California Court Agrees to Rehear Decision That Found Home Schooling To Be Illegal:
The Alliance Defense Fund reports the news.
Related Posts (on one page):
- California Court Agrees to Rehear Decision That Found Home Schooling To Be Illegal:
- No Constitutional Right to Home-School:
Shouldn't the main concern be for the well-being of the child? I have nothing against home schooling (especially given the state of American public schools) but parenting is guardianship, not ownership; parents don't - and shouldn't - have the 'right' to do whatever they want to their child, and though banning homeschooling seems excessive, I think some minimum level of government supervision is warranted.
Considering how bad many public schools are, where should the homeschool bar be set? I would say no worse than the 10th percentile of all public schools.
But, homeschooling would seem to approach the ideal school situation. The California teachers unions are always asking for more money to reduce class sizes -- what class could be smaller than a family. Programs where students work at their own pace are favored over lockstep grade programs where one kid might be reading at a third grade level but doing seventh grade math. Few homeschooled kids are afraid to go to school, whether for fear of being thought dumb or for fear of being bullied.
No, the main concern should not be the well-being of the child. At least, not unless we're talking about an individualized case of alleged abuse. The strong presumption should be that the parents are acting in the interests of their children.
It's easy for busybody social workers to second guess parents and conclude that in any given situation a parent might have made a different choice, and hindsight is always 20/20. So if we are serious about doing whatever is in the best interest of the child, then no family will ever be safe from heavy handed intrusion.
Often, homeschooled kids are much better educated than public school kids ... a recent Vermont state spelling-bee champion was home schooled.
Unfortunately, home schooling can also allow some rather extreme educational failures ... particularly when it is religious based. But then, so can public schools.
My purely personal observations have been that home school parents fall into two categories (1) very religious, and (2) very well educated, and sometimes, just sometimes, there is overlap between the two. The presumption should be in favor of the parental decision, and it should be a pretty significant presumption to overcome.
So long as every child, home or publis schooled, is held to some reasonable standards in order to progress ... whether it be standardized testing or something else, why should it matter how/where they achieved it? Any other approach would seem to be nothing more than crass catering to the education unions.
The problem being that "minimum level of government supervision" is an oxymoron.
While I agree with the sentiment (I attended a TAG program in elementary school entirely separate from everyone else), I'm pretty confident the trend is away from individual instruction and into mainstreaming - keeping everybody working at the same pace. TAG programs are becoming less and less common. At least in the public schools. Why do you think so many private schools taut that they DO focus on individual pace &progress?
Is the objection to religous training?
Is the objection restricted to evolution?
Or...is the objection to religious training?
Some time back, the Washington Post, reporting on a convention of evangelicals in DC, referred to them as poor, dumb, and easily led. Once the fan got cleaned off, the WaPo's first excuse was that they though they were saying what everybody knew.
Then they admitted they didn't know any evangelicals and didn't know anybody who did.
Then they admitted their intrepid reporter had done no research.
Then they did some research and found evangelicals were slightly above average in income and education. As to easily led, splintering churches and daughter congregations indicate something else.
Time to try a different insult.
But if a parent does a lousy job of home schooling, the direct harm is limited to that parent's family. If the state does a lousy job of schooling, on the other hand, the direct harm is spread all over the state (or school district, or whatever).
2. Your question about the "main concern" begs the real question: who decides what's good for a child's well-being?
If you are at all liberal, consider Bush and his faith-based initiatives and torture-approving AG being in charge of deciding what's "in the best interests of the child." If you are at all conservative, consider what Barney Frank or Ted Kennedy or Hillary Clinton in that seat instead.
As big a proponent of parents' rights as I am, I have to take issue with that statement. A child who gets a lousy education will have trouble getting a good job which creates problems that tend to spill over into the community. It's for that reason that I don't trust government with a monopoly on education.
Government promises to be the parent of last resort → some actual parents tend to slack off.
That's UN Convention of the Rights of the Child jurisprudence. US courts only permit "well-being" analysis when the home is broken and the state has to assign custody or where the state has found sufficient physical abuse to warrant intervention.
Why should we presume that? There is no reason to presume a parent who deliberately chooses to keep his kid illiterate is acting in the best interests of the child.
There is also no reason to presume a home schooling parent who is a functionally illiterate product of a public school is acting in the best interests of the child.
Since home schooled students seem to be performing above average, what would be served by forcing them into the mediocre public education system?
It should be the state's hurdle to prove that I am abusing my freedoms, not up to me to prove that I'm not.
If a homeschooling parent is functionally illiterate, it should be fairly straightforward for the state to prove that.
Is the illiterate home schooling parent acting in the best interests of the child? Any reason to presume that? Does the government-schooled functional illiterate become literate and educated upon giving birth?
The main problem with homeschoolers is none of the issues you noted above.
It is very specific: Some parents, certainly not all, but enough to matter, are inept about the standard subject matters they are teaching (as in the basics), and/or have no clue how to effectively teach the subjects to a child. Her private Christian school operates a homeschool outreach program in which they very inexpensively supply an excellent curriculum, with syllabus, teacher guides, student materials, homeschool teaching training, and even student field trips, the whole magilla.
The school will certify that the homeschooled kids have been taught the material if the parents will teach the supplied curriculum and the students take the private school's standard placement and evaluation tests annually.
The students receive credit that the private school will accept if they later enroll directly. The homeschool students are, for purposes of the law, effectively enrolled in the private school. So the parents would be exempt from any requirement for state certification.
The problem the private school encounters is that some parents just don't get it. They sometimes don't understand the material they are teaching, or they don't understand how to teach it. They are well meaning, but they simply lack the skills to effectively teach their children. As a consequence, their children do not get good instruction.
I don't think this is an unforeseeable problem. But that is not because the parents don't have a teaching credential, or because they want to teach "politically incorrect" material. It is because some homeschooling parents have less education or skills than they want their children to gain through homeschooling.
Private school outreach to homeschoolers is one approach that can bring deficient homeschooling up to par. I think it is infinitely preferable to requiring teacher credentials. As I understand it, these private homeschool outreach programs will not be affected by In re: Rachel L.
But in order for private outreach to be effective, some homeschooling parents must recognize their own deficiencies, sign up for assistance, and be willing to work with a qualified and trusted professionals to overcome them.
Wasn't an insult, it was an observation based on first hand knowledge. Wasn't even a generalization (at least not entirely). But to clarify ...
If you'll note, what was said was not that religious people aren't intelligent, just often they haven't much education themselves beyond the basics. Those religious people that I know who use religion as the reason for home schooling tend to have problems giving a good solid basic education. Maybe because they want to emphasize the religion over the math, reading and writing. I will say that their kids tend to be much better behaved than what comes out of the public schools.
I'd say that lots of intelligent folks want some religious aspect to their kids education ... look at any catholic school, and some of the christian acadamies. But those that get into such a huff over religion that they pull their kids out of the public schools in order to "do it themselves" ... tend to be a can or two short of a six-pack. Of course, I could say the same about some of the parents of kids in the public schools, but the frequency seems different. That's my opinion based on purely first hand observation. You're free to disagree, obviously.
I'm curious though why you'd ask whether the objection (and it wasn't an objection, by the way ... I still think those parents should be allowed to homeschool their kids, just think that they won't do such a hot job of it) was "restricted to evolution"? That's like asking if an objection was because they wanted to teach 2+2=5. You're welcome to your irrational delusions, but don't try and palm them off on me as science.
Guess it isn't just Islam that wants to take offense at any one who disagrees with their worldview. You gonna declare jihad, Richard?
The same can be said of some public school teachers.
When I checked around my area, just looking at the names, there were about 2 dozen like "Jesus Teaches" and "Faith" and less than three that weren't overtly Christian in title. I'm not sure you can draw any information on the population sizes from this measurement, however; I could easily see people who homeschool for religious reasons being very particular and thus forming smaller more numerous groups.
That said, there is some distinction between the position of a parent whose child is enrolled in a bad public school, and a parent whose homeschool attempt is deficient.
Both have some recourse to alternative schooling. But the former base their decisions on their evaluations of others' work, while the latter are by definition basing their decisions on their own evaluation of their own work.
Even people with the best intentions have an inherent conflict of interest when evaluating their own work. That is where some third party's evaluation can lead to useful results.
If evaluation of teaching is to be done, then I would favor standardized student testing annually for evaluation of all schooling, home, private, and public. I think credential requirements do not address, much less solve, the essential conflict of interest in self-evaluation. A homeschool teacher can be ineffective with, or without, a state credential. So can a public school teacher.
Here in Florida there is an ongoing news item about a public school art teacher who is in danger of being removed from the classroom because he seems unable to pass a math test that is part of the credentialing standard, even though this teacher has a longstanding and documented learning disability known as discalculia (sp?). What the ability to recite prime numbers, algebra, polynomial equations, etc. have to do with the teaching of art totally escapes me.
Maybe you overlooked that I said *direct* harm. All the harm to society that you cited are what I'd call indirect harm. But if you want to count indirect harm, the bad consequences of having the state do a lousy job teaching kids are much, much worse than the bad consequences of having one set of parents do a lousy job teaching kids.
Or, for that matter, Clinton and his child-incinerating AG, who launched the assault on the Waco compound because she'd heard reports that "the children" were being abused.
How often is that? It's obviously not a random sample, but the religious home-schoolers I know (including my wife) all have college degrees.
Forget about any deficiencies of the public schools, and just answer from the perspective of the home schooler who wants to let the kid go as far as he can.
Is there a point where the demands of the kid surpass the ability of the home schooling parent to provide for them?
Yup. And in this day and age, I'd say that's about the basics. And may the gods help you if its a liberal arts degree!
Sometimes that's high school.
Go to the library and skim a few homeschooling books. You'll find most of them talk about how to mainstream the child at some point. It's not an "everyone must do this until college" thing.
Some schools (both public and private) let students take courses a la carte. Sometimes home schooled kids take classes from the local community college to earn up some college credits.
And sometimes homeschooling works out just fine for high school. Most (probably all) of the Ivy Leagues have accepted kids applying directly from high school.
Of course there can be. So what? Do you suppose there is ever a time where the ability of a kid surpasses the ability of a public school, or a parents' budget? It happens quite often ... that doesn't open some procedural door to allow the government to step in and take over.
Nobody has a "right" to reach their full potential, because that requires unlimited resources. We all just do the best we can under the circumstances. Hardly pertinent to the home-schooling debate.
Because the parents are solely responsible for creating the child. If the state is permitted to have a stronger interest in children than do the parents, we're one step away from forced sterilizations and China-style breeding restrictions.
In any cities with an appreciable Catholic population, there's often a Catholic homeschool group, and it's usually separate from the other Christian group. Sometimes all three groups (and other specific subgroups) may all mingle at umbrella group events, but for the most part, they have their own worlds.
1) Why presume that the parent is functionally illiterate?
2) Considering that at least one functional illiterate somehow cheated his way through the tests for teacher certification and taught in public schools for 17 years, are parents who have the capability of homeschooling but send their kids to public schools acting in the best interests of the child? Not to mention that you're thrusting your kids into an extremely unnatural age-segregated society of children, which is far more likely to re-enact The Lord of the Flies every time the teacher looks the other way than to teach them how to act like adults...
Is there a point where the demands of the kid surpass the ability of the home schooling parent to provide for them?
I know very well that my capacity for learning far, far exceeded the ability of the public schools to provide an education. When I wasn't being terrorized by anti-intellectual junior thugs while the school authorities looked the other way, I was bored out of my mind for most of twelve years, and they're lucky that I was basically a very well-behaved kid or I've had done more than just daydream about destroying the building, preferably with the school administration trapped inside.
I suppose one could focus on the rights we don't have, strive for the minimums, tick off the deficiencies of public schools, argue for parents' choice, and champion mediocrity. But, I presume there are home schooling parents who aim for the maximums and kids who aim for the maximums, while both accept the challenge to be the very best they can be regardless of their rights. It's instructive to learn how those people meet that challenge.
I'd suggest that the accomplishments of the very best home schoolers are very pertinent to the debate.
That really isn't a reason to presume the parents are acting in the best interests of the child. Any jackass can reproduce, and remain a jackass. Reproduction doesn't take much talent. And, I'm not sure how a state's interest in a literate population leads to forced sterilization.
No reason at all. I'm referring the the subset that is functionally illiterate. Sorry for the confusion.
In a free society, people don't need to ask for permission to do something before they go do it.
I understand that some people don't like living in free societies. Not getting to regularly present your papers to the police to move around the country is a real downer to them.
In general, I agree. However, there is no reason to presume those free yoemen are acting in the best interests of their children. With or without papers, they are free to be jackasses without asking anyone's permission. Ain't this a great country?
In my case (homeschooled for 7th-12th grades) we got some math help from a parent of one of my friends (when I got to Pre-Calculus,) and I was pretty motivated in all of my other subjects -- I was also used to using upper-level high school and junior college textbooks, and, well, I was accepted directly into the engineering honors program at my university a few months after I turned 15. I got, ahem, really good SAT scores entirely through not-very-rigorous work with a Princeton Review guidebook; I'm not sure my mom actually knew I had the book.
I wrote a really long response but realized no one would read it. So instead, here's a short, directed answer to your actual question: you don't need a lab to do physics up to a more-than-adequate standard in high school, community colleges let you enroll as young as 12 and chemistry isn't somehow off-limits, and I learned more biology from my backyard and in our kitchen at age 14 than I did from my mandatory college class on the subject some ten years later.
I think you have an idealized notion of what education at most high schools is like, by the way: at our local high school, the only AP class offered was in English, and they only had that because of one insanely frustrated English teacher, and I doubt any of the kids I knew actually did a single experiment in any science class. At least when you homeschool you can truck off to your local science museum any time you want, or befriend a college professor and sit in on his lectures, or... well, let's just say there's a reason the superintendent thought I was better prepared than any of the seniors (and not just because I passed the dumb Ohio Proficiency test the first time when most of the kids at the school were taking at least one component - generally math or science - for the sixth or seventh time.)
Thanks for the info. No, I don't have an idealized notion of high school, but do realize public schools run from the very poor to the very good. I suspect the same is true of home schoolers. However, I have noticed that many vocal people defending home schoolers tend to use the standard of the poor public school as the their own standard. They will excuse poor home schoolers because they say there are also poor public schools. I have never considered mediocrity in one area to justify it in another. Someone once wrote we always have to keep moving to avoid the clutching hands of mediocrity.
So, it's interesting to hear from both you and Dan Weber about using the local JC. That seems to be a very good resource, and would have the facilities for both chemistry and biology, and the faculty for math.
IMO that makes it appropriate to look at the worst public schools.
Nick
There are numerous syllabi available for HSers. Not sure what your point is.
My question is what the hell is anybody doing relating religous reasons for home schooling to inadequate home schooling. As if there's a correlation.
Rural seems to want to fight. He should think twice. As I mentioned in my reference to a WaPo howler, religious folks are not poorly educated compared to the average. I may have mentioned this earlier. I am related to about six public school teachers. Maybe more. One, my age, talks with my wife about various issues in teaching high school. Both teach in middle-class-to-beginning-affluent systems. One issue is the sorded, fetid aspects of society which the schools either cannot keep out or have arranged for instruction. The other lady said she wouldn't be surprised if her oldest daughter, a teacher, would put the next generation, then four, into a Christian school. And, the next year, it happened.
Among the other lady's three daughters are three public school teachers and five grand kids and I foresee at least four of them being HSed. And I would expect three of the four to have a religious-affiliated syllabus.
So, anyway, somebody pushed rural's button.
This being a free country, there's not much he can do about it.
The ruling for "in re: Rachel L." specifically mentions that such programs are not legal. It had better explicitly mention it — that was precisely the situation that the parents were in. Most of the rest of the ruling went beyond the facts of the case; in that one item, the judges can be presumed to have ruled based on arguments which were actually brought before them.
To quote one frequent poster above who shares the confusion: "There is no reason to presume a parent who deliberately chooses to keep his kid illiterate is acting in the best interests of the child."
To understand the meaning of "presumption", consider the common term "presumption of innocence". Is there any reason to presume the innocence of someone who deliberately murders other people? No, but there is reason to presume innocence until you have specific reason to believe that this specific person deliberately murdered those specific people. In the same way (but not for the same reasons), we presume that the parents of children in general are the best representatives for their own children, until we have specific reason to doubt for that specific case.
So the problem with the specific comment I quoted is that the poster uses a specific case -- one where we KNOW (per assumption) that the parent is misbehaving -- to justify actions against _any_ parent.
I don't know the ADF's policy, but please consider that most homeschoolers depend heavily on the local library; a library that's using their money to buy things that only adults can see (to follow the implication of your phrase) has less money to buy things that are useful for homeschooling. It seems in their best interests to agitate to reduce or eliminate such purchases (and it seems reasonable for the public good to do so).
Again, though, I'm not sure what specific policy of theirs that you're talking about.
I guess we should be grateful that you claim to have anecdotal support for your sweeping generalizations. And yes, the following quote is a generalization: "Unfortunately, home schooling can also allow some rather extreme educational failures ... particularly when it is religious based."
In that quote you claim a general correlation between educational failure and "religious based"(sic) education. Your implication seems to be that there's causation there (it's pointless to cite a coincidental correlation).
"Guess it isn't just Islam that wants to take offense at any one who disagrees with their worldview. You gonna declare jihad, Richard?"
What specifically did he say that justifies that outburst? He didn't take offense because you disagree with his worldview; he took offense because you claimed people like him are, in general, poorly educated and unfit to teach their children.
My point was that, from the point of view of at least one experienced and successful HSer and private religious school HS outreach coordinator, there is a significant problem with some HSers that is not based on any religious issue.
IMO that makes it appropriate to look at the worst public schools."
A parent with half a brain would look at his local public school rather than the worst ones. That's his real alternative. Otherwise it's a bit like a New Yorker planning his picnic based on a Los Angeles weather report.
Note a subset of Muslims don't think girls need the same level or quality of education as boys.
"So the problem with the specific comment I quoted is that the poster uses a specific case -- one where we KNOW (per assumption) that the parent is misbehaving -- to justify actions against _any_ parent."
If we know parents misbehave, it's reasonable to withhold a presumption they don't. Courts are a special case, but in order to understand the meaning of presumption, we have to go beyond the special case and recognize the wider scope. These are the considerations that precede the laws which then direct the courts.
The reason why there IS a presumption in favor of the parents' judgment is that in fact, the parents are responsible for their own children.
You cite examples of parents who fail, but you're missing the point -- those parents are failing at THEIR responsibility. It's not the government's fault for failing to catch them earlier; it's their failure.
Honestly, I'm wincing at my own words in that last sentence. I *do* believe we could do more to catch failures sooner. I just don't see how to do that without empowering the people who are actually individually close to the imperiled students. We won't save anyone by empowering more people who don't have anything at stake.
The fact is that the single strongest correlation to educational success is parental involvement (meaning actual studying at home, not helping at school). Students in public and private schools do better when their parents are involved in their education. I can't find the study I used to quote, but it went a bit deeper, and found that students were most likely to stop at or before the same level of education as their parents, UNLESS their parents went to extremes to educate them. Homeschooling is the easiest predictor that study found for such familially unpredictable excellence.
I have no idea what the relative numbers of inept religious and non-religious HSers are. I was pointing out that some HSers were considered inept or ineffective by a skilled and experienced HSer, regardless of their motivations for HSing.
I was not referring to Muslims, or Christians, or any other religious based HSers. I responded to your question of whether objections to HSing were based on objections to religious training. I was pointing out that not all objections are based on such objections, but upon reasonable educational standards.
I hope that is clear now.
On grounds of fairness, the government should not hold private schools to standards that government schools cannot meet. Further, the government schools have much less excuse for their mediocrity, because they employ only certified professionals, and they command the resources of the entire community.
wdt: read up on the policies and activities of the Alliance Defense Fund. Home schooling is but a small part.
OK. I agree. Parents who fail at educating their kids are not acting in the kid's best interests. It then becomes the government's failure if it knows about the failures and does nothing.
One of the more inteesting aspects of the issue is the claim by HS parents that the public schools fail to educate the kids. Let's accept that for the moment.
However, then a subset of the HS parents turn around and tell us any parent has a right to home school without government inteference. That means they find it acceptable for poorly educated failures from the public schools to teach their kids. This implies they hold HS parents to a very, very low standard.
The public schools are not good enough to teach the kids, but its products are. Does this make sense?
The government should aim for excellence in whatever area it can. So should the HS parents. There is no reason to accept mediocrity in anything if it can be fixed. The excuse that someone else is also a failure is no excuse at all. When we are contrasting and comparing excuses for mediorcity, are we acting in the kids' best interests? That seems a very low standard.
And how does that differ from a public school teacher who is incompetent? Unlike parents, public school teachers are protected by powerful unions...
I doubt Bill or Melinda Gates spend any time educating their kids. Last I heard, the parents use nannies and the kids are in EXCELLENT private schools. Gates spends way too much time on the road and evening meetings to have much time to teach his kids.
It's not any kind of contradiction or fallacy, so yes, it does make sense. Home schools are different environments from public schools, so something that failed in one environment may well succeed in another.
In addition, the process of home schooling provides an opportunity not only to teach one's child, but also to learn. My mother learned Latin by teaching it to me.
Frankly, your argument claims too much, making a rebuttal too easy (you claim logical incompatibility, so all I have to do is show a conceivable example). If you'd made more sedate claims I might have to research to find hard data.
In that case, a parent who received a very poor education at a public school is now capable of effectively teaching kids. What is it about the HS environment that changes the parent from a poorly educated product of the public schools to a person capable of effectively teaching kids?
"Frankly, your argument claims too much, making a rebuttal too easy (you claim logical incompatibility, so all I have to do is show a conceivable example)."
Effective rebuttals stand on their own.
I didn't claim the parent was transformed; rather I claimed that the situation and environment was different (as it undeniably is). The simple fact that an illiterate (or functionally illiterate) person would fail teaching a class doesn't logically require that the same person must fail in teaching home school.
With that said, a literal transformation _is_ possible. To give a reasonably specific example, an illiterate parent may become literate while simply teaching his child about the alphabet -- the effort and repetition required are commensurate with that required to learn for one's self. My mother learned Latin, my wife and I learned sign language (just the hand alphabet at present, but our son's not in kindergarten yet).
This doesn't make me believe that transformation will happen always or often. It just means that your argument isn't worth as much as you claim.
"Effective rebuttals stand on their own."
What is this supposed to mean? A rebuttal is a response to a specific argument. Formally, it may not address any other arguments (in a court case, it must not). By definition, it serves its purpose only inasmuch as it points out a flaw in the opposed argument.
Thus, a rebuttal does not stand on its own; it stands or falls only in relation to the argument it claims to rebut. If your argument is actually flawed in the manner I claim, then your argument is rebutted.
I'm not refuting your conclusion. Like you, I believe that parents incompetent at teaching exist very commonly (most of us are incompetent at most things). However, I also believe that incompetence can't be filtered out by eliminating one specific cause; it must be filtered out by examining results. (This is also an axiom of management.)
Not all illiterates will be ineffective teachers, and not all ineffective teachers are illiterates.
I don't know anyone who doesn't think home schooled children should have to pass the same standardized tests that other children have to. Why is that not a fine way of evaluating whether home schooling is serving the child in question?
An illiterate is qualified to home school? I rest my case. There is nothing more I can say.
It sounds like a very reasonable proposal.
I'd be interested in what proportion of HS organizations support the position that HS kids should have to submit to the same standardized government tests as the public school kids.
I have encountered people who contend the government has absolutely no business mandating any requirements for HS. Some would go so far as to let illiterates home school.
Alas, I do know of some. I disagree entirely with them.
"Why is that not a fine way of evaluating whether home schooling is serving the child in question?"
I think it's excellent. In that way one tests the actual results rather than reacting to possible causes of defects. Freedom is maximized, while negative results are caught early.
There would be some contention about the contents of the test, but as current law and jurisprudence enumerates certain subjects at certain grades, it seems to me that a useful test is possible.
Reminds me of an epigram... "The wisdom of Lao Tsu, confounded by the question of a dolt."
Seriously, you fail to address my rebuttal, as I've patiently addressed yours twice. I've not attempted to claim that illiterates are qualified to teach home school; all I've done is rebut your claim that "The public schools are not good enough to teach the kids, but its products are. Does this make sense?"
The answer is that your question is a non sequitur; just because the adults were failed in some way doesn't mean they can't produce and be held responsible for what they produce.
Even better, just because those adults have failed *spectacularly* (you later insist that we consider the minority who are truly illiterate), we cannot presume that they must fail at later attempts, where the motivations, means, and distractions are entirely different.
One failure, however profound, does not guarantee eternal failure.
But now I have to stop rebutting your little argument, and go back to the central question. Why, you ask, should we presume that some parent will be able to homeschool, when there are some parents who (in your opinion) are *clearly* unable to homeschool? Let's grant for the sake of argument that there are some parents who are certainly unable to homeschool; for you perhaps the illiterate, for both of us presumably convicted child molesters (my point is that we can agree without reservations SOMEWHERE, so this needn't be agreement purely "for the sake of argument").
But in any case, the inability of that parent to homeschool is an inability of that specific parent. It's not something that is spread among all parents. Thus, we can presume that a random parent CAN homeschool, and we should revoke that presumption only when evidence is presented of an actual incapability.
Why should we treat education of children differently than we treat every other aspect of childrearing?
When I was homeschooling, I wanted both a curriculum showing what a kid should learn in each grade and tests to evaluate whether he had learned that. The only way to get anything of the sort was with an expensive contract with one of the private companies selling school materials. The government stuff was free, but worthless unless your goal was only to achieve semi-literacy...
That's one reason homeschoolers are often unenthusiastic about having their kids take the same tests as public school kids; other than such things as the SAT, that aren't controlled by state or federal departments of education, we suspect the tests will be a bad joke. The second reason is that often they want to teach something different than the official curriculum. IMO, that's good when you want to teach real history and geography instead of PC "social studies", and bad when you want to substitute Genesis for Biology - but that's their right...
And finally, a fair number of homeschoolers are working with kids with serious learning disabilities, that the schools were warehousing instead of teaching. Standardized tests aren't much use in these cases.
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As editors, we reserve the right to delete posts, and even to kick out posters, though we hope that both of these will be exceptional events. (We also reserve the right to be busy with other things, and therefore (1) not remove all the posts that might merit removal, and (2) ignore demands such as "You should remove A's posts, because they're just as bad as B's!")
Here's a tip: Reread your post, and think of what people would think if you said this over dinner. If you think people would view you as a crank, a blowhard, or as someone who vastly overdoes it on the hyperbole, rewrite your post before hitting enter.
And if you think this is the other people's fault -- you're one of the few who sees the world clearly, but fools wrongly view you as a crank, a blowhard, or as someone who overdoes it on the hyperbole -- then you should still rewrite your post before hitting enter. After all, if you're one of the few who sees the world clearly, then surely it's especially important that you frame your arguments in a way that is persuasive and as unalienating as possible, even to fools.
Our goal is to provide an interesting and pleasant environment that can help inform readers. To do that, we'll occasionally have to exercise our editorial discretion. Think of this as an in-person discussion group, where having different voices is critical to a great conversation -- but where sometimes the leader has to deal with cranks who sour the conversation more than they enliven it.
Naturally, there's always a risk that this discretion will be used erroneously, no matter how well-intentioned the editor. But discussion groups (especially on the Internet, but also off it) generally need an editor who'll occasionally make such judgments.
And, remember, it's a big Internet. If you think we were mistaken in removing your post (or, in extreme cases, in removing you) -- or if you prefer a more free-for-all approach -- there are surely plenty of ways you can still get your views out.