I agree on the God stuff, but I have a hard time imagining that even those people can't turn out a kid more educated than he/she would be in a public school.

As a homeschooler, with a lot of homeschooling friends, I'm somewhat biased on this issue (as are all of us, apparently). I think the vast majority of the time a homeschooling parent is more concerned about thier child's education than a public schooling parent. I mean, you have to be. Homeschooling is tons of work, and I see why some don't want to do it.

I don't think you need to remember all the subjects that a school teaches in order to homeschool. You relearn things as you go, you get tutors or join co-ops for the things that you aren't great with, etc. I think the reality is that most homeschoolers will be much more advanced in some subjects and less in others than their public schooled peers. It isn't the sort of education that fits in a box like public school does. I, for one, think that's a good thing.

So therefore we should force home schoolers into the government run system?

I don't remember a whole lot of trig. My 8th grade pre algebra daughter is doing basic trig functions. I relearn it, help her with it.

I think the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that people who are homeschooling have their sh*t together. I'm just not sure of the best way to accomplish that without trampling rights.

That's not what I am saying at all. I'm saying that homeschool educators should have to be able to prove they are qualified to teach the subjects, or provide someone who can. I am not saying that they should have to have a teaching degree, just that they have knowledge on the subjects.

I don't know that I see a huge rights question here. If there is one, it's no different than the one that comes with the requirement of a basic education or with child labor laws. If some black single mom said that she needed to take her twelve year old daughter out of school to take care of her younger siblings so that she could work, we/the government would say no. If a coal mining family in Indiana said that it needed to take their twelve year old son out of school to work in the mines to make ends meet, we/the government would say no. In both situations, the government would be acting to ensure that the kid is not deprived of an education. We/the government have the same duty with respect to home schooling.

There's a basic assumption here that I would like to challenge. Not all people need to know the same things. I remember almost nothing of 95% of what I learned in school. Yet I'm functioning in our society quite well. My husband hated school and did poorly in it, but he spent all of his spare time messing around with computers. Ta-da! Good job as a computer guy. If a homeschooled kid spends 98% of their time on art and only 2% on "basic subjects," what does it matter as long as he can provide for himself as an adult? It isn't like there is some age cutoff where we must stop learning. If an adult feels they were shorted in math by school or their parents or whatever they can always learn it on their own.

My kids are really young so we haven't yet run across any challenges that I haven't been able to meet with the help of the internet. But we don't teach in any formal way. We expose them to a lot of life and as many interesting things as we can and they learn. Humans learn. It's what we do. The only way to dampen that natural tendency is by forcing kids to learn what they have no interest in or simply aren't ready for.

Also, I'm really fond of this article about our education system.

The things I learn or relearn best as an adult--be they language, music, or physical/hand-eye coordination things--are things in which I acquired some basic competency as a child or youth when these things are most easily learned. The idea of a child spending only two percent of his school day on reading and math strikes me as a recipe for failure. Some tendencies are to be encouraged. Some are to be overcome.

I've been homeschooling for the past five years. (I do happen to have a college education, and my MIL is a teacher. ) I know a lot of homeschooled kids and they are all very advanced academically. Most graduate with their high school and two-year college degrees, as kids are allowed to start junior college when they are 16 here. The daughter of a friend of mine started at Gonzaga University as a junior this year- she's 18. (She's in their accounting program, and doing great).

As far as teaching subjects, what subjects I know I teach, and any others I can learn about beforehand or hire a tutor. (You'd all be surprised how many teachers stay up late to cram for subjects they have to teach the next day, btw.) My MIL is a teacher, but she taught 2nd grade and the Girl passed her up long ago, so I do nearly all her teaching and I decide on the curriculum. Our state's Office of the Superintendent (OSPI) very clearly lays out the learning requirements per grade level, and homeschooling resources are the same- and sometimes better- than the public school's.

This ruling in California will force the lawmakers to corrective action, of that I have no doubt. The homeschooling movement is too strong now, and public schools couldn't handle the influx of kids (particularly special needs kids) if they were to disallow it.

I challenge your 95% figure. It is probably a lot closer to 50%. So many things that you probably take for granted are somehow based in direct things you learned in school (for example, problem solving skills) as well as indirectly (for example, working as a part of a team).

I believe that the single most important thing that people learn in school is how to learn. You aren't going to acquire that skill by focusing all of your energies on one thing.

Also, education needs to be well rounded. In addition to core competencies (reading, writing, Arithmetic), art, music, and physical education are also important. Just because one may never become a scientist does not mean that one does not need to learn the sciences.

I'll bet your husband, "who did poorly in school" probably learned a lot more than he is giving credit to. For example, I'll bet he picked up a lot of math in school and I wouldn't be surprised if it were one of his better subjects (or at least "least bad").