Sweden is not all roses in terms of personal liberty either. You must send your children to public schools, at the risk of losing them; even during a pandemic. In the United States, home schooling is an option if you do not want to send your children to public schools.
First, no, you don't have to send your child to a public school. There are private schools to choose from. A proper education is a right in Sweden, and unfortunately, so many parents do a poor job at homeschooling that it isn't feasible and puts the person at a lifelong disadvantage.
It is a shame that we (Americans) stand for this - the right for a parent to under-educate or mis-educate their children. If one allows for homeschool, there should be robust oversight, which in most states, there isn't.
I grew up in Virginia, and any of the home schooled kids were hyper religious and profoundly ignorant.
I bumped into a few of them at a community college after I got out of the military. The USMC indoc'd me hard with the groupthink, and that took a while to get past, but I could at least do high school Trig and had basic history. I remember one girl who didn't believe the Holy Roman Empire existed and despite her extensively Christian background, didn't know a damn thing about the Crusades.
I knew one family that homeschooled to different degrees: The oldest was until 8/9th grade, though the younger ones went to public school sooner. They weren't bad off, though obviously conservative and pretty much any friends were also homeschooled or were through church or boy scouts. The oldest really had issues adjusting to the other students.
But I know folks like the ones you met exist as well, and it irritates me to no end that we, as a society, allow this to happen. It is easy to see that such a thing might have lifelong consequences.
many (ie, as an absolute number) parents may do a poor job of homeschooling, but I don't think this is enough to condemn the practice overall. although an imperfect measure, american homeschooled students actually have significantly higher average scores on standardized tests than public school students.
If a decent percentage do poorly (15-25%), then it is enough to condemn the practice overall - at least in its current form. There aren't nearly enough controls to eliminate this sort of thing, and I think it is probably more expensive to do so. I also think that - apart from test scores - these kids are less likely to be forced to deal with folks different from themselves and a bit less likely to be introduced to concepts their parents disagree with.
Some of the failures can honestly be dealt with if there were proper coordination and oversight: Use an accredited program (for example). Require regular meetings with other students: Say, perhaps, PE at the school a couple times a week at an elementary level. Require parents to pass the tests for the coursework they are planning on teaching the next year or two. Include more variety on standardized tests: If you want to teach sex education or how to follow a recipe, include these sorts of questions on tests.
Until some sort of system is in place to catch the ones that don't really get taught anything other than propaganda, yes, I condemn the entire thing.
> “ also think that - apart from test scores - these kids are less likely to be forced to deal with folks different from themselves and a bit less likely to be introduced to concepts their parents disagree with.”
This is precisely why “homeschooling” is so dangerous.
It is also precisely WHY the majority of Americans who “homeschool” chose to do it. It is usually religious families, and they explicitly do it to isolate and “protect” their children from outside influences.
this is certainly the stereotype, but do you have any data to support this? none of the broad studies I can find collected info on religious affiliation (let alone how seriously the family actually takes it). anecdotally, the homeschooled children I know had somewhat eccentric atheist/agnostic parents.
> If a decent percentage do poorly (15-25%), then it is enough to condemn the practice overall - at least in its current form. There aren't nearly enough controls to eliminate this sort of thing, and I think it is probably more expensive to do so. I also think that - apart from test scores - these kids are less likely to be forced to deal with folks different from themselves and a bit less likely to be introduced to concepts their parents disagree with.
as always, the relevant question is "compared to what?". lots of american public school systems are still deeply segregated and produce astonishingly poor outcomes for their students. the part about being exposed to concepts parents disagree with is a good point, but certain homogeneous christian communities have had some success getting divine creation presented at least side-by-side with evolution (see "teach the controversy"). many public schools still give very watered down versions of slavery and dealings with native americans as well. the high school I went to (in an east coast city and not too long ago) only covered abstinence in sex ed. we were never taught about condoms or other contraceptives. the potential for propaganda in public schools is the same, just at scale. in a democratic system, it's hard to teach things that parents don't want. I guess the most extreme views probably cancel out a bit as you scale up the system, but this has the tradeoff of baking in the status quo even more thoroughly.
implemented correctly, I don't think oversight and coordination would be a bad idea (although if it worked, we might consider applying it to our public/private/charter schools as well). I don't agree that all homeschooling should be banned until such measures are in place.
https://www.startribune.com/even-during-the-pandemic-in-swed...