[baddox]

It seems like your arguments assume that homeschooling is, at least on average, worse for the children than public schools. If homeschooling might be better for the child, then it doesn't make sense to talk about whether "parents have the right to deny" children public schooling.

[kevingadd]

The issue is not whether the average homeschooler is better or worse. The issue is the difficulties involved in ensuring homeschooling does not fail children. I was hoping the parallel between that and my later points about unlicensed doctors practicing over the internet would be somewhat evident.

My post didn't actually say that the average homeschooling education is worse for children than a public school, but I do happen to believe that it is :) This is, however, not based on scientifically-gathered data, so I would welcome data to the contrary.

[dllthomas]

Given how frequently public schooling fails children, I think we should probably be somewhat liberal about permitting other options.

[kevingadd]

Liberal is great, as long as we don't completely fail the children. Going too far in the other direction and failing the children worse is a pretty shameful response.

I can understand the desire to do the complete opposite of the public school system if you believe it is the source of all your woes, but it kind of defies rational logic to abandon things like objective measurements, professional training, etc.

[dllthomas]

In many areas, you're also abandoning drug dealers and metal detectors. I'm not convinced that - for some schools - simply keeping children out of those schools mightn't do more good than harm even before you start trying to educate. At which point, professional training is kind of irrelevant. Of course, for most of the children in those schools, their parents aren't very able to home-school either. Regarding objective measurements, measure away - I've no objection to measurement.