Homeschooling is a proven educational choice. In general homeschooled children are doing extremely well, and the effort to monitor their progress or mandate that parents have "credentials" does not change that one bit. Homeschooled students in low regulation states do as well or better than their counterparts in high regulation states.

And please do not site the sensationalized cases of children who are being abused as a reason to regulate homeschoolers. The vast majority of children who are being abused, starved, beaten, or killed...are attending our public schools.

Scraps:

I agree that all parents should have the opportunity to homeschool. I also believe that those parents who have served time for documented child abuse should be closely monitored if they choose to homeschool and I think that, just like a teacher, their teaching priviledges should be revoked if they abuse again.

Just because something has a small incidence doesn't mean it shouldn't be addressed. Just as it would be unfair to penalize all homeschooling families due to the actions of a few abusers, it would also be unfair to ignore a few abusers because the vast majority of homeschooling parents are doing a wonderful job. This of course, is JMO.

As for abused children in the public schools, yep, they are there and, depending on your definition of abused, they are there in spades. The process by which abused children are identified, reported to DYFS and adequately served by DYFS is completely broken. And it is not all the fault of the public school....there is a lot of backlash re: overzealous removal of children from "unfit" parents in previous years. The rights are balanced heavily in favor of the parent and much less so on the child. Again, JMO.

Yes, Lisa, we do homeschool. Our children have also attended both public and private schools. At present we homeschool everyone of school age.

As to the abuse issue, anyone who has been convicted of child abuse should be monitored should they choose to parent...much less homeschool. But it is insanity, not to mention a gross abuse of our rights as American citizens, to assume that all homeschooling families should be closely monitored because of the actions of a tiny percentage of people. Child abuse and murder are actually most likely to occur during the preschool years, yet we do not follow every new Mom home from the hospital with her infant. We assume that all parents take their babies home with the best of intentions, and even cut an enormous amount of slack when parents do not parent well, in the attempt to preserve families.

In saying that the vast majority of abused children are in public schools, I do not stand in condemnation of our schools. It is their job to educate our children, not parent them. When a teacher suspects a child may be in harm's way, of course they must act...but they are not God. They can in fact, do very little. Every year we pour money and research into programs to help children and families, yet year by year the situation seems to get worse and worse. I find it startlingly similar to my observations of the foster care system, but I digress.

And yes Lisa, somehow lately it seems as though conversations about the "rightness" of homeschooling come around to a few sensationalized cases about abusive parents claiming to homeschool. It's what the media (and a good argument) loves...extremes. Likewise we can go the other way, lifting up the number of homeschool students out there that are winning national spelling bees or similar competitions. It is equally ridiculous to rush in and expect that all homeschool students are geniuses, just because there are a few being heavily covered by the media.