[fnordfnordfnord]

>Allowing home schooling is even more sick than that kind of bullshit these Texans are doing.

I agree in principle, but what if Christian religious ideals were compulsorily taught in Texas public schools?

>Not to mention the fact that home-schooled kids are far, far behind "ordinary schooled" kids in terms of knowledge. How should they be other, after all?

I am an instructor at a small College in Texas, and I have had a few home-schooled students (and perhaps there were some that I did not recognize). After my experience with them I can say the following: One performed significantly better than public school students in at least one subject (math in one memorable case). Most performed worse or seemed deficient in at least one subject. All seemed to lack social skills to some degree. As an example, the student who was so good at math had no idea of the existence of the civil rights movement of the 1960's. There were other gaps in his knowledge of recent history, but that one stuck out the most to me.

[tjr]

More anecdotes: I was mostly not home-schooled. Maybe for a year or less altogether, for various reasons. I lack social skills to some degree. :-)

But more interestingly, I have absolutely no recollection of being taught about the civil rights movement in school. Certainly I have learned about it, but if I learned anything about it in school, I don't remember it.

Seymour Papert asked a rhetorical question in his book The Children's Machine:

On my reckoning, the fraction of human knowledge that is in the [school] curriculum is well under a millionth and diminishing fast. I simply cannot escape from the question: Why that millionth in particular?