> I know so many poorly educated homeschoolers whose lives have been destroyed with no hope of recovery by the complete lack of skills their hyper religious parents imparted them with, in jail, broke, unable to hack it in college and too lacking in common sense to make it in the trades or professional work, with living standards insanely far below their parents.
As long as we're trading samples from a single observer's recollections: mine are different. I never homeschooled myself, but I had several friends in high school who had homeschooled until then who were well-educated, were in advanced science and math etc. They've been fine since then, too. Not all parents are good teachers, but many do quite fine.
I’ll add my anecdote. One of my relatives homeschools their two children. They are part of a commonwealth(?), and follow the Thomas Jefferson method which I think is kind of popular? One of their children who is 8 cannot read. The other is 6 and is far behind in all disciplines. My relative loves their children and wants the best for them, but is failing. Won’t send their kids to school for religious reasons. I’d like to know the chances of a single adult being a good teacher vs. at least one of multiple trained adults being a good teacher. I’d also like to see the downside of lack of socialization.
The vast majority of states have little oversight on homeschooling, some have none whatsoever. There’s a powerful lobby called the Homeschooling Legal Defense Association that led massive deregulation since the 80s.
In some states people who are under investigation for child abuse are allowed to take their kids out of school (the place that abuse is usually reported). The situation is pretty bad.
There was a whole John Oliver episode about it just weeks ago.
As long as we're trading samples from a single observer's recollections: mine are different. I never homeschooled myself, but I had several friends in high school who had homeschooled until then who were well-educated, were in advanced science and math etc. They've been fine since then, too. Not all parents are good teachers, but many do quite fine.