Homeschooling

Homeschooling is a tool that many fundamentalists use to combat the perceived "sinfulness" of a public education system that teaches evolution. Since creationism won't be taught to their children in school, they take matters into their own hands and begin educating their children from home. A 1999 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics (U.S.) found the majority of people homeschooled their child(ren) because They can give their child(ren) a better education at home
There exists a poor learning environment at school
They have an objection to what the school teaches
Religious reasonsWhile none of them directly state it, all these reasons can be attributed to either objection to evolution or the absence of creationism in schools.What is your take on homeschooling, when practiced by fundamentalist parents as an objection to the teaching of evolution in public school systems? Do you feel as if these children are getting deprived of a proper education? Are they being "brainwashed"? Should homeschooling be illegal, especially when implemented in this manner?
My curiosity of your opinions is driven by the fact that I was raised under these conditions. (I somehow managed to not grow up to be a creationist.)

Hi Granny,Thank you for the response. I agree that it should be regulated. Most parents lack teaching degrees in one subject, let alone all of them. An interesting statistic though: in spite of the parents' lack of teaching credentials, homeschoolers fair better on standardized tests than their public school counterparts do. I'm not exactly sure why.
Regarding the lack of socialization, I think that the children are learning to be closed-minded by not being surrounded by differing opinions and worldviews. An example can be found in that article you posted:

quote:

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"He probably knows it better than the kids who have been taught evolution all through public school," Polly Brown said. "But that is in order for him to understand both sides of that argument because he will face it throughout his higher education."

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Despite the boy's "knowledge" of evolution, with the mom claiming that he knows more about it than the other kids do, he STILL doesn't accept it.

That's true. Also, there're no classmates to distract them from studying. Agreed. That's exactly why I proceeded to learn about it: I figured if it wasn't true, I could easily disprove it I was wrong though. You know, I've never thought of that before. There is an obvious racial disparity in test scores. This disparity is virtually non-existent among homeschooled students though. Being homeschooled, I can say that I'm an exception, but I know exactly what you're talking about. They also lack knowledge of things like pop culture — something that your average student loves talking about.

Glad to meet another homeschooler. Don't worry, I understand the misconceptions — I know that there's variety among homeschooled people and that we're not all closed-minded clones. However, the fact that the majority of people homeschool their children because of religion leads me to believe that they're doing it for the wrong reasons and they're doing them a great disservice by keeping them sheltered from mainstream science. Don't you think this problem could be eliminated by ensuring that the parents are equipped to teach and are providing the right curriculum? It's good to hear they weren't fundies. I had to learn about evolution behind my parents' backs.