It's a tool parents have to improve their child's education, but it can also be abused to damage the child's education. The state has an interest in regulating it and making sure children receiving it are still meeting educational benchmarks.

I think it works best in tandem with public schooling rather than as a replacement, but I know most people talk about it strictly as an opposing option.

I was homeschooled K-12 and never went to college, so home school is literally all I know and I have thoughts.

1. Motivation matters - I was home schooled for religious reasons by parents who were themselves educated but wholly unqualified to teach a single child much less 4 kids. They homeschooled us primarily to avoid the indoctrination of the secular world, where the lies of evolution and gay baby killers reigned supreme. Thus, I was not well educated and didn’t realize it until I got into the work force. I have been battling crippling imposter syndrome ever since I realized how deficient my education was - I’m still in the process of understanding the scope of that deficiency
2. oversight is not optional. In my situation, we were homeschooled without any government involvement or oversight in any way. My parents told me at the time that this was how the laws in my state worked but they also told me to stay away from Truant Officers so I think they were lying. I had no sense of equivalency or where I stood compared to my peers until I was in the process of testing out to get my GED (because weirdly, prospective employees weren’t keen to accept the “diploma” my dad had printed from MS Word) that I saw my percentile rank in various subject
3. Unless you are an educator, don’t try to run a curriculum. If you’re going to homeschool, pay a tutor. If you can’t pay a tutor, probably don’t home school

I know that last bit sounds extreme and I don’t think my home school experience is typical so take it with a grain of salt.

Edit: none of this even addresses the social impacts, which are intense if not mitigated with a lot of sports and group activities, etc

Homeschooled kids do things like base their opinions on, "I have heard" instead of citing empirical proof from rigorous sources.

I would not say "often" better academically. It's up to the resources the parents have. Poor families doing homeschooling end up poorly educated, wealthy educated families are more able to educate. Humans already did this up until the advent of modern public education systems.

In a public school, the idea is that both the rich family and the poor family are offered the same education, and this is better for society as a whole. I will agree that public education isn't perfect and could be improved in almost every way, but opting for private education is leaving your child's future up to random chance as dictated by your social status.

At some point you will try to socialize your homeschooled kid. If you live in a rough community where drugs, gangs, and teen pregnancies are relatively common, you won't be able to avoid the same influences you're trying to avoid in public schools. Except now it will be all they know.

IMO exposure to a larger population of people in a public school gives kids more reference for all the kinds of people in society, and control over who they want to interact with. Then it's the parent's job to make them feel empowered (not pressured) to make the best choice they have available.

I was homeschooled until 8th grade, when I was put into public school. Good take.

I learned so much more when I was homeschooled. I was a reader, so I could get all of my work done myself in about 4 hours per day. It was great, honestly.

I stand by the statement that public school doesn't teach you how to learn, it teaches you how to follow instructions. I would even go so far as to say that public school killed my love for learning.

Out of all my teachers, I had maybe a handful that were passionate about learning. I'm super grateful for my 8th grade English teacher, who did an in-depth unit on the Holocaust and had us meet a survivor. I first heard the "First they came for the socialists..." quote in her class. I don't think I could have ever been prepared for today if it weren't for that.

My 10th grade English teacher as well, who was a friend and guide in the right direction, despite the fact that I was an antagonistic right-wing little shit.

Which leads into your point about peer pressure. My school was 93% white, and the attitude matched. I had racist friends. Hell, I was saying racist shit all the time with absolutely no bearing on what the fuck I was really doing, other than following the lead of my shitheel friends.

It's also hard to avoid getting crushed by the system. I remember one time, somebody said a swear word in the back of my computer class and nobody snitched so the teacher collectively punished us by making us write 100 (completely unrelated to the class) word definitions 3 times each. I complained to the principal, and he chuckled and said, "I'm going to back the teacher."

I won the election for Student Council President in 10th grade against the son of the woman in charge of Student Council, and they literally just ran the whole thing without me. Then, I tried out for the Radio program and didn't get selected over the leagues of thickly-accented rednecks who read out loud at the speed of one word every 2 seconds.

So, I started smoking pot and went back to being homeschooled, also taking classes at the community college.

So yeah, you're pretty spot-on.

But you're also right about the socialization aspect. I would not be at the level of socialization that I am now without just going through the shit in public school. If the system were fixed, public school would be the better option. Right now, the way we educate is primarily the problem. These kids sit around so unstimulated that they're already trying to numb themselves with drugs. It's fucking ridiculous.

I think that the solution is homeschool co-ops, but even those aren't perfect. I went to a co-op that was extremely religious and incorporated that into the science lessons, for instance.

Generally negative.

If parents have pedagogic experience in teaching, understand the possible downsides and how to mitigate them, then I can understand homeschooling. Otherwise I'd recommend normal schooling.

Depends on the parents. Lotta nutjobs and alot of lazy people and both amount to kids getting an inferior education. But committed to putting in the work, with the time to due so, and good resources in your community to assist you, because you're unhappy with the quality of public education and/or the amount of propaganda kids are forced to sit thru? Good for you, home school away.

Its possible that it could be good in theory but I have never encountered it being done well in practice. Just so you know though, and maybe its just my area, but I thought public schools were required to make available various things from school like sports and clubs to homeschoolers so they need not be socially isolated when homeschooling.

I mean there are a lot of aspects to this. Homeschooling allows abusers to totally isolate children from society. If you have an abused or neglected child the teachers who are mandatory reporters may be the first to see and intervene. Parents maybe totally unwilling or unable to teach their children see the unschooling phenomenon. This leaves their children totally unprepared for life or years behind their peers academically.

On the other side of the coin you have schools that teach to test and rote memorization as opposed to critical thinking and deep understanding of subjects. They seem to turn knowledge from a wonder to be sought to a job to be avoided. The schools themselves are more about training people to submit to top down authority and tolerate a workday then education. Depending on the school they operate as school to prison pipe lines locking students into caracal systems.

That people homeschool shows the failing of our education system and society. I have wondered about the social aspect as we live in a deeply violent and domineering society. Are homeschools mass shooter or abusers at a higher per capita ratewhen controlled for other factors. That is to say if the lack of social skills don’t manifest as antisocial behavior it shouldn’t be a problem. I certainly am underwhelmed by the social tendencies of many Americans even the charming ones.

The studies that show that homeschooled kids perform better academically are actually flawed. Adults who were homeschooled are much less likely to finish higher education and statistically have lower incomes than adults who attended school.

https://crhe.org/research/

It depends on a lot of factors, but it boils down to two things: Is the parent treating it with the importance it deserves? (Note this includes not doing it alone) And does the kid have the temperament for it?

I think it is a good idea as long as a general national academic path is followed so the learning we are doing has the basic fundamentals. Socialization needs to occur as well so home-schooling should be offset by community events to get those tykes used to the social messes that can be created and how to handle them stoically.

I'm surprised by the amount of unfounded and uninformed opinions, whether for or against, that have a lot of upvotes. Then there are people who have been homeschooled, homeschool their kids, or work with homeschooled kids and commented to share information. Those have far less upvotes. Wtf. Listen to other people's experiences.

Growing up, everyone felt pity for them, as they grew up sheltered and not very well educated. In modern times, I feel like this has been magnified significantly.

I'd only do it if your kid was getting the absolute shit kicked out of them at school(s). Social media makes it extremely easy to get chain-bullied at multiple schools even with a transfer or two.