Getting rid of home schooling in America

I thank Phantom for his reply; I'll respond to Pro's two arguments, then go on to my contentions. Rebuttal Convenience My opponent claims homeschooling is more convenient: 1. 'If a family moves around a lot...the parents might want their kids to be homeschooled'. This asserts that moving schools is a great inconvenience-it is a minor inconvenience at most. Changing schools won't actually hurt a child-socially, at least children have the opportunity to make new friends when they go to a new school, instead of staying at home, as my opponent proposes. Academically, the curricula in different states of America is not so very different that children can't re-adjust to a new state curriculum. 2. "If a kid has social problems, mental problems, or physical problems the parents might not want him to go to a school. Or what if a kid has problems that the parents know would cause him to be unpopular and made fun of at school." Similarly: 3."What if the kid gets bullied a lot and hates his life, and hates going to school." Firstly, the idea that children who have social, mental or physical problems are not catered to by schools is just wrong. In both private and public systems, not only can these children be brought up in a regular school and given special care, they can also be placed into a different school for people afflicted by the same condition, such as schools for autistic children. [1] Secondly, social, mental or physical problems will not make children unpopular; they can still make friends who are understanding of these problems. However, when they are homeschooled, they cannot make any friends at all. Finance My opponent suggests that many students must be homeschooled because their parents disagree with what is being taught at a public school, and they can’t afford private schools. 1. My opponent never gives any reason why any parent would not want their child to be taught at a public school. If the parents have an objection to evolution, it is still the child’s right to be taught modern science in a public school, and creationism can often be taught alongside evoution. 2. It’s much more expensive to homeschool a child than send them to a private school. Homeschooling requires one parent to give up their job; given that the average wage in the US is around $42,000 [2], this is a massive financial blow. Furthermore, it requires parents to buy teaching books, an added cost. If parents were really this worried about finance, they would not homeschool their child. Iin the same argument, my opponent brings up two more points, that seemed to be unrelated to the finance argument. Firstly, he says socialization is not a problem for homeschooled kids because “I know and have known lots of home schooled kids and none of them appear to have that problem.” This argument just doesn’t add up; my opponent’s personal experience is not enough evidence. As I will expand on later, there are socialization problems with homeschooling; it stops students from engaging with a broad range of people. The other evidence my opponent puts forward is that “if a kid thinks he is not meeting enough other kids…He can simply stop being home schooled and go to a school.” My opponent assumes that socialization is a highly objective measure; that you wake up one morning and realise you aren’t socialized. Secondly, he alleges that homeschooled students do better than students who aren’t homeschooled. Again, the reasons for this are that “Home schooled kids have a good reputation of being smart people. I get mostly B’s or A’s;” rumour and Phantom’s personal experience aren’t good enough evidence. In my second argument I will explain how it hurts the academic performance of students. Arguments 1) The government's responsibility to regulate the education system My opponent never argued any right for parents to homeschool their children, but in any case, it is the government's role in our society to ensure that all children get a decent level of education; the reason why this is true is that education is a human right. Under the status quo, we can see the government's role in laws requiring all children to go to school and furthermore, the amount of funding governments put into public schools; the US goverment spends around $9000 for every student every years just to ensure they get this decent level of education [3]. As I will argue later, homeschooling hurts schoolchildren's education, both academically and socially; thus, the government has a responsibility to regulate it. 2) Academic Homeschooling means that a student's academic performance is hurt: Parents who homeschool their children aren't qualified teachers. Teachers need to go through a system of tertiary education, both in their own subject and in teaching as a whole, to become teachers; parents who homeschool their children don't have these qualifications, and thus won't be able to do the job as well. The relationship between teachers and students can’t be emulated by a parental relationship. An important part of this relationship is the respect one has for the other; however, when this relationship is parental, any fights teens may have had with their parents will spill over into a lack of respect for the parent who is teaching them, causing them to concentrate less. Part of learning at school is the exposure to different opinions; not only because it is something students will have to get used to when they enter society, but also because it helps them to develop their own beliefs. When homeschooled, only one view will ever be taken into account. Consider, for example, the teaching of evolution; while at a public school evolution and creationism may both be put forward, a homeschooled student is likely to be exposed to only one side. In some subjects like science, knowledge has changed drastically from when parents were at school; ideas like evolution or continental drift were only accepted into scientific knowledge recently. Parents are unlikely to understand these ideas. 3) Social Homeschooling children will mean that they are not exposed to other children their own age; this will not only harm their intellectual development, as I’ve already explained, but also their social development. Schoolchildren need other students their own age so that they can learn to make friends, meet people with different views and become less shy as they grow older. These are all skills children will need later in life, skills not provided through homeschooling. Homeschooling harms students at school and outside. 1:http://autism.about.com... 2: http://www.worldsalaries.org... 3: http://www2.ed.gov...