Comment by graemep

> There are many academic studies, across many countries, that confirm the better results. Your evidence is?

All those studies are either paid for by home schooling groups, or report the same fundamental issue in terms of data collection I have mentioned. Also the ones that break down results by socio economic background all highlight that anywhere from lower middle class to lower class homeschooling results always fall under public education.

> Not really a thing in the UK, or most places. It might have some truth in the US but sounds like a biased view

The UK has had a recent surge in homeschooling, in part because of Covid, also in part because of systemic underfunding of schools. But the religious exception was the most credited answer (some marked it under the philosophical reason) for homeschooling up to 2018. It is also underreported for women in some minority communities like travellers, orthodox jews, and some more extreme versions of islam. those girls are "homeschooled", wanna guess how they would do in their GCSE's?

> On the contrary I credit home education with getting my older daughter into a male dominated career (she designed power electronics for EVs).

This kinda highlights my original assumption of people defending it being because they personally believe in it, but credit to your daughter aside, she probably would go and kick ass regardless of the educational establishment or framework. And while you can't run a double blind study, I am not sure why you would think her being in a regular school she would be denied the chance to go into such a prestigious career?

> Not really a thing in the UK either. Home educators tend to be social liberals and politically left wing

> In fact of the many home educators I have come across very few fit your description.

it is important to point out that the biggest movement for homeschooling is evangelical americans, the same group that managed to get the department of education destroyed under Trump. Their propaganda, think tanks and TV news anchors distribute, enable and control the conversation borderline globally. The UK in comparison has a relatively small home schooling population (despite its recent uptick).

Also home schooling groups tend to be self contained, if you are socially liberal and go find other home schooling parents, you will find your neighbours and people who visit the same in person or online resurces (libraries, websites, forums etc). If you were a hyper religious person who did not believe your daughter should learn to read, you would report that most of the homeschooling parents you have met believe the exact same things you do. It is, by design, not an ideology that promotes everyone being under the same umbrella.

> Because meeting the same people of the same age from the same area in the same place every day for many years is a great way to develop social skills and make a variety of friends.

Almost every study tends to think so, yes. Support networks are important for humans, having people who face the same challenges (puberty, a math test on friday) and that are reliably reachable (same schedule, same place) means kids can learn things like trust, collaboration, loyalty etc organically.

This skills are not impossible to develop elsewhere, in the same way you can learn math elsewhere. But those benefits are not non existant.

> I went to one of the best schools in Britain academically and my kids got a better academic education

Yes, and your grandkids, if you ever have them, will get a better education that your kids regardless of where they study. Because education improves, resources improve, attention to kids increased over the last generation. You and I probably run around all afternoon with our parents not caring were we were, our teachers had not refreshed their knowledge since they got their degrees. Nowadays with things like the internet, Pluto stops being a planet mid school year and the kids get that info asap. Instead of a priest slapping kids like when I was a kid, there is a comprehensive "Religions of the world" curriculum were kids suddenly know tons of greek mythology, buddhisim, islam and plenty of christianity from early sects, to modern catholic, protestant and orthodox divisions. None of that was taught when I was a kid, so of course kids are better off now, as they should be. But that would happen regardless of where your kids learn I think.

The drawbacks of homeschooling for the whole of society I think are too large for any individual benefit. The lowest dregs denying their kids food or basic knowledge, conspiracy theorists denying reality to their children, abusive parents being unchecked, religious fundamentalists not allowing their kids to interact with whats beyond their control... disrupting all that and having kids be together, the same, and learning about different people and following the same curriculum I think is valuable.

I have a very similar career to your daughter, and my first interactin with kids being homeschooled was in an international math olympiad. Some of the kids I met had real hung ups about socialising, and I promise you they would have been just as good as calculus if they had gone to any normal school and just did a lil extra in the afternoon like I did. Growing up and doing some research on think tanks and who was funding what, the people promoting homeschooling had some pretty awful ideas about society and where everyone should fit in it. So while I would never judge any individual parent, there are plenty of good reasons to do it, I am keenly aware that most of the material coming out in support is not always coming from good faith sources.