Aug 2023
This is a fairly long comment I wrote from a Hacker News post about a Washington Post article.
Keep in mind, this is about homeschooling policy not whether any individual should or should not homeschool.
A couple things to pull out…
There’s no question that, in some cases, homeschool is worse for a child’s development than public school. I’ve personally seen children who were falling behind because their parents were not able to teach them well.
Homeschool is higher variance than public school - the children who do poorly probably do worse and the children who do well often do very well.
A meaningful percentage of homeschooled kids emerge from high school way beyond expected grade level and research backs this up – individual tutoring is by far the most effective education method and children who receive good individual tutoring tend to be at least a full grade level above their peers. When homeschooling works, it really works.
On average, the US public school system is mediocre by world standards and in some areas it’s an utter failure. Parents must be trusted with the education of their children because they’re in the best position to know what their child needs. That trust comes with real responsibility, so some government regulation is in order, but good policy must begin the basic assumption that parents – not the government – are responsible for children.
Of course, some parents are totally disinterested in their children's education but I believe this to be the exception. Most parents take a careful interest in their children's education, especially when asked to make real choices.
This question is comparable to the economic choice between capitalism and socialism, or more specifically between free markets and centrally planned markets. Just like capitalism is the best-bad economic system we have, parent-choice is the best-bad educational system. Centrally planned educational systems tend to bloat over time and are at risk of corruption.
The only way to hold these systems accountable is to allow parents the chance to opt out.
When a social failure happens at a public school - a child fails a class, drugs are found, a teenager gets pregnant, there’s a fight - most people don't question the public school system itself. But when a social failure happens to a homeschooler, we wonder if the system of homeschooling is broken. In reality, stories of homeschooling failure are probably no more common than stories of failure in public high school, they're simply more attention-grabbing.
The article mentioned at the top of this essay includes this quote: “Eventually, something horrific is going to happen [to a homeschooled child].”
Given enough time and enough children, this is true without a doubt. And while I hope we can find a way to avoid anything horrific happening to anyone, we must not forget how many social failures happen every week in public high schools across America.
Policymakers must begin with the understanding that (1) public schools have problems, too, and (2) we should not expect to find a "one size fits all" solution to educating children.