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Comment by brodouevencode | Hacker News Reader

For this anecdote I can provide you with about 20 anecdotes that are the complete opposite in nature. There is no regulation, but does there need to be? Homeschoolers take the same standardized tests as everyone else - that's about as regulatory as it needs to be (and even that's questionable).

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This is just not the case. In many states it's nearly completely unregulated, and the home school lobby is working diligently to strip even those regulations.

You didn't answer his question - why are regulations on teaching your own children in your own home so necessary?

Stripping myself of my morals and ethics, sure. Maybe I don’t need to give a shit whether someone else’s kid has any future. I’d rather care.

This assumes government schools has everyone's morals and ethics in mind.

What we see in the education debate is a consistent lack of care for the kids who get ahead (why'd they get ahead of my kids?) and a consistent care for the kids being left behind, and that produces a trend to regulation and centralization that extinguishes anything good. The same forces that take children away from highly dedicated parents and put them into underfunded districts take advanced course tracks and the creativity of teachers away from them when they get there.

This is an insightful way of framing things. It had not occurred to me to look at it this way. It describes my own issues with school growing up and my own interest in homeschooling — the chance to provide individualized instruction and to tap into play and creativity. Schools can provide a baseline but for bright, motivated students they can be like a straightjacket. It's interesting and I suppose logical that the arguments against homeschooling focus on the idea that the practice dangerously removes that baseline. (I don't find those arguments particularly convincing because I had troubled peers who I went to public school with, and the school system helped precisely none of them substantially improve their lives.)

On top of that there is an element of "liability control" where putting troubled kids in the same unsuccessful system as the other troubled kids makes the kids the problem, while putting them in a different unsuccessful system, which counts as an action in the non-utilitarian trolley problem ethics of our culture, and leads to some fraction of blame falling on the individual who tried to change the outcome.

Because one day those children are going to grow up, leave the home, and interact with other members of society. At that point it becomes a public interest.

> At that point it becomes a public interest.

This doesn't seem to be so self-evident. Why do I care about the education of those around me?

An educated populace...

...generates more economic activity

...understands basic civics and government

> ...understands basic civics and government

The public school system isn't doing that for our fellow citizens already. I fail to see why it would be worse if the failure happens at home rather than in a government building.

My comment was a direct response to the question "why should I care if my neighbors are educated?"

And that's a fair criticism of some public schools. And some home-schoolers. And probably some private schools.

Because they're going to be your neighbors, your co-workers, and your fellow voters.

That's also why you care about the state of the public school system, even if you have no kids (or they don't attend public school).

A well-educated population is generally considered to be a good thing. That’s why schooling is compulsory in almost every country in the world.

This seems to be the conclusion. I’m not sure how people arrive here.

Sure. I just don’t think this argument that any child who is homeschooled is going to grow up and be a complete idiot and never contribute to society is a good one, especially since all of the comments in this thread making that argument are using anecdotes as evidence. I recently found out the band director at my high school was fucking kids. Can I use that to argue against all public schools? Of course not, so others should not be able to say “well I knew a kid who was homeschooled by a religious weirdo so all homeschooling is bad.”

It’s just odd that so many people here seem to be so in favor of the “sit down and shut up” style of schooling. Isn’t it pretty widely agreed upon that US public schools suck? Don’t you think there are some parents who are homeschooling their children explicitly because they feel their public school would not prepare them to be good members of society?

Yes, absolutely it is pretty widely agreed that US public schools suck. We have cities and states with no math and english competency attainment requirements. Let that sink in!

You're assuming that these existing regulations (assuming the ones in public education) produce a net good. Based on what I'm seeing from here that's not so much the case.

Because one of the biggest ways that child abuse is detected and abated is by interaction between students and children. Isolating children in insular communities is a really great way to abuse them and hide the evidence of it.

Regular interaction with non-custodial adults provides more opportunities for child abuse to be uncovered and stopped. You can go on youtube and hear myriad testimonials from former homeschooled kids that were abused for years on end. And nobody knew. Nobody even had a chance to know.

Because children aren’t parental property and their education is a obligation parents have to them, not a service for the benefit of the parent. Standards for education of children in the home are needed for the same reason as other standards for care, conditions, and treatment of children in the home are.

> Homeschoolers take the same standardized tests as everyone else

Varies a lot by states. Some states have no assessment requirement for honeschooled students at all, some have a requirement to keep a portfolio which may or may not be reviewed, some have an standardized testing requirement with more flexibility and lower frequency than public schools, and some have homeschool students take the same standardized tests as everyone else.

https://education.uslegal.com/homeschooling/homeschooling-la...

Homeschooling famillies do not do the same tests. And especially families whose kids are less likely to ace those tests will avoid them when they are voluntary.

In most states, they absolutely do the same tests. We are, most often, required to by the state. The tests are provided (mostly) by the same two companies that provide the testing materials for the majority of end of year public school testing.

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