Absolutely insane take.

This is a street that goes both ways. I had parents who were caring, nurturing, and not even remotely abusive. The other children at my public school were physically and emotionally merciless, and the school didn't give a shit. When I started standing up to my bullies and fighting back, I was the one who got in trouble, not them.

In my n=1 data set and lived experience, public schools are the evil, twisted abuse enablers, not the parents.

And you don't need n=1, this is extremely common.

Not sure which is worse.

I have an education thanks to my family and despite public education. I was partially homeschooled. It was my family who helped me go through high-school, not the other way around. For the high-school I went to, I could have (and almost did at one point) ended up being dead, for all they cared.

I won't deny there's abuse and cases in which public institutions have helped and saved people, but by assuming that this is the norm you completely overshot it here with your absolutism.

I disagree with your risk assessment, though. Most kids who are abused are most likely to be abused by a parent, not a stranger. (source: https://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/media-room/nationa...)

Homeschool requirements vary wildly by state, and even in states with more requirements like testing, kids slip through the cracks. I was never required to take a standardize test by either of the states I lived in (Washington and Oregon). I knew a homeschool girl my age (12) who could not read. Her 16 year old brother could read, but could barely do math. They had no learning disabilities, their mom just wanted the welfare paycheck for them and otherwise ignored them. She already had a 5 year old and a newborn as well to keep the gravy train coming.

I had very little access to mandated reporters, and again nothing enforced by law. Those I did have access to, like my annual visit to my doctor, my mother insisted in sitting in the exam room with me. The doctors made no effort to remove her (they asked me in front of her if I was comfortable with her staying. Of course I said yes, I would have been severely punished at home if I admitted I wanted her to leave.)

Safety rules are not made with the 99% of good people in mind, but to catch the 1% of bad actors. Homeschooling is attractive to good parents because they can improve the outcomes for their children. It is also attractive to bad, abusive parents because it removes children from any external oversight and support structures outside their abuser's control.

I am not trying to downplay any risks here, and even less disregard very unfortunate situations and cases that for sure happen more often than they should.

However I can't see how this becomes as absolute as the parent comment is suggesting, in which by default it is assumed that parents are nefarious agents and public school is the saviour.

Which brings me to:

> Safety rules are not made with the 99% of good people in mind, but to catch the 1% of bad actors.

The risk in accepting this, as it happens so often in society, is ending up having to downgrade everyone to the worst case scenario, and working from that.

> The risk in accepting this, as it happens so often in society, is ending up having to downgrade everyone to the worst case scenario, and working from that.

I think most folks would be fine with homeschooling if there were reasonable regulation for it, including sharing your curriculum and schedule with the state, and allowing surprise inspections during your schedule, so that abuses can be found.

The biggest problem with homeschooling right now is that the lobbying group for homeschooling is vehemently opposed to any form of regulation, which makes it the wild west, which allows abusers to flourish.

If homeschooling wants to prevent the worst excesses, it has to standardize oversight and enforcement mechanisms.

"Zero regulation is the only acceptable amount of regulation," the talking point, enables abuse.

Not by the 99% who are doing it well!! But by the few bad apples out there.

By my thinking:

   - Requiring a child be registered with the state as homeschooled
   - Requiring a background check on parents who homeschool, and disqualifying those with child abuse priors
   - Taking annual standardized tests (grade level or better)
   - Surprise inspections (once a year? With parent-requested follow-up surprise inspections, if the first happened on a bad day)

And the homeschooling community should want these things too, because they would provide a firm rebuttal to anyone attacking the practice from a perspective of abuse.

But now... when some abuse happens... but there are continued calls for zero oversight...

That's not a great look.

Any distraction from a school's primary mission to educate disparately impacts the people who need it most.

School's primary mission is to serve the needs of a societies children.

Inactive children don't learn as well as active children (especially boys). Hungry children don't learn as well as feed children. Abused children don't thrive.

I'm deeply curious why you don't want public school children feed or protected from abuse.

My children are more important to me than, well... just about anything. Including your children or anyone else's.

If other people are so subhuman as to harm their own children, then that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make so that my children aren't abused by the public school system, aren't turned into idiots by the public school system, and aren't indoctrinated by the public school system.

Do you think that when there's a string of tweenage suicides, that the contagion didn't spread via public schools? Am I supposed to put my kids at risk of that, just so you can pretend you'll catch the 1-in-10,000 of horrific abuse, which CPS will just ignore anyway?

You offer a bad bargain. I pay everything and get nothing. Fortunately (and I mean this in a way that the words just can't do it justice... "fortune" of the sort like out of Greek mythology where the gods have smiled upon me and bestowed every blessing and boon) I don't have to take that deal.

Primary schooling's mission is to educate children about capabilities to provide for themselves and those in there care as well as operate as how to perform and behave as productive members of society. Ancillary benefits are nice, but not required, to achieve that mission, thus should only be included in the strategy to the point that they support the overall mission.

So kids learn better when both active and not hungry? Yep, we know this, and thus justifies having lunch, cafeterias, gyms, and PE class. (We should have more funding for these things).

So kids learn better when not abused? Yep, we know this, and thus schools are typically required reporters. (And thank goodness they are -- we should fund more training on these things).

What you missed in my prior comment was that the argument wasn't against any of these outcomes. It was bemoaning that society requires these ancillary benefits in schools in order for society to continue operating at all, not that it's nice that schools are available as resources to provide what should be a child's primary caregiver's responsibilities.

Thus my comment. Schools shouldn't have to be police, meal kitchens, exercise facility, or child care in order for society to function. But they too often are. It's a failure of policy to which no one holds others to account. And insisting or expecting that schools provide these as primary responsibilities does harm to the students to whom need these in their lives, but for the school would not have them.

Help the marginal student? Yes, absolutely, we should fund.

Provide long term assistance (disguised welfare) through the schools? Not appropriate, a full change in situation is warranted for basic needs to be met for children by their caregivers.

Consider this. During the pandemic, we could have conscripted all school teachers in the first few weeks to deliver food to everyone within their school operating areas. A ready, idle workforce to solve one of the fundamental problems, allowing virtually everyone but teachers to remain locked down while focusing use of protective gear during its limited availability. Why didn't we rely on the schooling workforce to deliver food during lockdown? Most of the answers I can see apply to long term welfare and social safety net assistance being provided through schools as well -- training, safety, and other elements that simply aren't appropriate to expect of educators.

You said:

> Completely disagree. [...] Any distraction from a school's primary mission to educate disparately impacts the people who need it most.

This response makes it sound like you don't "Completely disagree." after all.

I've explained my disagreement sufficiently. Have a good day.

but even if that's what the author meant, what's wrong with education being a necessary support for other goals?

it's always quite hard to identify tangible skills that traditional education actually teaches, and explain why those are important to the real lives of graduates. the average person needs, day-to-day, pretty minimal R,W&A skills.

I'm glad you had a good school experience. I was lucky to avoid the worst of it, but I knew kids who grew up with lifelong PTSD from the bullying / abuse, and complete apathy of the school system.

Likewise, I knew kids at school who had terrible home lives. This was almost a result of drug or alcohol abuse, or just plain neglect on the part of the parents. The children were treated as an annoyance or inconvenience. These parents were glad that school got them out of their sight; I'm sure if boarding schools were free they would happily sent their kids off to one.

I'm convinced that the percentage of parents that would actively make it a full time job to torment their children by homeschooling them is a vanishingly small number. Bad parents simply don't care about their children.