Home schooling anybody?

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Here is the main reason: Parents are a variable commodity. Some may be excellent, others not so much. We'd like to give students the opportunity to rise above the station they were born into. We do not hold with Gandhi's idea of a caste system.¹Because we care about our citizens.²I did look it up. Sounds pretty much like the correct rationale.³If education is a public good, in a democracy, the 'we' is the body politic. In pretty much the same way we pass laws on other public goods for the welfare of the nation. I am missing the parallel with shoe size and eating though.⁴
The problem with relying on parents is that parents are limited by not only what they think important to teach, but also by their ability to teach other things. My daughter tutors home-schoolers. She has several client families who recognize they need an outside expert to teach their children English (her subject).⁵...
Before we dismiss public education as past its prime or harmful, we ought to take a good look at what we intend to replace it with. And why.⁶

1.Gandhi opposed the caste system. In the US, the coefficient of correlation (district size, d) is positive, where "d" is the difference between the mean NAEP 8th grade Math score of white students and black students. The coefficient of correlation (district size, d) is positive if "d" is the difference between the mean score of college-educated parents and high-school-educated parents. Herman Brutsaert found higher mean scores AND a lower coefficient of correlation (parent SES, score) in parochial schools in Belgium than in State schools. Public schools exacerbate economic inequality.
2. Does "we care" imply collective farms? State-operated shoe stores? Why the education industry?
3. Really? The "whereas" part does not maintain that parents were not teaching their children to read or to learn a trade, it complains that parents were not indoctrinating their children into the State religion. The US "public" school system originated in Congregationalist indoctrination (c. 1650) and, later, anti-Catholic bigotry (c. 1830).
4. The public goods argument implies subsidy and regulation, at most, not State (government, generally) operation of an industry.
5. Two issues here. a) The substitution of a political process for parent control means that some body determines what children will learn. This guarantees a poor match between individual children's interests and abilities, on the one hand, and the pace and method of instruction, on the other. Parents are flawed, but so are teachers, curriculum planners, and democratic processes. b) The point about tutors favors homeschoolers. Through tutors, books, apprenticeships, and other methods, homeschooling parents can provide instruction beyond their individual knowledge.
6. What do you mean "we", paleface?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I was homeschooled myself, and I honestly wish I hadn't been...

Thanks. That must have been hard to write. Some parents will screw up. No question. On the other hand, Dennis Rader, Ted Bundy, and Ted Kaczynski went to government schools.

 

[332nd]

Quite a few parents on the renfaire circuit homeschool due to the inability and/or lack of desire to split the family up for long periods. The socialization comes from other kids on site in the same situation. (Anywhere from 10 to 3 dozen depending on the Faire.)

Personally, I'm going with the Venture Industries Learning Bed for my son.

 

[psionl0]

In Ye Brutal Public School, kids are made to do lessons and there's no exemptions or delays for being cute. Schedules are very strictly adhered to, and if a child is falling behind in something, remedial classes are done as soon as the problem is discovered -- not 8 years later.

We live in very different parts of the world.

 

[supaluminal]

5. The evidence is against this. Homeschoolers outperform conventionally schooled children academically. Further, in Hawaii, juvenile arrests FALL when school is NOT in session. Juvenile hospitalizations for human-induced trauma FALL when school is NOT in session.

I'm interested most in this point, as this goes to the heart of the issue. I'm not dismissing any data on this, educational performance information just isn't something that sits very high on my radar to be honest. But I have to wonder if there is some self-selection bias in those who home-school, namely that the people who do it tend (either kids or parents) to be the most capable, and those who can't send their kids to be educated elsewhere. If so, fine, but then we're not exactly comparing like with like. If the home schooled group is likely to be academically more successful than the average to begin with, then it is necessary to control for this bias before accepting the statement that home schooling is superior.

In order to test for it would probably require the tracking of a similar cohort prior to schooling beginning throughout their educational lives, looking at a number of different factors, and looking at transfer rates between the two methods. I think this would make for a fascinating (though quite long) study.

I guess the problem is that education is an inherently complex field, and so in order to gather comparative statistics between two disparate groups there are a vast number of other factors that need to be controlled for in order to produce a valid comparison. You only need to look at attempts to compare different education systems around the world to see the inherent difficulty in the task.

 

[marplots]

1.Gandhi opposed the caste system.

But your mention of Gandhi was this:

2. Gandhi wrote that parents are the natural teachers of their children. I do not see any good argument for taking from parents the power to determine what, where, and how their children learn their place in the world.

How is that not caste like? It advocates parents determining their children's place in the world in the context of homeschooling. My objection is that the parent is limited in what they can expose their child to and the opportunities that come with an education beyond the parent's station and status. In the US, education is considered one path to a life other than what parents would think sufficient for their child.

In the US, the coefficient of correlation (district size, d) is positive, where "d" is the difference between the mean NAEP 8th grade Math score of white students and black students. The coefficient of correlation (district size, d) is positive if "d" is the difference between the mean score of college-educated parents and high-school-educated parents. Herman Brutsaert found higher mean scores AND a lower coefficient of correlation (parent SES, score) in parochial schools in Belgium than in State schools. Public schools exacerbate economic inequality.

But this is an objection to how schools are run instead of the idea of collective education. Parochial schools are, after all, a type of not-home-schooling.

2. Does "we care" imply collective farms? State-operated shoe stores? Why the education industry?

There are no fixed limits on what a society deems important enough to establish as a broad offering. Still, insofar as we might agree there are ridiculous examples, that far too does society at large reflect our commonsense. It would not be so in a dictatorship or tyranny. It is so in a democracy.

3. Really? The "whereas" part does not maintain that parents were not teaching their children to read or to learn a trade, it complains that parents were not indoctrinating their children into the State religion. The US "public" school system originated in Congregationalist indoctrination (c. 1650) and, later, anti-Catholic bigotry (c. 1830).

But these were values important to the body politic at the time, weren't they? This is how it should be. Just because I may not think those values apt now (and indeed they no longer are taught in public schools), doesn't mean those people, at that time, didn't think them important.

In fact, the evolution of public education away from the religious indoctrination model argues for an entity that can be changed by general agreement, rather than one that is so balkanized it cannot be.

4. The public goods argument implies subsidy and regulation, at most, not State (government, generally) operation of an industry.

It can be accomplished many ways. Including private and a blend, as is done at the college level. In the US, education is handled largely by local boards of education under state and federal rules but with some leeway.

5. Two issues here. a) The substitution of a political process for parent control means that some body determines what children will learn. This guarantees a poor match between individual children's interests and abilities, on the one hand, and the pace and method of instruction, on the other. Parents are flawed, but so are teachers, curriculum planners, and democratic processes.

Yes, a body of those most expert in doing what we want to do. This is like complaining that roads are build only by civil engineers when everyone could easily build a perfectly useful road themselves.

The poor match between children's interests and abilities isn't necessarily a bad thing. It depends on what we want to accomplish. Do we want to instill knowledge we think useful and beneficial to society in general or do we want to fulfill our children's ideas of what best suits them? I am envisioning a "Facebook 101" or "World of Warcraft I and II."

b) The point about tutors favors homeschoolers. Through tutors, books, apprenticeships, and other methods, homeschooling parents can provide instruction beyond their individual knowledge.

Exactly. And by combining students under a single tutor in a classroom, we gain efficiency and reduce costs. We are comparing concierge medicine with a public health clinic. Of course, if you can afford a live-in doctor, you'd expect better overall health care. I will grant that a Utopian, concierge education would probably be better than any collective effort.

6. What do you mean "we", paleface?

Me and an assumed larger group that shares my opinion. You can take it as a rhetorical device if you like.

 

[marplots]

The "public goods" argument contains a flaw: corporate oversight is a public good and the State itself is a corporation, therefore, oversight of State functions is a public good which the State itself cannot supply. State assumprion of responsibility for the provision of public goods transforms the free rider problem at the root of public goods analysis but does not eliminate it.

I disagree because you have characterized the State here as a monolithic entity. This is arguably not the case, with not only divisions and different objectives at the federal, state and county level, but also input by the citizenry at all those levels as well. I commonly vote on local millage proposals -- the latest was funding for a new gym at the local highschool.

I can think of no other issue, including abortion and defense, that is so constantly of concern to a broad swath of the population, at all levels of government. In Obama's most recent campaign-opening speech, public contributions to college education were featured -- granted it was at a college...

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

5. The evidence is against this. Homeschoolers outperform conventionally schooled children academically. Further, in Hawaii, juvenile arrests FALL when school is NOT in session. Juvenile hospitalizations for human-induced trauma FALL when school is NOT in session.

I'm interested most in this point, as this goes to the heart of the issue. I'm not dismissing any data on this, educational performance information just isn't something that sits very high on my radar to be honest. But I have to wonder if there is some self-selection bias in those who home-school, namely that the people who do it tend (either kids or parents) to be the most capable, and those who can't send their kids to be educated elsewhere. If so, fine, but then we're not exactly comparing like with like. If the home schooled group is likely to be academically more successful than the average to begin with, then it is necessary to control for this bias before accepting the statement that home schooling is superior.¹In order to test for it would probably require the tracking of a similar cohort prior to schooling beginning throughout their educational lives, looking at a number of different factors, and looking at transfer rates between the two methods. I think this would make for a fascinating (though quite long) study.

I guess the problem is that education is an inherently complex field, and so in order to gather comparative statistics between two disparate groups there are a vast number of other factors that need to be controlled for in order to produce a valid comparison. You only need to look at attempts to compare different education systems around the world to see the inherent difficulty in the task.²

1. If parents who would homeschool if the legal environment makes that option available differ systematically from those who would not (likely), you would expect to see a systematic difference in performance between homeschooled and conventionally schooled children, granted. This implies also that you would see a systematic difference in overall performance of the student populations where the legal environment makes the homeschooling option available and where it does not, right? This argument supports policies that relax restrictions on homeschooling, seems to me.
2. Controlled studies of human behavior are difficult in free societies. The closest we get are before and after comparisons when the legal environment changes, or inter-State comparisons. Alaska's policy of subsidized homeschooling (enrollment in "virtual" correspondence school) provides evidence. On standardized tests, the homeschoolers' median is close to the 80th percentile of conventionally schooled kids. Homeschooled children of parents with no schooling beyond high school outperform the students of college-educated teachers in conventional schools. This policy has become so popular that some districts lost enrollment. The Alaska 90th percentile score (NAEP 8th grade Math) is among the top in the US. Given the facts above, I suspect that homeschoolers account for this.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I disagree because you have characterized the State here as a monolithic entity.¹ This is arguably not the case, with not only divisions and different objectives at the federal, state and county level, but also input by the citizenry at all those levels as well. I commonly vote on local millage proposals -- the latest was funding for a new gym at the local highschool.²I can think of no other issue, including abortion and defense, that is so constantly of concern to a broad swath of the population, at all levels of government. In Obama's most recent campaign-opening speech, public contributions to college education were featured -- granted it was at a college...³

1. Not at all. "Monolithic" is not part of the definition. Governments are made of self-interested, ignorant people, like you and me, your neighbors, your US Senator, and President Obama.
The government of a locality is the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition, after Weber). A law is a threat by a government to kidnap (arrest), assault (subdue), and forcibly infect with HIV (imprison) someone, under specified circumstances. Individual A has a right to do __X__ within the territory controlled by a government if that government has promised not to interfere when A attempts to do __X__ and has further promised to interfere with any individuals B if they attempt to interfere with A when A attempts to do __X__. Individual A has title to a resource __X__ if the government in which that resource is located has granted A a right to control __X__ that includes the power to transfer control over __X__ to any individual B on terms mutually agreeable to A and B. The system of private property (title) and contract law combines control over resources with local knowledge of resources and the incentive to use those resources in socially beneficial ways (the invisible hand). A legal environment is market-oriented to the degree that resources move within the system of title and contract law.
2. The State is a corporation, composed of people. People do not become more intelligent, better-informed, more altruistic, or more capable (except in their access to the tools of State violence) when they enter that State's employ. Quite the contrary, guns attract thugs and the democratic process selects for narcissism and megalomania. I agree that Federalism matters, but the argument that Federalism diminishes the malign effects of aggregated decisionmaking begins with recognition of the malign effects of aggregated decisionmaking. Federalism and markets institutionalize humility on the part of State actors. If a policy dispute involves a matter of taste, numerous local policy regimes and/or competitive markets in goods and services will allow for the expression of varied tastes while the contest for control over a State-monopoly enterprise must create unhappy losers (who may constitute the vast majority; imagine the outcome of a nation-wide vote on the one size and style of shoe we all must wear). If a policy dispute involves a matter of fact, where "What works?" is an empirical question, numerous local policy regimes and/or competitive markets will generate more information than will a State-monopoly enterprise. A State-monopoly enterprise is like an experiment with one treatment and no controls, a retarded experimental design.
3. This indicates the failure of centralized control. Collectivize agriculture and nutrition will become as much of a concern.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

But these were values important to the body politic at the time, weren't they?

No. Religious indoctrination was important to the theocrats in charge. It obviously was NOT important to parents who declined to indoctrinate their children.

In fact, the evolution of public education away from the religious indoctrination model argues for an entity that can be changed by general agreement, rather than one that is so balkanized it cannot be.

I recommend Ravitch, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms.There was little democratic about it.

Yes, a body of those most expert in doing what we want to do.

How is that not caste like?

 

[Agatha]

The background to education in the UK is markedly different to the USA.

My four children went to independent (fee-paying) schools, but I homeschooled my eldest for his GCSE (aged 15-16) year, and my youngest for two years leading up to his GCSEs. It wasn't a decision I wanted to take either time, but my eldest was chafing at the slow pace of learning even in the most academic pushy school we could find, and as he was already almost the youngest in his year we didn't want him moved up a year. I wouldn't have been able to do it without my now-ex husband earning sufficient money to pay the school fees of the other three children and allow me to take a year off work. He did well in his GCSEs and then went to a state college to do A-levels. He's since graduated with a first from a good university.

My youngest (17 today!) was homeschooled for a very different reason, he became a school refuser after several episodes of bullying. I was by then a single parent so I couldn't give up work, and it took a few false starts to find the right approach for him, which turned out to be a much more child-centred curriculum in the afternoons and evenings. We focussed less on producing essays and following plans and more on workbooks and projects. He chose not to do any GCSEs but we still had to present the Local Education Authority with evidence that he was studying and getting a fully rounded education.

He is now back in the state system, at college, and though he has no formal qualifications, he's working towards some and hopes to become a paramedic. He initially intended to join the army but decided against it just recently. He'll be the only one of my four not to go to university though he is undoubtedly bright enough to do so, but he doesn't want to and it has to be his decision.

 

[marplots]

No. Religious indoctrination was important to the theocrats in charge. It obviously was NOT important to parents who declined to indoctrinate their children.I recommend Ravitch, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms.There was little democratic about it.

Again, I would claim that your objection is to the system of government (here a theocracy) rather than public education in general. If a mechanism (socialization by way of standardized, required education) can be used to create a general ill, how can you then deny it cannot also be used to create a general good? It becomes a matter of what you want to teach, not the structure of teaching en mass.

I am loth to read the material you cited but would enjoy hearing something about it. The only thing I can point to is the product of the system as it is now and claim it "good enough."

 

[marplots]

The background to education in the UK is markedly different to the USA.

My four children went to independent (fee-paying) schools, but I homeschooled my eldest for his GCSE (aged 15-16) year, and my youngest for two years leading up to his GCSEs. It wasn't a decision I wanted to take either time, but my eldest was chafing at the slow pace of learning even in the most academic pushy school we could find, and as he was already almost the youngest in his year we didn't want him moved up a year. I wouldn't have been able to do it without my now-ex husband earning sufficient money to pay the school fees of the other three children and allow me to take a year off work. He did well in his GCSEs and then went to a state college to do A-levels. He's since graduated with a first from a good university.

My youngest (17 today!) was homeschooled for a very different reason, he became a school refuser after several episodes of bullying. I was by then a single parent so I couldn't give up work, and it took a few false starts to find the right approach for him, which turned out to be a much more child-centred curriculum in the afternoons and evenings. We focussed less on producing essays and following plans and more on workbooks and projects. He chose not to do any GCSEs but we still had to present the Local Education Authority with evidence that he was studying and getting a fully rounded education.

He is now back in the state system, at college, and though he has no formal qualifications, he's working towards some and hopes to become a paramedic. He initially intended to join the army but decided against it just recently. He'll be the only one of my four not to go to university though he is undoubtedly bright enough to do so, but he doesn't want to and it has to be his decision.

Thank you. This is an excellent anecdote that illustrates the goods and ills. Primarily, I was struck by the amount of resources expended to get the kid educated.

To those who object to public schooling, I'd ask why then do they ever stop? Why don't they school a kid through a university degree? The answer to that is the same as why most would not choose to school through high school (in the States) -- a lack of expertise, resources, or a recognized certification.

 

[marplots]

1. Not at all. "Monolithic" is not part of the definition. Governments are made of self-interested, ignorant people, like you and me, your neighbors, your US Senator, and President Obama.

Yes, and this is a valuable mechanism. One sphere fights against and modifies the others to prevent the kind of quick movement and sweeping mistakes of totalitarian style governments.

The government of a locality is the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition, after Weber). A law is a threat by a government to kidnap (arrest), assault (subdue), and forcibly infect with HIV (imprison) someone, under specified circumstances. Individual A has a right to do __X__ within the territory controlled by a government if that government has promised not to interfere when A attempts to do __X__ and has further promised to interfere with any individuals B if they attempt to interfere with A when A attempts to do __X__. Individual A has title to a resource __X__ if the government in which that resource is located has granted A a right to control __X__ that includes the power to transfer control over __X__ to any individual B on terms mutually agreeable to A and B.

Here I think we are moving too far afield into an argument that anything government does, including education, is immoral or doomed to failure.

The system of private property (title) and contract law combines control over resources with local knowledge of resources and the incentive to use those resources in socially beneficial ways (the invisible hand). A legal environment is market-oriented to the degree that resources move within the system of title and contract law.

Where did you get, "socially beneficial ways" from that set up? Insofar as social justice is a concern of the voting public, that will be reflected in the results of their votes. Making it a market decision simply alters the terrain into one where skill at manipulating the "invisible hand" becomes the guiding principle and the path to success. We have had scandals surrounding for-profit colleges recently that did precisely that. And to say the market self corrects misses the injustice visited up those who were damaged by the flawed profit making enterprises issuing bogus degrees -- they cannot recover the time and money lost.

2. The State is a corporation, composed of people. People do not become more intelligent, better-informed, more altruistic, or more capable (except in their access to the tools of State violence) when they enter that State's employ. Quite the contrary, guns attract thugs and the democratic process selects for narcissism and megalomania.

Is this really so? And would you say this necessarily translates into these people hiring poor teachers or harming education? I would need to see a more direct link to accept your characterization.

I agree that Federalism matters, but the argument that Federalism diminishes the malign effects of aggregated decisionmaking begins with recognition of the malign effects of aggregated decisionmaking. Federalism and markets institutionalize humility on the part of State actors. If a policy dispute involves a matter of taste, numerous local policy regimes and/or competitive markets in goods and services will allow for the expression of varied tastes while the contest for control over a State-monopoly enterprise must create unhappy losers (who may constitute the vast majority; imagine the outcome of a nation-wide vote on the one size and style of shoe we all must wear). If a policy dispute involves a matter of fact, where "What works?" is an empirical question, numerous local policy regimes and/or competitive markets will generate more information than will a State-monopoly enterprise. A State-monopoly enterprise is like an experiment with one treatment and no controls, a retarded experimental design.

It is true this is a one-off experiment shaped gradually with best guesses and in response to current results. But so is home schooling. Each child becomes a data point and each parent an experimenter. I would look to the expertise of professional educators in such a situation.

As to the vote on shoe sizes, I can only reiterate that whacky seems to be held in check in reality, although I agree it is theoretically possible. I can only point out a long history of not-that-whacky as a real world result. Our definitions of whacky might differ.

3. This indicates the failure of centralized control. Collectivize agriculture and nutrition will become as much of a concern.

Again, my experience is that control is much more distributed. Although there is a basic skeleton in place, the meat seems to attach at the state and local level. Even so, the largest policies, the most sweeping, are in reaction to failures in the system lower down. So, for example, putting programs in place nationally address current ills rather than simply attaching capricious whims. An example would be desegregation. Another should be school nutrition, although I don't know if that is federally mandated or not.

Teacher licensing, as far as I know, is done at the state, and sometimes county level. (My wife informs me in South Carolina, teachers are only certified on a county by county basis and cannot work in a county without approval at that level.)

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Again, I would claim that your objection is to the system of government (here a theocracy) rather than public education in general.¹ If a mechanism (socialization by way of standardized, required education) can be used to create a general ill, how can you then deny it cannot also be used to create a general good?² It becomes a matter of what you want to teach, not the structure of teaching en mass.

I am loth to read the material you cited but would enjoy hearing something about it. The only thing I can point to is the product of the system as it is now and claim it "good enough."

1. The current system is a relic of religious intolerance.
2. Aggregation of educational decisionmaking creates this general ill, just as aggregation of shoe size decisionmaking would guarantee a poor fit for most people.
3. The fire bow was "good enough" compared to finding lightning-generated fire. Compared to microwave ovens and induction ovens, well,... you can continue to rub sticks together if you wish. It's evil to wish it on everyone else.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...Where did you get, "socially beneficial ways" from that set up? Insofar as social justice is a concern of the voting public, that will be reflected in the results of their votes. Making it a market decision simply alters the terrain into one where skill at manipulating the "invisible hand" becomes the guiding principle and the path to success. We have had scandals surrounding for-profit colleges recently that did precisely that. And to say the market self corrects misses the injustice visited up those who were damaged by the flawed profit making enterprises issuing bogus degrees -- they cannot recover the time and money lost.

In the system of title and contract law, mutually agreed upon exchange benefits both partes, otherwise, they would not trade. This system does not require global knowledge of everyone's preferences, just knowledge of one's own. Voting on aggregated preferences has serious defects, as the example of shoe size illustrates.

 

[Mercurial Artism]

True enough.
My point is that home schooling is only a valid alternative in a context where public education already exists. Home schooling can then act as a customized tweak to failures in public education. However, I do not think it rises to the level of a real alternative in most situations -- situations where public education meets the need of having a citizenry trained in a knowledge base needed to function.

Socialization should be viewed as more than, "I can get along with others." It should also mean, "I can speak and read a common language. I know some foundational information relevant to the society I find myself in."

Exactly. Arguably one of the most important skills for someone considering homeschooling their kids is to be able to look at objective data to monitor how well they're doing and change course if it becomes necessary, as well as being able to separate their own selfish, overprotective impulses (every parent has them, but some are not good at pulling in the reins) from what is truly in the child's best interest. Is this really the best thing for X? Do I understand the subjects well enough? Can I teach well enough when it is X and we're in the home environment? Does X have adequate socialization in community activities with other kids? How will I know when X needs outside resources?

Also, I will add that while I think homeschooling should be legal but highly regulated (exactly how it should be regulated I have only vague ideas that would need lots of refinement), unschooling sounds like a really bad idea. Sure, some kids are self-motivated to learn about such a wide variety of things in such depth that they would naturally seek out the topics to learn about and pursue them with sufficient rigor until they've mastered the concepts, but that is such a tiny minority (though similar models would be a good idea for pre-school kids and for "fun" units about the natural world, for instance, that break up early elementary math and reading lessons). I learned quickly as a kid and sought out extensive information on all kinds of things, but if I had been left to unschool, I would've created my own structured timelines and topics to study because without that kind of structure, I would never progress beyond a superficial level in anything. I get the feeling that virtually all kids who would succeed with unschooling would succeed in structured homeschooling or regular public school.

There are some situations where the public school just isn't equipped to handle without breaking their budget over one pupil, but there are many benefits to (even a mediocre) public education that few parents could compensate in ordinary circumstances. Homeschool co-ops mitigate this to some degree, but it is not substantially different from (and only rarely superior) to the public school set-up) for it to be a draw itself. If homeschooling is the best option for some other reason, but your history isn't very good and someone in the co-op is good at history, that would be good (unless they're not actually good at history, distorting it for ideological purposes, like denying the Holocaust, or evolution if the subject is biology). But it's still a less quality-controlled version of the typical public school classroom, unless you have a group of PhDs who are also skilled at teaching or something along those lines.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

To those who object to public schooling, I'd ask why then do they ever stop? Why don't they school a kid through a university degree? The answer to that is the same as why most would not choose to school through high school (in the States) -- a lack of expertise, resources, or a recognized certification.

Just the certification. Books are cheap. Classes must move at a the pace of the slowest student at every step. Like when runners tie themselves together and compete as a "centipede". The centipede will take more time than any member would have completed the course alone. If you want to learn 20th century US diplomatic history or read 18th century French literature in translation, you don't need to kiss some professor's...
toes.
It makes sense to disdain pre-college credentials. If you get an E.E. BS or ICS BS, nobody will care where (or whether) you went to high school.

 

[marplots]

Just the certification. Books are cheap. Classes must move at a the pace of the slowest student at every step. Like when runners tie themselves together and compete as a "centipede". The centipede will take more time than any member would have completed the course alone. If you want to learn 20th century US diplomatic history or read 18th century French literature in translation, you don't need to kiss some professor's...
toes.

But this is why you customize at the course level, if not the class level. It isn't uncommon for better students to finish a degree in less than the normal four years.

It makes sense to disdain pre-college credentials. If you get an E.E. BS or ICS BS, nobody will care where (or whether) you went to high school.

But why stop there? Why not a home schooled E.E. BS? And if that turns out to be a bad idea, why not let the guy who stopped with a high school degree have the same benefits at that level? -- a recognized degree. It is exactly the same logic.

If kid one has a high school degree from a public institution, I can have a reasonable expectation about what they learned. If they are home schooled, I cannot. This is, I think, why SAT's become the yardstick for college entry. At a higher level, I'd more likely hire the guy with a recognized baccalaureate than someone who stated they had learned the material on their own. Why? Because I don't have the time or means to test them as an individual.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...there are many benefits to (even a mediocre) public education that few parents could compensate in ordinary circumstances.¹ Homeschool co-ops mitigate this to some degree, but it is not substantially different from (and only rarely superior) to the public school set-up) for it to be a draw itself. If homeschooling is the best option for some other reason, but your history isn't very good and someone in the co-op is good at history, that would be good (unless they're not actually good at history, distorting it for ideological purposes, like denying the Holocaust, or evolution if the subject is biology).² But it's still a less quality-controlled version of the typical public school classroom³, unless you have a group of PhDs who are also skilled at teaching or something along those lines.

1. Any resources that the State devotes to education it either shifts from other uses or imposes a definition of "education" other than people would have used in the absence of State violence. The current system is a huge waste of taxpayers' money and students' time.
2. You seem to imagine that "homeschooling" means that children are confined to a home or apartment. Let's consider "parent control of education" instead of "homeschooling".
3. How does anyone utter "quality" and "public school" in the same sentence? The Singapore 5th (fifth) percentile score (TIMSS 8th grade Math) was higher than the US 50th (fiftieth) percentile score. If this were IQ, half the US population woyld qualify as severely retarded by Singapore standards.
Socialization? A statistician in the office of the Attorney General, State of Hawaii, gave me these charts.
Moar?

In 2007:
Students ages 12 to 18 were victims of about 1.5 million non-fatal crimes when they were at school compared to about 1.1 million non-fatal crimes while they were away from school.