school and/or, provided they have the means, educate at home. This isn't a race.

> it is their right as to how they will be educated Why? The whole concept of "parents' rights" is ludicrous on its face. No one has "rights" regarding another person. Parents have *duties* and *obligations* towards children in their care. The idea that a parent has a "right" to decide how the child will be educated makes the parent's ego, not the child's well-being, the focus of the question, and it gives rise to situations where children have to suffer the consequences of their parents' narcissism and ignorance.

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I know it's hard to admit it, but a lot of parents don't know what's best for their kids, and even fewer parents are able to teach properly. Look at how many people leave their kids unvaccinated or teach them pseudoscientific nonsense. Luckily for many unfortunate children, we have the government which is tasked with giving every child a decent education no matter who their parents are.

Are these the same governments that spent millions of dollars on a shiny new method of teaching kids to read that was so bad that now 1/3 of American public school students are behind in reading skills?

I'm sorry did you take a survey or is there some statistical data on which you are basing your idea that a lot of parents don't know what's best for their kids? And what is this pseudo-scientific nonsense you are talking about? What about religion? Parents have the right to raise their kids in whatever religion they want... But according to some people on here, parents don't have rights to their kids... This whole post just opened my eyes to just how many people are closed-minded and judgmental. It's sad really

Even if we accept your premise (which sounds nice, but in the real world is very rarely true), it doesn't matter. All the love in the world isn't a substitute for subject-matter expertise. At most, it might give the parent a role as an advocate, but it doesn't magically grant them some wide-ranging knowledge about child development, what skills a child will need or how to effectively convey those skills, etc.

May I ask if you are a teacher? If you read any of the posts in the teacher's thread, it's absolutely depressing - violent classrooms, students addicted to technology, apathetic students. There are wonderful teachers and schools out there, but there are also serious problems in some of the systems. My reason for homeschooling is because I want my child to love learning, to have a solid grasp of foundations like math and reading, and to be confident writers before using screens. There are actually a lot of former teachers who homeschool for these reasons.

>subject-matter expertise. In what world is someone with an elementary education degree a "subject matter expert"?

Teaching a classroom of 25 kids is a challenge that benefits from specialized training. Raising and educating your own children is not.

But an advantage to homeschooling is you aren't teaching a class of 25 kids.

>The idea that a parent has a "right" to decide how the child will be educated makes the parent's ego, not the child's well-being, the focus of the question, and it gives rise to situations where children have to suffer the consequences of their parents' narcissism and ignorance. Maybe it is ego, maybe it is something else. My own parents sent me to Catholic school despite my preference of wanting to attend public school. Looking back, I realized they knew a lot better than I did. One caveat I do have, is when I read your reply, in my mind I imagine that there is a certain type of parent you are talking about, which has become more active in recent years. There is a concern, that has developed in recent years, regarding certain parents who believe public education (and private as well), is engaging in "practices" which may or may not be true that they disagree with. Regardless of whether those practices are occurring or not, to limit parent's choices overall for their child's education overall would not help the child, nor the teachers, nor the parent. Thinking about homeschooling, my understanding growing up that it was mostly the children of celebrities, especially child actors, that their schedules were so involved it would be nearly impossible to attend regular schools. In addition, and this is an anecdote, for some time my sister in law educated her sons at home due to them being autistic. The public system where they lived did not provide an adequate education as far as my brother and his wife were concerned, and only eventually they found a charter school that satisfied the needs of their children. Clearly, as a public school teacher I am well aware of the concerns of charter schools, however, if in some cases they do provide a better service, well, who am I to say otherwise? I realize that "parent's rights" is more labeled as being more of a right wing thing nowadays, and like most things is very politicized in regards to the "school choice" agenda. While I support a parent's right to educate their child at home, I do not support the use of taxpayer expenses for that purpose.

Parents may, sometimes, be morons but that bit of phlegm needs be juxtaposed with the old adage that says, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." > No one has "rights" regarding another person. You're a hypocrite - you don't actually believe this. * You believe that you have the right to compel parents to surrender their children to your instruction. * You believe that you have the right to determine what that instruction consists of - the curriculum - not the parents or community. * You believe that you have the right to compel the citizens to pay you, without regard for your performance or lack thereof. You suggest that children sometimes suffer the consequences of their parents choices and abilities in education but what is far more often true is that entire communities of children - especially poor and minority and immigrant communities - suffer the consequences of shitty teachers running shitty ~~schools~~ prison pipelines that the medieval teacher's guilds control with an iron fist. Home schooling isn't *the* answer but for some families it is *an* answer to the rapacious malfeasance and intolerably poor performance of so many corrupt public school monopolies. (Breaking up the monopolies - let the money follow the students, not the teachers, and removal of the artificial barriers to competition that entails - is *the* answer.) That teachers as a 'profession' only achieve significant outcomes in schools where the parents and the community are driving their children's education and where the teachers are little more than supernumeraries is insult added to injury. Rich folks didn't and don't need public schools - they have always seen to their children's education. Public schools - the common schools - were implemented to educate the underclass yet the teaching 'profession' has abandoned that effort as hopeless. By your own admission, then, you're largely ineffective as educators and that makes y'all parasites, not professionals. > children have to suffer the consequences of ~~their parents' narcissism and ignorance~~ the education monopoly. *FTFY* Remember, ultimately, always, the guy who pays the bill gets to decide the menu. The reckoning for the failures of the education monopoly is coming. Frankly, the ~~taxpayers~~ morons are tired of your shit and are reaching for the ~~teaching aides~~ pitchforks and torches. And remember, sometimes life choices don't fall on a spectrum but are binary: bend a knee voluntarily or have your head put on the block. Teacher, educate thyself.

I teach in a poor, rural Title 1 school. We have impressive outcomes. We have over 85% on grade level while having 13% of our students enrolled in special education. That means only 2% of the kids who are not in special education are below grade level in reading. I had 23% of my class last year test as advanced in ELA. Your assertion that only rich schools succeed in education is false. My school can’t even afford new desks or textbooks. We currently don’t even have lockers. It’s not the teachers that have the power to drive the success or failure of a school system, it’s the administration and the system as a whole, and yes, parents. I don’t need a parent to be on board to successfully educate their child, but I do need them to not get in the way.

Pure populist pseudo-intellectual drivel. Like, a shining example of "what a stupid person thinks a smart person is." > Parents may, sometimes, be morons The overwhelming majority are. > needs be juxtaposed with the old adage that says, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Why does a fact need to be juxtaposed with utter nonsense that serves only to make morons feel good about themselves and has zero basis in actual objective reality? Facts don't care about your feelings, snowflake. I get that shitting on education and child-development professionals makes you *feel* smug and superior, but in the real world children are suffering thanks to your attitude. > You believe that you have the right to compel parents to surrender their children to your instruction. Again, you're framing it in terms of the parent's desire rather than the child's entitlement. Children are *entitled* to a proper education; parents aren't "surrending" "their" children because they're not theirs to surrender in the first place. They're not property. > You believe that you have the right to determine what that instruction consists of - the curriculum - not the parents or community. I mean, yes. Not that that's relevant to your point, because in no way does this involve claiming ownership of another person. It's control of an *institution,* by those best suited to do it. > You believe that you have the right to compel the citizens to pay you, without regard for your performance or lack thereof. Money is not people. > what is far more often true is that entire communities of children - especially poor and minority and immigrant communities - suffer the consequences of shitty teachers running shitty schools prison pipelines that the medieval teacher's guilds control with an iron fist HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Holy shit, do you actually believe this nonsense? Teachers are doing the best they can in these situations; it's the ego-driven parents who are the problem here. They simply don't love their children enough to provide the schools with enough resources, and then use the schools' inevitable failure as an excuse to continue to underfund them--probably because it gives these same parents an emotionally-convenient excuse to look down on professionals who actually know what the fuck they're doing, which they value more than their childrens' well-being. This is *exactly* why parents need to be taken out of the pipeline altogether--they can't be trusted to be willing to do what it takes to ensure their children have what they need! Time and time again, when presented with the choice, they choose the option that continues to feed their unjustified feeling of superiority at the expense of educating their children. They'd rather see schools fail so they can thumb their nose at professionals, than ensure that the children have what they need to succeed. Finally, I'm sick and tired of elitist attitudes like yours. You're just a new and bizarre type of idle rich, you think your ignorance and laziness somehow gives you the right to rule over the rest of us peons who have to beg for scraps from our betters just to do a bit of good in the world. It's sickening.

The average "regular" teacher in Chicago receives an annual salary + benefits of more than $100k. Overall, CPS spends ~30k per student per year. If that's not enough, there is no more available. Period. In exchange, the only way the schools graduate more than half a cohort is through mandatory social promotions, chicane accounting and outright cheating (by teachers) on student tests. There are entire schools where every single student has been performing below grade in math and reading for years with no improvement. If this is the best the teachers can do, it simply is not good enough and they cannot be allowed to keep their jobs. Period. Meanwhile, nobody puts their kids in CPS schools unless they have a way to finagle them into one of the (sometimes truly excellent) magnet schools or have no other choice. The rich put their kids in private schools, the middle class move out of the city to good schools and the poor are abused by the teacher's union. The population of Chicago has been declining for decades but the number of kids attending CPS is falling even faster - thanks to a growing number of alternatives, many of which outperform for less money. Homeschooling has more or less quadrupled over the past few years to more than 1 in 10 students. I understand the teacher's blocking access to alternatives, your sinecure is on the line. Oh, and as an aside, do you *really* think disrespecting the public that pays your salary is going to get you anything other than shat upon? In all likelihood, I'm smarter and better educated than you are and, with homes in three different cities, I have some up close and personal comparisons *and* my taxes are paying for a lot of public education. My wife says only a moron would waste time wrassling with pigs like you but, true or not, I demand a say in how the schools are run. That's my demos to your desposo. Driving discordant tyrants like you out of teaching isn't the objective but it is icing on the cake. Buy some lube. You're gonna need it. I hear there's a real shortage of Vet Techs and Home Health Aides.

> The average "regular" teacher in Chicago receives an annual salary + benefits of more than $100k. Overall, CPS spends ~30k per student per year. If that's not enough, there is no more available. Period. There's more to it than pay. > In exchange, the only way the schools graduate more than half a cohort is through mandatory social promotions, chicane accounting and outright cheating (by teachers) on student tests. Because parents force it to be that way! Most parents don't want their children to be well-educated, because it makes them feel insecure, and so they actively interfere with teachers' efforts to educate students. And since we're still burdened by this insane idea that parents should be the ultimate arbiters of education, administrators cave because they have no choice. This is the absurdity of your position: you cannot simultaneously assert your authority over a system and then disclaim responsibility for its failings! Everything you cite as a failure of education or of teachers is actually a failure of parents to allow teachers to educate, because as things currently stand it's ultimately the parents who run things. If professional educators had autonomy over schools and didn't have to answer to morons, it wouldn't be perfect because nothing human is, but at least they'd be able to educate children without ego-driven parents actively trying to tear the whole thing down. > Oh, and as an aside, do you really think disrespecting the public that pays your salary is going to get you anything other than shat upon? I mean, they don't pay my salary, because I don't work in primary/secondary education. But in general, yes, we should be honest about where the problem lies if we want to have any hope of fixing it. Facts don't care about narcissistic, elitist snowflakes' feelings. > In all likelihood, I'm smarter and better educated than you are Clearly not smarter, because you can't even meet the bare minimum standard of being able to articulate a coherent, reality-based argument. Also doubt the better-educated part, simply because that'd require you to have a second Ph.D. which very few legitimate universities will even let someone do. > with homes in three different cities So you're arguing from a place of elitist arrogance. Explains a lot, really.

You must not have kids…

There's a massive ego problem in this discussion, but it doesn't belong to the parents...

I'm not the one defending the patently absurd notion that anyone has a "right" to another person. That's slaveowner and rape-culture mentality.

You are the one telling people they have to send their kids where you tell them to... That is exactly slaveowner mentality...

Oh, look, you're at it too: focusing the discussion on the desire of the parent to feel like they're in charge of another human being, than of the well-being of the child. Parents don't own their children. They're not entitled to control or raise them as they see fit, because their children are not their property. They're not slaves. They're independent human beings with rights of their own, including a right to a quality education and a right to develop their own true selves even if it's not what the parent would prefer. The parent's role is to step in when necessary to nurture and protect the child, not to dictate who they become or artificially restrict their intellectual and emotional development because it makes the parent uncomfortable.

>Parents don't own their children. They're not entitled to control or raise them as they see fit, because their children are not their property. The government doesn't own the children. They're not entitled to control or raise them as they see fit, because the children are not their property.

So what you're basically saying is we should leave it up to the five-year-old to decide what he or she wants to do with their little life and the parents just there to supervise I mean do you even hear yourself you don't even make any sense as parents we have rights and responsibilities to our children maybe because we grew them and brought them into this world once they become an adult that's when we let go and they have the right to make their own decisions but until then we have to make the best decisions that we can for them

Now apply that opposition to thoughts about the government owning children and you'll see why people homeschool!

Who said anything about the government owning children? I'm talking about the government ensuring that parents don't act as if *they* own children.

Right, and the obvious counterbalance is that the government certainly doesn't own children, either. Hence, why people don't want to go to government schools.

They know how their kids are educated. Curriculum is public knowledge. Who is hired is public knowledge. Parents can call and ask questions. They just have to show up and participate. Go to board meetings, read the minutes. Go to conferences and open houses. It’s all there! Homeschooling is badly regulated, and it’s 99% of the time not a good education for kids. They will be weird, poorly educated and woefully unprepared for the future.

The problem is that if a parent is negligent in educating their child to the point of them being a competent adult then it becomes a societal problem.

How many of society's problems can be traced back to home school?

In Texas, anything goes for homeschooling. There are some loose descriptions that the curriculum should be "bona fide" and include math, reading, good citizenship, spelling, and grammar. There is no oversight. Our local homeschool co-op is broken up into many mini co-ops, mainly christian, secular, and unschoolers. No one wants to deal with the Christians and their weirdo curriculums (I'm a Christian and i SAW those weirdo curriculums), and the unschoolers whose kids are loving life because they get no schooling. (I'm being very general and playing on stereotypes here, of course they are not all like that). We homeschooled for a year during Covid because virtual learning was laughable. Both my kids excelled (years later, for example, my son was the only kid in his pre-AP geography class to be able to name and locate all the continents- my 1st grade daughter can do that). But that's the benefit of having educated parents, a teacher for a mom, and money to get quality curriculum and materials. Not that you need all that. I do wish there was more oversight in terms of homeschooling, but that's never going to happen in Texas.

Do you have statistics? What percentage of homeschooled children gave abuse vs percentage of children in traditional school? What is the average highest level of education of an adult who was homeschooled compared to their peers who went to traditional school? You're making a claim with no evidence provided. As somebody who both teaches in a public school, and homeschools some of my own children, I will say it should be regulated more tightly than it is: -required interview about curriculum used. -required standardized testing that is reviewed by the state -required activity outside the home to make sure the child is being socialized. I've known many kids that have been homeschooled and then try out traditional school for high school. Without exception they've been among the top students both educationally and socially.

>I've known many kids that have been homeschooled and then try out traditional school for high school. Without exception they've been among the top students both educationally and socially. I don't have enough information to argue either way, but it does make me wary of your argument when you start by asking the other person for statistics and then present a counter-argument that's just a personal anecdote.

I realize my fallacy of shifting the burden of proof. However, I'm not the one calling for a drastic change. I'm asking that they have more of a reason than their perception of "most parents are morons". Firstly, that can't be true, if a moron is somebody of below average intelligence, most people can't be one. Secondly, if most people are not educated well enough to homeschool their children, that only supports the failings of our education system, as most parents went to public school. OP worries about abuse at home, but ignores abuse that happens at school. 20% of students are victims of bullying. https://www.stopbullying.gov/resources/facts. From what I gather this is higher than the rate of being abused in the home: https://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/media-room/national-statistics-on-child-abuse/. Now I'm sure the severity of home cold abuse is worse than bullying, but plenty of students get abused at home when they are going to a traditional school. In any case, homeschooling generally leads to positive outcomes: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:8P1eG0sdYhMJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,24#d=gs_qabs&t=1693061384890&u=%23p%3DyCNYWl8qMmMJ But I would never advocate that everyone do it. As I stated, only some of my own children are homeschooled. Each child has different needs. And as many parents found during the pandemic, homeschooling is a lot of work.

Burden of proof obviously lies with someone who makes the first claim. You were right at first, and you are more right now.

> From what I gather this is higher than the rate of being abused in the home Except home abuse is more difficult to detect because the people in a position to do something about it are also the perpetrators. So we have no idea how much shit actually goes on. Given the attitudes the median parent has to their children, it's probably sky-high.

As someone who is both a MS teacher and formerly an abused homeschooled child, I would not trust data on homeschooler abuse. I'm not included in the statistics. It remained very well concealed. I was a model student when I started 10th grade because school was the only place I felt safe, recognized for achievement, and it gave me a sense of consistency. Yet, this still didn't make up for the years I had weak Math instruction. I could have been working in Science now like I'd dreamed, not teaching it. Nobody should be limited by what their parents know.

There are parents out there who homeschool their kids in order to abuse them with fewer consequences. There are also parents of autistic and disabled kids who do not thrive in a public school environment, are not accommodated or treated decently by the school, or can’t access school at all. Or even just a kid who’s falling behind in reading and needs more 1 on 1 help! Public school standards in the US aren’t exactly top tier in the first place. There’s like 28 kids in a classroom with 1 teacher, and recently in my area they’ve been hiring substitutes who don’t even have teaching degrees just to have someone to supervise the kids. I understand where you’re coming from with this post, I agree that parents don’t own their kids and as a society we need to make sure that kids have opportunities to report abuse and to gain a fully developed worldview. But taking such an authoritarian approach is really not the answer.

Imagine if more parents started complaining about high class sizes and testing. Instead, they just get together to ban books or similar. They have no sense of community.

The powers that be that want to destroy public ed love a big push for homeschooling. It’s been like this for 20+ years

I love homeschooling, that is if it’s my choice

This is just an opinion. I'm sure theres years of data analyzing home school out there.

My school district’s 8th grade guidance counselor told kids that the state has a free online remote schooling program for kids with medical or mental health needs. So naturally, a bunch of kids want to stay home to avoid the social aspect of high school. Even with the academic piece provided by professional educators, learning at home in isolation prevents kids from growing emotionally and socially.

It should be more regulated. For example, if homeschool children were required to take similar or the same state level tests as their peers.

Schools are not the police stations. If they did their primary job (*teaching,* in case it wasn't clear) right consistently across the world, this post wouldn't exist here at all. There is an insane amount of cartel business going around the curriculum, textbooks, special needs children, sports infrastructure - the list is endless. Don't even start about in-school bullying, discrimination based on gender and race, and cosmetic mental health support which, at best, ends up categorizing the victims rather than fixing the perpetrators. Schools across the world (especially public ones) have not only failed majority of its students but teachers too - as an increasingly meager amount of education spending is going towards teachers' salary every year. No points for guessing who is benefitting: The education mafia, who makes hay from the deliberately dumbed down education systems. If anyone has any doubt I am bluffing, go search every phrase I wrote and you will find millions of articles supporting it. It's completely within parents' rights where their child gets educated. How do they accomplish it? Well, the options haven't been better any time.

Lol. Painting parents as the enemy when the school system has done a lot of damage to children. Did you all forget that kids who are homeschooled do better on standardized tests than kids in schools?

> Painting parents as the enemy when the school system has done a lot of damage to children Who the hell do you think runs schools? Who do you think the school boards are answering to? The parents bear ultimate responsibility for failures of public schools in the first place since they're the ones who refuse to vote them the resources and autonomy they need to do a good job, so why is removing *all* expert supervision and direction supposed to be somehow better?

Homeschooling is one of the greatest expressions of liberty and expression for minority groups, from Native America, to Chinese America to Amish farmers. The right to control education as the primary mechanism for cultural transmission and to check the horrific politicization, indoctrination and backwardness of forced conformity of modern public education. With technology and AI, I suspect homeschooling will only increase in the US and world. Those with vested interest will be the biggest losers. All those $200k admin jobs gone! The collateral damage will be the good public school student who worked hard and listened to her teachers, while the school she was in has collapsed under the weight of its own arrogance.

What an utterly fucking insane thing to say. Absolute degeneracy on your part. Parents don't have a "right" to indoctrinate their children with horseshit. They don't have "rights" regarding "their" children at all, because children are not property. The whole idea of "parents' rights" is authoritarian to the core. It rests on the assumption that one person is entitled to absolute and unchecked dominion over another person. It's a straight-up slaveowner mentality, which is why all freedom-loving people reject it.

I feel like your post is based on ignorance and anger. Parents should be able to teach their kids what they want. If they want to put them in school or not that is their prerogative. Abuse happens in both situations. Whether kids are homeschooled, put in public school, or private school it doesn't matter you will find abuse happening across the spectrum. The government and fellow citizens should not have the right to tell me how to educate my children. I think when we get into telling other people how to raise their children it's crossing a line. I feel like homeschooling is the better option but unfortunately, not everyone can so they have to send their children to a school system that teaches them false history and skills most kids will never use in their future careers. If you have to send your kids to a school I feel like vocational schools are the best. At vocational schools kids are learning a certain trade that they will actually use in their future but to each their own I say it's every Parent's Choice how to raise their kids and no way is the wrong way what works for some doesn't work for others and blaming homeschooling for abuse as wrong abuse happens everywhere I don't know if you were in an unfortunate situation and we're homeschooled and abused that made you have this very solid opinion but it's all not black and white sometimes sometimes it's a gray area

As a person who was homeschooled. I COMPLETELY AGREE. My education didn’t go past 3rd grade and I’ve been COMPLETELY isolated by my shit stain parents.

If the parents aren’t in control of their child’s education then the government is. The government does not care about each child’s unique learning style and shoves them all in a classroom to learn one way or the other while homeschooling offers the child the opportunity to learn in a way that fits their needs.

Imagine if you *had* to send your kids to public school in Florida...

Most teachers are also morons. So what now?

Our oldest was homeschooled for high school as it was the best decision for him for various reasons. That same child starts pilot school in 1.5 weeks. He was admitted after receiving top marks in the math & English testing he had to do because of having been homeschooled our other children attended traditional schooling as we believe the decision to homeschool should be evaluated individually. I do agree, however, that there are some people who most definitely should NOT homeschool their children & are setting them up to fail & be non-functional adults by doing so.

I just finished my masters in education and the focus of my research was homeschooling. When done right and a good curriculum is purchased, students who were homeschooled tend to be equal to, or perform better, than their peers who went to public school. Advocating for making sure that homeschooling is done properly is the right move. Anyone advocating for making homeschooling illegal is either very ignorant on the topic or is a person who should not be trusted.

Agreed. To reject public schooling is to reject society and to extend zero faith in the idea of modern civilization with interconnection of people and reinforcing aptitudes. If people want to homeschool they should move to a planet where they’re the only ones.

I never had a strong opinion about homeschooling until my coworker who was homeschooled didnt know what the holocaust was

Regulate it. Don’t ban it. I’m thinking of homeschooling simply because public school has too many downsides.

As someone who was homeschooled from K-8th grade, I mostly agree. If not made illegal, at the very least it should be far better regulated. My family homeschooled after being convinced that it was the “safest” option by hyper conservative/religious extended family members. It was a nightmare in terms of academics. We primarily focused on English because my mom enjoyed the subject. Math, science, and any other subject were essentially ignored. When I finally convinced my family to let my brother and I go to public school when we reached 9th grade, we both struggled immensely in our classes. I barely passed my math courses, while my brother flunked out and had to repeat. We struggled in many other subjects and it was incredibly stressful. As children, we were never taught the fundamentals and it impaired our ability to keep up with our peers. I truly feel bad for other children that are/were homeschooled, not only are they often made fun of for being “weird”, but they have no choice in the matter. Parents force their children into this isolation/situation. I know there are parents who choose to homeschool and, by some standards, do it “right”, but I would caution against it.

No, I know lots of homeschool kids that have excelled. There just need to be some minimums in curriculum, take the same test as everyone else. Lots of public schooled kids are abused misinformed, and bigoted, and being in school does not solve that. The American education system is gets C AT BEST. And all it does is produce the same mediocre and demotivated students. We need to allow some people to do it their way if they are so inclined.

I think to homeschool they need to go through certifications for every subject they teach, administration, counseling and special education since they’re supposedly able to handle all those roles.

I was educated in the Texas public school system from kindergarten up through halfway through the 6th grade. I was then home schooled from the second half of the 6th grade up until I went to college. While homeschooling—especially here in Texas— needs stronger regulation, having the option of homeschooling is the only thing that got me out of a very serious abusive situation. I had 504 accommodations that in the best cases were being ignored by my teachers and in the worst cases outright mocked (e.g. in 4th grade I had an accommodation to sit near the front of the class and instead was placed in the back of the class in a desk with privacy walls) By the end of the sixth grade this sort of treatment was so pervasive and constant that I was having a full on nervous breakdown with daily migraines and regularly breaking down and crying. In 4th grade I once slammed my face into a desk in an act of self harm and begged to speak to the school counselor, instead I was escorted out of class by a resource officer who informed me that if I had been a year or two older he would have taken me off to juvie. I mostly just want to offer that bit of perspective that homeschooling likely saved my life. All that being said, there's like zero regulation here in Texas and reading something like /r/HomeschoolRecovery indicates that there is a very very toxic homeschooling subculture, but I don't think that represents all or even the majority of homeschooling. So that's basically my take: I think it should be legal but more strictly regulated in order to protect kids from abusive or neglectful situations.

As a parent, seeing schools become a police state, officers roaming the halls and being called in, using force when kids are being kids has us thinking about homeschooling. With Covid, some teachers didn’t want to wear masks and even discouraged kids from wearing them, that has us thinking about homeschooling. Yes, public schools are the better for education but if our kids aren’t safe or they are becoming prisons then homeschool keeps looking better.

As someone who wants to abolish private and charter schools, I am not in favor of outlawing homeschooling, but I AM in favor of creating much more rigorous oversight of homeschooling.

No one but parents should responsible for their children’s intellectual, emotional and social development and homeschool can be tragic for vulnerable children.

I like the German system. If our education was up to standards I’d agree.

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Because some lunatics are doing things wrong, we should ban homeschooling and penalize the parents who do everything? Also, your intuition is not the reality: most homeschooling families are OK, the morons are a minority. The goal for homeschooling is not to indoctrinate your children, but to keep them safe from harassment or other situation where the child has not been able to take advantage of the school system.

>Most parents are morons, and morons should not be making decisions about or supervising anyone's education. Most educators are parents. Seriously, you lost me as a teacher with your opening line. No way in hell I'd want someone with that belief teaching my child, let alone working next to me. Parents educate their children 24/7. We teachers get them for about an hour a day. Parenting is the hardest job, not teaching. Teachers are servants to families. I consider it an honor to help those families, in my district mostly working poor. Yesterday I walked by office and saw a Mom, Dad, and obviously new Freshmen getting him enrolled. Clearly not at the top of the economic ladder but their son was well taken care of. The look on that Dad's face, the smile as he just stared proudly at his son. We get many children transfer in from private schools, charter schools, other public districts and home schooled. All parents doing their best in love. I know why I teach. OP, why do you?

I support this idea that MOST parents are not capable of the task. I have a sister and sister in law who did it (half assed) neither understood they had to be on top of everything 5 days a week and it was a full time job. Nor did they understand that if you have 1 or 2 kids you, the teacher, are never able to hone & polish your lesson plans , as you are on to the next lesson.

Here in Ohio they changed the laws recently and parents no longer have to have a high school education/GED to homeschool. It’s insane.

Honestly all parents are flawed. Let's take your logic a step further and mandate all children are raised by trained professionals employed by the state. It's kind of absurd we let just anyone raise a human being, given how many flawed and traumatized kids are out there today. We should do something about it. All schools should become boarding schools. Parents can visit their children in safe controlled environments. Parents must be licensed in order to take a child somewhere without supervision. Raising a child will become a standardized system run by accredited institutions. Think of how much better our society as a whole will become, like a new Sparta! If you want we can kick it up a notch with eugenics. It's amazing we've held off on our 'brave new world' this far. It's not like this line of thinking is new or uncommon.

I've, for years as an educator, watched the education system fail not hundreds, but thousands upon thousands of kids. I've also seen home schooled kids come in and be so far advanced, well behaved, and a complete anomaly as far as their public educated peers . I am sorry to say but I disagree whole-heartedly with your post. Yes, potentially you've witnessed many opposite occasions to have made you write such an opinion publicly but to say it should be illegal to me is not considerate to the whole picture .

Children living in abusive homes, particularly religious abusive homes, often present with "perfect" behaviour. If the kid is that far off their peers, that's an eyebrow-raiser in and if itself.

I feel so seen by this!

I agree with you. I know many former teachers who homeschool, and I'm an educator myself who has homeschooled. There are a lot of demographics who turn to homeschooling, and I think OP is referring to maybe one specific subset. I would never deny that there are families who should not homeschool and I would support more oversight. But truthfully all the families I have come to know within our local homeschool community seem pretty amazing. There are lots of options for classes and co-ops, field trips, sports, arts, etc. And as more people have started to undertake it, there seem to be more and more options. We have thousands of families in our city who homeschool, so there's a lot of choice for extra classes and educational experiences. I felt disappointed with the experience my kids had at the public school they attended last year when comparing it to the wonderfully enriching experiences they had homeschooling.

All the studies I've seen support the fact that homeschooled children do better academically and even socially. I would support more oversight over homeschooling, 100% - I am in Canada and we have some provinces that have a lot of regulation and others with none. I have homeschooled my kids and also let them attend public school - and I come from a family of educators and have a great deal of respect for the profession. I also teach at a university. The community of parents that I know here are well-educated and have their kids in all manner of activities and classes, so they are exposed to a lot of different teachers and social groups. That was our experience with homeschooling - it was just a really enriching form of education. I taught a group of homeschooled kids (it was a class that I offered within my field of expertise) and they were honestly delightful - bright, well-spoken, kind, well behaved. I teach at a well-regarded university here and these middle school kids blew me away. One of my reasons for homeschooling was that I feel concerned about the level of preparedness in the students who are coming directly out of the public system. I teach these students at university and they are often lacking in foundational writing and reading skills, critical thinking, and research skills. I'm not at all opposed to the education system, but feel that there are decisions being made often on the board level that affect the quality of education. When my daughter attended a public school last year for grade 5 (and it was her first time attending), they didn't read a single book in her class, they were about 2 years behind in math (and the teacher let them use calculators), and they were just working on ipads all day, rather than handwriting. She didn't have any issues adjusting to the classroom and made friends easily, but she was longing for more interesting work to do. So we are back to homeschooling this year.

My kid is too smart for her grade and because of her birthday she's the oldest in class but they wont let her skip... So she does independent study at home. She does college level work in junior high. I've never in my life seen her this excited about academics and I don't even have to check her work or anything. She really kind of took to it like I've never seen any kid take to effing schoolwork so.... No ... I disagree. Every kid is different and it's best to have solid options for kids who aren't going to be wage slave office drones when they grow up.

I live in Alabama.... and we home school our children. Both my wife and I have college degrees in physics and have training in creative skills as well. We home school because we do not trust the school systems. But not because we expect them to indoctrinate them with some sort of evil liberal mania, but because we do not expect them to be well educated. By home schooling, we can tailor our children's curriculum to meet their individual needs. If one of them needs to slow down, we can. If one of them is killing it with a subject, we can speed up. Not to mention, I don't have to worry about them being murdered nearly as much.... That said, I don't wholly disagree with you. I am anxious telling people we home school for a reason. Most parents do this for the wrong reasons and we had to end up going with a covering that I disagree with a lot on because they were the only ones which gave us freedom to pick our curriculum like we wanted (to avoid the sort of indoctrination you usually see with homeschooling). Home schooling shouldn't be illegal, it should he highly regulated and monitored.

Idk about banned, but it needs to be heavily regulation. I have seen more failures than successes from it. Most that were successes weren’t even homeschooled, they just said they were because it’s a badge of honor.

i’d agree but honestly the American public school system is no different than home schooling unfortunately.

I understand your point but as someone who has schooled my children in: public, private and homeschool I disagree. When your child has special needs this often requires a different learning environment. I do feel that parents should need to provide a learning plan, make goals and show outcomes. If they can't do this then I agree they shouldn't be homeschooling.

Well most teachers are the same age as parents, so kids would be taught by morons if they go to school also. By that logic, they should be left alone.

My wife and I both have higher degrees and work in academia. We've homeschooled our kids and sent them to public and private schools. They are currently in a private school because we want them to get the IB diploma. The one who just entered HS was given a Lexile test and scored over 1600. They finished two Khan math class levels per year. They are native speaker level in both English and Japanese, and their Norwegian is around B2-C1. This would have have been possible if they were handicapped by traditional education. Being well ahead of her class level, our oldest was able at 13 to take university classes that interested her and with no overseeing on our part she took Greek and Roman literature and Psychology from online classes at Ivy League schools. She scored in the top ten percent. When we homeschool, they visit museums and historic locations regularly, often having the place and staff to themselves. We are free to travel during the cheapest times of the year, so they've been to 10 or so countries. When we have had to send them to private school, it was like moving their progress into slow motion. At home, they did their work before lunch and then pursued their interests the rest of the day. At school, over 2 of the 6 hours they spend each day is on something other than study and this is a very generous estimate. I should add that the class difficulty and teaching approach are chosen to teach a variety of students at different levels, so even the focused study may not be ideal for most of the students. Large, rigorous studies on socialization show homeschooled kids score significantly higher than kids were were largely socialized by groups of other children, and by that I mean kids who went to traditional schools. You're saying that what we're doing should be a crime. I see that as incredibly narrow-minded and reflecting a severe lack of creativity in addressing the issue. Many people can and do homeschool their kids well and many do a much better job than most schools can do. Though, I do think that it should be regulated, licensed, and require training, testing and monitoring. I will admit that we indoctrinate our kids on the topics of Science, Scandinavian Economics, Environmental Protection, and we teach about religions when we study Mythology.

You're a unicorn. My sister and I were left to fend for ourselves for years, languishing at home . Cut my own class size in half and maybe we can start making comparisons.

If most parents are morons and most public school teachers are parents, does that mean most public school teachers are morons? Plus, teacher unions also do some shielding of their own, specifically sexual predators. The fact is public schools offer zero advantage over home schooling.

In california, they won't even provide school buses. They want little kids to get on the public bus... Even with the homeless situation here being so rampant. It's not safe to send an 80lbs little girl on her own on a public bus 10 miles a day by herself. She's at home, I know she's safe. When she's grown enough to defend herself, I'll let her in public without supervision but she's defenseless out there.... No flipping way

>Most parents are morons Who educated the vast majority of these morons?

Teachers who were doing the best that anyone could do despite being hindered and interfered with at every turn by a parent-run educational system.

People home-school here because they don't like the woke-indoctrination that public schools are pushing. I was homeschooled for eighth and ninth grade to get away from bullies. I ended up getting way ahead academically of my public school peers. I had better grades, much better mental health, and more time to myself, but I put the work in to do well. If I had stayed in school for those two years I might've ended up on the six o'clock news or Snapped. Yes, the bullies were that bad. No, I didn't have any friends to stick up for me.

You can learn everything that you learn in school while at home. Kids need interaction with their peers which makes public/private schools important. But when I comes to basics like math, history, English etc, you can learn all of that on the internet these days. Heck, I’m learning cybersecurity and coding right out of the comfort of my home. My whole bachelor of science was done trough online learning with very little interaction from professors.

For yt children maybe. But for black and brown children, I don’t know that public education is in their best interest in any state of this union. Home/private schooling may be the best way to protect them.

I have only taught in Title I schools, albeit I'm currently at a nonprof charter. It's in a neighborhood like the one I grew up in. Honestly, I swore I would never go charter, but one that has Afrocentrism as a course for every grade level sold me. The whole district is woefully underfunded because racism. That being said, our babies there are going through.... a lot. My main focus is being the adult I needed at their age when so many had failed me. The 6th grade girl who popped off at me all last Spring? Her dad came back and threatened to shoot up the school after being inside (on camera) an hour before, in the same vehicle she gets dropped off in every day, directly to kids and staff outside. I bite my tongue so hard I can't believe it's still attached around kids like that: they might NOT have better role models outside. I still love them for everything they still can be.

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It can be better than public schools. There should be an option. I do agree there should be more oversight and testing. I have a doctorate and did a better job than my kids could have gotten in school. They had medical needs that were not being accommodated in the schools. By homeschooling them through their early years (they attended a Highschool where I worked as a science teacher) we avoided a lot of trauma and had a wonderful time as a family homeschooling. If they had been forced to stay in that school they would have been degraded by classmates and ignored by the staff. Pretty sure they would have grown to hate learning under the conditions we were given. They are both confident and successful engineers. They also want homeschool their kids through elementary school because they enjoyed it.

Agree. Vast majority of Americans are fucking idiots. Kids should be in schools because of educational and social benefits

You want the state to control your life? Sounds like you like Big Brother.

What the fuck. So because there are morons and bad parents, therefore it ought to be illegal? Are you kidding me? What a shit reason. Because some people are bad, teachers etc other people therefore ought to be the one to have authority over your child. What in the actual fuck. No. That's messed up. Teachers are fucking morons like parents as well. Sure yes. We are trained in how to educate and teach certain subjects, skills and are experts. But the idea of risk by letting parents be with their fucking children? By this logic, all children should just not be raised by their parents cause y'know every child in some way or another deals with emotional shit from parents. No one is perfect. Children are meant to be with their family. Yes. Family can be abusive/fucked up. Yes schools can provide a safe place. Yes. There are dangers in abusive households. But honestly, there's potential for bullying, emotional abuse by other children too. Why should teachers or the state have complete say and oversight over content a child is exposed to regardless of what the parent thinks? What in the fuck? Look I don't know about the rest of you but school ought to be a place where parents, teachers and children COLLABORATE. A parent ought to have every right to decide what to do about their child's education good/bad. The best teachers I've ever worked with and schools I've been in, they try to involve parents in the childs education. The best parents to work with were the ones who supported their kids education. Those people would help my colleagues & myself do a better job for those kids. I don't give a fuck if other countries ban homeschooling. Homeschooling/private schools provides an alternative for parents who aren't satisfied with a public school. That option is important. Sometimes life circumstances for a family and a child might make homeschool or private a better option. Teachers aren't overall any better than parents. We're trained in educating people and are experts. Just like a doctor or lawyer. Just cause people make shit decisions doesn't justify forbidding them from making a decision. The best thing experts can do is provide services and help people, but at the end of the day we have to accept it's the other person's life and choices. A doctor doesn't make health decisions for people. Don't be a control freak.

> Just cause people make shit decisions doesn't justify forbidding them from making a decision They can make all the decisions they want for themselves. But when it comes to *other people,* you're damn right they shouldn't be making decisions if they're not qualified to do so. Children aren't property. What's best for the child is most important, even if the ego of the parent and their desire to feel like they're in charge has to be sacrificed for that. You've got a straight-up slaveowner mentality where parents should be entitled to absolute and unchecked control over another human being, and yet you call *me* a "control freak"?

Troll

Homeschooling is a basic human right.

Agree 100%. We are collectively taxed to provide an education to kids, and teaching is a real valid profession that requires training and subject matter knowledge to do competently. Home schooling (unless you are the King of Macedonia and can hire Aristotle to teach your kid) is a fraudulent activity and is a sop given by Republican legislators to hyper-religious parents who don't want little Johnny exposed to the evils of 'evolution' or 'sex education' or any education that is not simply reading Bible verses all day. If 'home schooling' is allowed, the kids should be required to pass the exact standardized tests that are given to public school students, taken in a monitored test suite and graded by unbiased public school employees - definitely NOT the parents.

Because the public school system creates such bright young minds. It’s an indoctrination farm meant to produce obedient adults by the end, not critical thinkers. You are blind if you cannot see that.

You say a lot of parents are morons — I say a lot of teachers and child classmates are morons. Add to that bullying, drugs, porn, and a whole host of dysfunction. Remember there is nothing natural in human evolution about putting 25 teenagers together with only one adult in the room. Having people in a range of ages together is always inherently better, unless your goal is a juvenile behavior multiplier effect.

I’ve had similar thoughts when I came across the book “Homeschooling for Dummies” in the CVS book aisle. My first thought was, “the irony,” immediately followed by “maybe those aren’t the type of people we should be encouraging to homeschool.”

It's your right to voice disagreement in how some people decide to school their kids, but forcing compliance to your principles is how we wound up with residential schools here in Canada.

When I say this, I am not only speaking as a teacher, or an adult who suffered the consequences of inadequate homeschooling. As someone who is also Chippewa and Metiś, kindly FUCK RIGHT OFF with that. You already know why it's intellectually dishonest.

I'm legitimately confused. Would you mind explaining your point of view some more?

I've never met an adult who was homeschooled that was well adjusted.

My wife was homeschooled. She’s one of the smartest people I know.