Alan wrote:
In general, I am sympathetic to the view that what you do in your own home
is your own damn business.
However, your ability (or inability) to teach your children has a direct
impact on society. If you are an incompetent teacher, your children will
be less equipped to join the world at large, and will likely become a
burden (in the form of social assistance) or a drain (in the form of
prison).
And god knows we have no incompetence now in the public school system
(I've only ever met one teacher who wouldn't defend another teacher, no
matter how bad that other teacher was. As a group, they seem to stick
together like lawyers).
Either way, I have a vested interest in making sure you are
teaching your children to a minimal level of competence.
Whose measure of competence, yours? The government's? See above. I think
a parent has a vested interest in you keeping your interest in their
children to your own vest [1]. If the public system fails a child, who
is going to come that child's aid beside the parent, you? You're part of
the government insisting that child is brought up the its way.
On the other hand, if you screw up a stitch, well, then, it's you and your
kids that have to deal with the crooked scar.
And if the government (you apparently, as although it should be us, I
don't seem to have much say) screws up, my kids still have the scars but
the government has no accountability. I can't un-elect bureaucrats.
The risk of requiring licensing for homeschooling goes farther than mere
accountability. It places the government in control of who will be allowed
to teach, and what they will be allowed to teach. This is a direct assault
on freedom. The government can at anytime add requirements that are
outside the boundaries of giving instruction to the children.
The same risk is involved in public schooling and is usually dealt with
adequately, albeit sometime slowly.
-ajb
And sometimes never. We've already seen empirical evidence that in some
public school districts, those schools are not even doing the job as
well as many un-licensed home-schoolers.
Whether government or private, licensed or unlicensed, like all things
in life, there are no guarantees one way or the other. If I saw that my
kids were not being taught what I wanted, at the competence level
acceptable to me, then I'd put them where I thought they'd get that,
even if it meant they got it at home. Children are not the State's (as
in Orwellian) children, they're the parents [1]
[1] Ignoring for the sake of discussion, specious examples of horror
stories involving the obvious mistreatment of children.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
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