Home Schooling Should Be Banned

This odd mixture of arguments fails on three levels.

Firstly, Proposition asserts that homeschooling deprives children of extra-curricular activities, when the opposite is true.Prof. Linda Montgomery in Home Schooling: From Extreme to Mainstream
Homeschooled students are as involved in out-of-school and extracurricular activities that predict leadership in adulthood as are those in the comparison private school (who are more involved than those in public schools).
The entire logic of extracurriculars – say, basketball – somehow passing on universal societal values is also quite unclear; Opposition would say thorough upbringing does that much better.

Secondly, Proposition gets its values messed up. Team USA stresses public health. (That, by the way, is not helped by US proposal anyhow, unless it institutes obligatory vaccination – and they need not ban homeschooling to do that.) However, if there really are universal societal values, freedoms of choice and religion are surely among them, and rank far above the utilitarian “public health”. In effect, Proposition fails to provide for its minor spin-off benefit, while attacking basic social tenets without substantiation.

Thirdly, Proposition claims that there are no safeguards against harmful upbringing. One, ban won’t change this: several hours in school will not suddenly reverse pre-school education and out-of-school familial lessons. Two, if parents are bent on indoctrination, they can still send their kid to a private school which shares their views. Three, safeguards can be implemented, as they are in France[[http://www.freetohomeschool.org/hs/international/France/200211250.asp]] and most of Europe: that does not mean we need to ban the entire system.

Overall, we believe that the Proposition argues for a general ban on the grounds of few far-fetched cases while failing to provide evidence even for them. As evident in our case, majority of homeschooled kids benefit the society.

Proposition basically says that school is necessary because it (1) makes communication with diverse people necessary, as parents do not choose where their children go, (2) homeschooling and extra-curricular activities connected to it cannot bring that diversity, for the attending group is self-selecting rather than “unfiltered mixture”. We believe that none of the two assumptions is warranted nor true.

Firstly, parents still select schools for their children on the basis of common values, cultures and achievements – and even go as far as to move closer to the school they want in order to fall into its catchment area [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/oct/25/chicken-run-city-schools]]. As such, public schools then offer blatant misrepresentations of the society, as exemplified by DC public schools, where less than 5 % of children are white, although whites account for 40.6 % of DC population [[http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/11000.html]]. Proposition policy bars no parent from sending their child to a religious or a predominantly white school; if anything, it strengthens incentives for doing so. This phenomenon of “rational racism” is well-accounted for in modern research, most recently by Tim Harford’s Logic of Life: no Proposition mechanism changes this.

What stems therefrom is that a child’s environment is often only as diverse as parents allow it to be – and there is no change to that with homeschooling ban.

Secondly, we think it rubbish that homeschooling should somehow eliminate diversity from socialization in sports teams or other clubs. What members of a basketball team or, indeed, a debate club share is not race, religion, nor income bracket: it is the desire to participate. We think that this volitional common goal is much more likely to bring tolerance and integration than forcing parents and children alike into one classroom; the latter is more likely to produce resentment to society in general and minorities in particular

Firstly, Proposition operates under the assumption that a kid needs an extraordinary non-parent “mentor” to fully develop its potential. No evidence is provided in support of this statement; for all Team Opposition knows, full development is especially based on familial support rather than random encounters in school. That may be why Venus Williams has been coached by her father since 1995[[http://tinyurl.com/68bj24]].

Secondly, Team Opposition finds it hard to believe that schools can provide better mentoring to children than parents. This assumption is obviously incorrect: we know that the average number of kids in class is 23 or 24 [[http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/5]] and even the simple pupil/teacher ratio (currently 15.2 in public schools[[http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372]]) is much higher than the number of kids per parent. The underpaid public-school teacher has many more students to deal with than just a few offsprings; he simply cannot be the good mentor for all of them, if any of them. However, it is definitely easier to reveal the kid’s talent for the parents who knows it deeply, than for the teacher who only needs perfunctory awareness of it. The Proposition claims that “parents couldn’t see the whole picture”: in light of these facts, we can say that teachers in public schools cannot even look for it.

All that this ban means is that children will spend more time with overworked teachers instead of loving parents: we have already proven that home-schooled kids attend more extra-curricular activities than public-school kids, thereby meeting more “mentors” to be “guided by” than public-school students. “Mentoring potential” is thus maximized in a homeschooling environment. Having pointed that out, Team Opposition must insist that the entire theory of necessary “mentorship” lacks substantiation and cannot be regarded as significant.

Firstly, ban on homeschooling will not diminish parents’ influence on children’s morals & religion. If religiosity truly is the top factor, parents will enroll their children in a religious school, thus impose a single world view as well. Demonstrably, though, it is not: “religious or moral instruction is a relevant reason for only 1.3% of parents” and, even if it were, “no association was found between parents’ most important
reasons for homeschooling and the pedagogical methods they utilized” [[http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~soc/downloads/senior_projects/2008_Higgins.pdf]].

Even in the 2007 study provided, more parents cite “a concern about the school environment” and “dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools” rather than religious reasons. We think that parents want to educate a child, not indoctrinate it.

Secondly, home schooling is not separation, but rather direct integration into the local community. Instead of being integrated into an arbitrary system of school hierarchy, children get to know their own community much better, as they do not spend hours locked up at school, but rather keep everyday contact with their family and neighbors. Removing children from classrooms doesn’t mean confining them to the house. A lot of life lessons can be learned in extended community service (i. e. church) or simply by being involved in the community substantially.

Additionally, home schooling offers protection to vulnerable children from the wrong kind of socialization (youth gangs, bullying…). Regarding the bland assertion concerning lack of empathy, we feel obliged to point out thatBrian D. Ray, 2009, “Research Facts on Homeschooling The home-educated are doing well, typically above average, on measures of social, emotional, and psychological development [including] peer interaction, self-concept, leadership skills, family cohesion, participation in community service, and self-esteem.

USA falsely equates “unschooling” with “refusal or inability to carry on the education”. Using their own source, we see that “unschooling” is actually “unorthodox approach to homeschooling that does not focus on formal classes, set curriculum or tests”, which is basically equal to the widely accepted[[http://tinyurl.com/3admh7u]] Montessori educational program. Regarding impact on children’s future after unschooling, suffice it to say that Montessori achieves better results than standard classroom[[http://tinyurl.com/38ufkrv]] – and that founders of Google and Amazon cite it as source of their success[[http://tinyurl.com/3xcbx2a]].

Even if unschooling harmed, this would call for regulation rather than ban. Perpetually, Proposition picks extreme cases like “homeschooling as religious indoctrination”, or minority methods like unschooling, and argues that we need to ban homeschooling to ban these extremes. Our consistent answer: one, ban will make parents enroll the child in a school which supports their views on education, Montessori in this case; two, regular progress checks are a better way to protect the children’s right to education.

Additionally, the Proposition is contradicting itself. Here, they argue homeschooling will “severely affect chances of unemployment and hopes of financial success”, but in refutation of our third argument, they concede that “average homeschooled child performs better on standardised tests and is more involved in civic society”. This does not go together: if a child is able to pass a standardised test with flying colors, then it can easily fulfill public education standards (substandard by Proposition’s own admission). In the face of evidence that 96 % colleges enroll homeschooled students[[http://tinyurl.com/323dqwn]], it is hard not to say that formal education plays little to no role in social achievement; on the contrary, Opposition has shown that homeschooling has better results than a formulaic, one-size-fits-all policy.

Firstly, we need to point out a huge concession on part of Proposition: they concede that the state of public education is bleak and in need of reform. This kills their point of educational quality for all homeschooled children transferred to public schools – which we showed is not going to happen.

Strangely, Proposition advocates a position that homeschoolers like John Holt[[http://tinyurl.com/yk3kry]] used to stand for in the 1960s: that the system can be changed by thorough discussion of its flaws. However, past evidence suggests that educational reform movements accomplish nothing[[http://tinyurl.com/cfl5c4]]; current public schools are results thereof. Opposition says that public schools are on the government agenda enough[[http://tinyurl.com/cpp9hq]], without need for extra voices; moreover, we think that homeschoolers would rather lobby for reinstatement of homeschooling than engage in a Sisyphean task of reforming a system they hate.

Several ideas in this argument merit refutation simply by virtue of being bland assertions. Firstly, the idea about parents’ inability to actually homeschool once they opt for homeschooling is clearly frivolous: even if they didn’t have the time – an absurdity – they could still provide for a qualified tutor [[http://tinyurl.com/38b4qtl]]. Secondly, the notion that parents’ lack of education makes them ineffective teachers is demonstrably false: 2009 research shows that homeschooled children are more successful than publicly schooled children, regardless of parents’ qualifications to teach, thanks to individual approach[[http://tinyurl.com/6r22hm]]. Lastly, the idea that non-long-term or non-mainstream methods need be banned is clearly ridiculous on its own, akin to banning emergency shelters after hurricanes to promote building new houses.

If public schools can be reformed (which we doubt), the reform can be simultaneous with homeschooling. Banning it wouldn’t get any lobbying support; even if it did, it wouldn’t help.

No matter the alleged “benefits” of Proposition policy, it must first show that the mechanism for putting them forward is effective. We don’t believe it is: as the only punishment put forward by Prop is “fining the parents/legal guardians”, we say that many parents will be more than happy to pay a fine for the privilege of educating their own child. After all, many non-homeschooling parents are quite content with paying exorbitant tuition at private schools; as Prop failed to set an exact fine, we daresay any fine will scarcely outburden that.

Additionally, it is important to recognize that this plan will inevitably have many loopholes. For instance, it is extremely difficult to draw the line between homeschooling and small private schools. If a parent, for instance, teaches his children and children of his neighbor could he technically be eligible for a ‘private school’ status? We don’t know – but apparently, neither does the Proposition, as it completely failed in its responsibility to provide specific definitions for anything it prohibits, or how it will prohibit it.

While we think that failing to provide for the ban of homeschooling is a very good thing, it also means that none of the alleged benefits of the ban can stand.

Public schools face a crisis of confidence worldwide, especially in the US[[http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338]]. Underpaid teachers teach huge classes of unmotivated students, which include everyone: exceptionally bright children, ADHD-suffering kids and mentally deficient teenagers. This detracts from quality quite clearly: one size simply cannot fit all, and teachers struggling to maintain at least a modicum of order in their class know that all too well. At the same time, lack of educational quality is a massive detriment.Mankiw, N. Gregory, David Romer, and David Weil. 1992. “A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 107 (2): 407–37.
[E]ducation is primary predictor of economic and social success of an individual and of the society.

If Proposition policy does anything, it is only to exacerbate the problem: it seems to want to channel all homeschooled students to public schools, where they can hear from “the mouthpiece of the government”. Homeschooling, however, is beneficial to all stakeholders, both homeschooled students and public school students.

Firstly, home-schooled students receive concentrated attention of an adult who understands them. Their course of study can be individualized with understanding of their unique strengths and weaknesses. As a result, home-schooled children can achieve significantly better academic results than kids schooled otherwise, and they statistically do (Basham, Merrifield, Hepburn: “Home Schooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream”).

Secondly, homeschooling reduces the strain on public education. Fewer students in a classroom enable teachers to select a more individual approach. Moreover, homeschooling is more likely to remove extreme cases of students – both the fast and the slow – which will make that education more effective.

While children in public schools already fall into the arbitrary hierarchical structure of the school, homeschooled children are left in the relaxed setting of the family, free to seek a different social ladder to climb on. This often tends to be the real one: when students don’t attend school, they often get involved in their communities[[http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/Civic.asp]]. In fact, homeschooled students are almost twice as likely to be involved in an ongoing community service activity, be a member of a community group or simply be able to get involved, as the average US citizen[[http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/Tab2.gif]]. We believe that is intrinsically beneficial: early integration into community makes for a more prepared adult citizen, which is what the entire schooling system strives for.

There are many cases in which the home schooling is the only possibility to get education. It can be in the cases where the school is too far away and there is no possibility to go there, this is a big problem for example in New Zealand where The Correspondence School had originated in order to help parents educating their children at home.[[http://tinyurl.com/wodc1]] This problem can be even bigger when the children are handicapped in any way, there are numerous cases of deaf children who live too far away from schools for them, so they have to home schooled.[[http://tinyurl.com/wodc2]]

Even greater problems have to tackle the parents of physically or mentally handicapped children who would become victims of bullying in normal schools (according to the reports from British schools 82% of children with learning disabilities are bullied)[[http://tinyurl.com/wodc3]] and the special schools are not always accessible. Hence, home schooling is the only possibility for parents to defend their disabled children, mainly in the earlier school years where is the possibility of bullying highest.

Thus, ban on homeschooling would constitute an unusual and cruel burden on many families, and would actually deprive their children of proper education. That is not something that any society can stand for.

Another group harmed by the standard education system are talented and gifted children. The public schools and teachers there usually don’t have time and opportunities to help them. They spend their time in school uselessly and can’t use their potential because teachers don’t have time to work with them. Homeschooling provides parents the chance to fully use the potential of their children and give them the most effective education because they can work with them on topics in which the children are good. So there is a possibility of 14-year-old children getting place at the Cambridge University.[[http://tinyurl.com/wodc4]]

Throughout the debate, Team USA has been hinting at “societal values” “we” need to “instill into the next generation”. They made the term mean different things at different times: “public health”, “tolerance of diversity”, or “psychological advancement”. We have dealt with all of these points when needed; the variation thereof, though, shows another thing. When entrusted to the government, education becomes a political means to a political end, rather than a good in itself.

We believe that rights and freedoms of children and their parents, such as freedom of choice and religion, or right to education of one’s choice, are basic tenets of democratic societies for a reason. When individuals disagree with the approach of their local state school – which, say, bans evolution from classrooms[[http://tinyurl.com/3y7jkg4]] – they must have the right to take their child’s education out of state’s hands and into their own, or to use some parts of the state curriculum and disregard others. Regular progress checks, that we alluded to, sufficiently guarantee right to education. No completely correct curriculum exists – but only having a single one almost guarantees it will be a wrong one.

Banning homeschooling would eliminate yet another alternative to state schools, and thus enable the government to further skew the educational process to the direction that is currently beneficial for it. Recent curricular changes in Texas, for example, “ignored historians and teachers, allowing ideological activists to push the culture war further into our classrooms”[[http://tinyurl.com/32meea5]]. The rights of children and parents lie forgotten by the sidelines: politicization of schools takes priority. This grants the government too large a power, misused in both democratic and undemocratic societies. In the former, it can serve to transform them into the latter; in the latter, it perpetuates totalitarianism even further, like it did in Hitler’s Germany[[http://tinyurl.com/32narne]].

The practice of homeschooling positively affects budgets of both the family and the state.

Homeschooling families save money on expenditures which public schools would otherwise demand: large notebooks for every subject, presentation boards, or uniforms. Uniforms are increasingly more required[[http://tinyurl.com/dzwmkt]]; cost $150 – $300 per year[[http://tinyurl.com/yfbx2hk]]; and must be annually renewed. Public schools thus become expensive, especially for the poor stricken by the current financial crisis; for them, homeschooling is much cheaper, because its costs are customized[[http://tinyurl.com/34onh6p]].

State incurs unnecessary costs as well. Firstly, underprivileged families may qualify to have their uniforms paid for by governmental grants [[http://tinyurl.com/2w6fw2d]]. More importantly, state has to foot the bill for tuition. The most basic cost per child in public school is $8,322; in reality, that is almost $25,000[[http://tinyurl.com/5y2f27]]. In contrast, “the average cost per homeschool student is $546”[[http://tinyurl.com/2dchmnd]].

Return of the homeschooled would make the US alone pay $8,000 to $25,000 per each of the 1.5 million homeschooled children[[http://tinyurl.com/2v9mktl]]. Overall, this would make the US pay $37.5 billion: the equivalent of nominal GDP of Lithuania[[http://tinyurl.com/39y82lq]], or 462 education budgets of the District of Columbia[[http://tinyurl.com/5y2f27]]; in any case, fifty times as much as homeschooling. The government will need to raise that extra money, thus restricting our financial freedoms, or to redirect that money from other vital projects, where they already are too scarce.

This is an unnecessary expense. Contrary to Proposition’s unfounded claims, we have proven homeschooled children academically perform, psychologically develop and socially integrate much better than their public-school counterparts. Homeschooling is clearly the efficient option for both families and the state.

Parents are responsible for ensuring that their children’s education is carried out well – there is no logic that necessarily requires them to surrender that responsibility to the state. If they feel that the child would be best educated at home, by them or by another, that is their right. It is of course a crucial check within such a system that those teaching are vetted by the state to some extent to ensure their suitability. Such a system has worked for some of our most able achievers and will continue to do so. Some exceptions might slip through such a system, but that doesn’t mean the system is wrong – and it’s hardly as if state education has never failed. Moreover, this is a debate about whose claim to the right to guide a child is greater, the state’s or parents’. We stand firmly on behalf of the parents. Freedom of choice should exist in this arena, given all the responsibilities a parent assumes in bringing up a child: refusing parents the right to educate their children at home is an affront to a family’s liberty.

We trust parents to know what is best for their child – parents care more, because it’s their child. To them the child is an individual – to the state, merely one of the many thousands moving through the system. Changes in the curriculum, experiments in teaching practice, can take years to iron out – fine for the system, disastrous for the individual caught up in it at the time.What is the difference in principle between home schooling and private schooling? Both involve taking one’s child out of the state’s prescribed school structure and instead educating them in a private environment that’s been vetted by the state. Given state regulation is present, isn’t this just private schooling on a micro level?

Parents are entitled to make judgements about the quality of state provided teaching. If that quality is sufficiently low in their eyes, why shouldn’t they be allowed to make the considerable sacrifice that becoming a ‘home teacher’ constitutes? A generation was failed by the British state educational system after the 1970’s philosophy of ‘children learning at their own pace’ permeated the teaching profession: it’s thoroughly reasonable for a parent to reject such methods; if sufficiently able to pass tests the state wishes to impose regarding their capacity to fulfil the teaching role themselves, why should they be denied that chance?

It’s ridiculous to say that home schooling necessarily will be of poor quality. Many parents will be fantastic teachers. Furthermore, it’s not as if the process occurs in a vacuum simply because education occurs in the home. In the USA, the nation that home-schools the largest proportion of its population; a network of home-school support groups and businesses provides expertise on given subjects and teaching methods. The internet makes all this viable in a way it was not before and allows every home to have better research facilities than any school library had ten years ago.

Homes beat schools on two significant fronts – facilities and an atmosphere that encourages learning. The needs of one or a very small number of students are the focus of the entire educative process. Parents willing to invest in their children properly often find the local and woefully ill-equipped state school is unable to match the targeted provision they are able to make.The home also lacks the many distractions of schools – peer pressure, social stigma attached to achievement, bullying, show-offs, general rowdiness.

Home schooling doesn’t just offer a better education. Family bonding is a massively important element of a child’s development, one that’s constantly undermined in modern society. Positive parental role models are found less and less frequently. If a parent is judged by a state vetting process to be good enough, isn’t it enormously positive to approve of an environment that cements both a positive role model and family bonding? It is absurd to suggest that children only interact with others at school. The concern regarding ‘getting to know other children’ has been solved in the USA, the nation that home-schools the largest proportion of its population; a network of home-schoolers exist to provide companionship, promoting sports events and social functions through the internet and other methods – it fulfils the role admirably (recent steps include the creation of a home-school honour society). Furthermore, the standard social provisions for children in civil society – scout movements, sports clubs – are open to home schoolers like everyone else. Seen in this light, home schooling is not a removal of a child from society – just from the state’s schools. But such interaction happens outside the classroom, where it belongs, instead of acting as distractions to learning. Within this point, some parents have legitimate concerns about the moral tutelage their children receive in state schools – about the kind of moral message some teachers choose to impart, and the kind of classmates they find themselves alongside. Parents are entitled to judge schools on a moral level, and find them lacking. In so many school districts, the only way to avoid drugs in school is not to go.

Classroom education often fails the bright and the slow, by going too slowly for the former and too fast for the latter. Necessarily, a teacher of many has the interests of the group as a whole in mind in pitching a lesson at a particular level. This leaves some unchallenged and others humiliated. Home education avoids the pitfalls of both. This point is especially true with regard to students with special needs; the state either fails to identify such needs and lets the student lose years of education instead spent unproductively, or drops then into the vastly underfunded and stigmatised bins we call ‘special schools.’There is yet another group that is failed – individuals with identifiable problems that damage their capacity to learn in a normal school environment, but are not severe enough to merit a place at a special school – those with mild to medium severity dyslexia and attention-deficiency suffers fall into this category with many others. Home schooling can help such students, often with the help of tutors specially trained for such needs (and sometimes the state helps parents with funding for these tutors, so the burden does not fall solely onto them). Indeed, parents willing to take on the enormous task of educating their child at home, or paying for them to be educated at home, are relieving the state of the burden of doing so in the state system – but continue to pay their taxes to benefit others.

Try as it might, the state constantly fails those with greatest faith needs in its schools. Numerous examples can be found of the state failing to provide for students of ‘minority’ faiths – of ignorant failure to provide for prayer time, the banning or denigrating of religious dress, of unwitting subjection of students to religious festivals that are manifestly unsuitable.The popular home schooling movement in America sprang out of two real and legitimate concerns parents of Christian students had: that their religion was being denigrated in the state curriculum, and the ritual humiliations they were subjected to for their faith. Of course, schools should reform to ensure such behaviour is minimised – but if parents want to avoid such perils altogether, and teach their child within an environment that caters for their religious needs, that is and should be their right.Nowhere is this more true than in discussing the appropriate place of dogma in schools. Many deeply held beliefs – such as creationism – are undermined, directly and indirectly, by state sector educators. The refusal of many schools to alter text books to highlight the fact that evolution is a theory and not proven truth, and the refusal to teach creationism as a possibility alongside it, serves to prove this point.

This week, Proposition failed in all points. Negating the importance of socialization among ethnically diverse groups, we proved that public schools don’t give any inter-ethnic socialization, while homeschooling alone gives enough. Countering the importance of school in passing values, we pointed out that it is unclear how public school does that better than home school, that homeschooled kids are generally better prepared for the society as measured by psychologists, and that ban actually harms societal values. Refuting the mentors point, we showed that their importance is largely speculative, but that public schools give fewer opportunities still to meet mentors than homeschooling. In the misguided argument about unschooling, we explained that Proposition misconstrues the concept. Lastly, opposing the lobbying point, we remarked that USA misunderstands what drives lobbying and imagines public school reform quite simplistically.

Generally, we showed USA argues on wrong facts, uses bad logic and ignores majority of cases. Even if ban worked, it won’t yield benefits; rather harm them. We out-evidenced them, forcing them to concoct e. g. “college-bound public schoolers” (see their link which “backs it up”).

The Opposition case stood. We consistently showed that homeschooling enriches students, that it gives them better – in some cases, the only – education for life and thus ensures social integration. We also showed that society benefits from legal homeschooling and that keeping it legal is principally justified. US refutation was fragmented, seized on details rather than whole ideas, and succumbed to our POIs.

More importantly, our arguments forced Team USA to make a number of concessions.

Firstly, the premise that parents who homeschool are carefree, racist, unable-to-teach, religious zealots, prone to sacrifice their children’s education to their God (be it the God of Creationism, Non-Vaccination or White Supremacy), formed the basis of half their argument. As time went, they argued instead that these same parents would be the critical voice to finally reform public schooling; or that they would hone their kids’ education and thus make up for demonstrated drawbacks of public schools. In claiming that parents are responsible, caring, and personally incentivized (which sets them apart from public school teachers and enables them to teach better), they assented to our original argument.

Secondly, USA at first argued that public schools are the perfect solution; then admitted that they badly need reform.

Thirdly, our POIs revealed that their asserted importance of socialization is caved by their espousal of the TCS in NZ, a symptom of wider failure to provide definitions.

Opposition teamline was simple & stable: homeschooling rules over public and even private schooling; flaws coming with it can be fixed by regulation, but mostly need not be. In contrast, Team USA had no teamline; only inconsistent logic and faulty fundamentals.