Homeschooling is not bad to do

Thank you CoolPeppers12 for you arguments!! I am looking forward to an interesting debate!!Opponent's ArgumentI did my best to summarize each of my opponent's points, rather than stating their arguments word for word. "Please state a number of kids that have fallen behind."Such data is hard to obtain because (as I will elaborate on later) many homeschoolers are not even required to notify their state that they have chosen to home school. In fact, only two states, Arkansas and Alaska collect such data. Here are the statistics found in Alaska. In this chart, we can see that the students taught from home (blue) did significantly worse in the mathamatics portion of state testing, showing that students who homeschool definitely have potential to fall behind in math. Now take a look at all subject areas... Again, with these statistics, it is shown that the students taught from home did worse in each subject area. This proves my point. Online schoolers are behind those students who go to public school on average. This data is from well off taught at home who are not economically disadvantaged. As you could guess, the statistics are worse for the lower class students. (1)NOTE: I realize that correspondance school and traditional homeschool are somewhat different. However they are both forms of homeschooling. Correspondance schools are the only way to obtain accurate data."You go by a small number of people you know who weren't taught properly by parents and somehow thing ALL homeschoolers are like that." I have provided the necessary statistics to prove my point. Also, there is one type of homeschooling that has not been mentioned. Online schooling. Studies have shown that these schools are less likely to meet federal education standards. Kids are even more likely to fall behind in cyber school because there is no one there to motivate them. Source (2) explains some of the flaws in K12 online schooling.All Boy Scouts of America ArgumentsHere my opponent talks about how their personal experience in has given them adequate social interaction. This may be true; however, this argument cannot be looked to because it has absolutely nothing to do with homeschooling. Boy scouts is a valid option for both homeschoolers and public schoolers. In order for my opponent to prove that homeschooling itself provides social opportunities, they must list programs that are exclusively made for homeschoolers. My opponent states, "I don't understand how you think public school clubs are better than THE Boys Scouts of America." Again, if my opponent and I are to compare social benifits of public school vs. homeschool, it must be clubs/activities exclusively for public school vs. clubs/activities exclusively for homeschool. Activities that are options for everyone cannot be taken into account.(1) http://politicsofchildhood.org...(2) http://www.mlive.com...My Arguments (Rebuttal)Qualification of the parent to teach:"A parent does not need the qualifications of a regular teacher to teach their child."That is exactly the point I am getting at. Teachers are much more qualified to teach than parents. The fact that these qualifications are not required just shows that homeschooling parents are not fully qualified to teach their child. Look at my chart from the first round. Around 11% of parents who homeschool their children don't even have a high school diploma. My opponent notes that students can take some classes at home and some classes at school. This argument would actually flow over to my side because my opponent has acknowledged that it might be beneficial for students to take some classes in public school.Turning in data to the Homeschool Legal Defense AssociationThis is a good idea, but in many states, it is not required. Take a look at this chart that is actually from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association: Here it is shown that there are 10 states that don't even ask for notification if a parent is homeschooling. 14 more states ask for notification and nothing more. So almost half of the United States has little to no regulation for homeschooling. In my opponent's state, there may be regulations, but this is not the case for every state. (1)Actual reasons for homeschooling:The only argument my opponent made for this point is that personally they never felt clueless or oblivious to another point of view. However, my opponent is only one example. For this argument I would like to reference the article my opponent attached. Reason #7 was literally entitiled "Sheltering" The mother said, "The values of consumerism (i.e. wearing the right clothes) and status associated with money are the realities of school. Deadly concealed weapons are a reality in school. And an accelerated sense of sexuality and dating are a reality in school. I understand that these are also realities outside school, and my children will someday claim membership in this reality. But not today." Psycologically speaking, sheltering children is not going to help them in the long run. Take a look at my second source: A new paper by Katz et al, "Prefrontal Plasticity and Stress Inoculation-Induced Resilience", shows how exposure to mild stress as a young child can actually alter the brain in ways that make us better equipped to handle future stress as adults. Parents may feel that by preventing their child from encountering any and all potential hardship they are helping to preserve their emotional well-being, but going through a little stress and encouraging them to cope with it effectively will benefit them far more when it comes to being a more resilient, independent, and emotionally stable adult. How the student feels: My opponent attacked my chart by simply saying that he had never experienced abuse. The survey I provided has been taken by homeschoolers all over the United States, proving it to be more reliable than the opinions of my opponent and his friends.(1) Homeschool Legal Defense Association(2) http://www.science20.com...And finally... attacking the article my opponent attached. I will do this reason by reason.I am only covering the first three reasons because I feel that these are the most important. If my oppont chooses to bring up any of the other reasons I will go ahead and address them as well.1) Learning 2) Instruction- I'm going to group these two together. The parents who wrote the article chose to homeschool their children becaue they felt that they were more qualified to teacher their kids than a teacher. Now, the parent who wrote this article has a Ph.D. So I would agree that they are definitely able to teach their kids. However, most parents who homeschool don't even have a college degree. The kids in this given family may be getting adiquate learning and instruction, but homeschooling will hurt them in other ways. I'll get into that later.3) Time- Here the author explains that a lot of the subjects learned in schools such as spanish are irrelivant and a waste of time if the person does not pursue to further learn the language once they get out of highschool. I'm not going to really get into this argument, but everything learned in highschool at least has some positive effect on the brain. Learning another language (even if its just for a couple years) has numerous benifits. I attached an article below (1). This is something homeschoolers will miss out on.(1) http://www.actfl.org...