Public school is better for developing life skills than Home Schooling

Now, I'll try and post a good counter argument for my opponent =) "Yes but in home school you get taught the same core. Also they get better test scores in those core curriculums: In 1997, a study of 5,402 homeschool students from 1,657 families was released. It was entitled, "Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America." The study demonstrated that homeschoolers, on the average, out-performed their counterparts in the public schools by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects. A significant finding when analyzing the data for 8th graders was the evidence that homeschoolers who are homeschooled two or more years score substantially higher than students who have been homeschooled one year or less. The new homeschoolers were scoring on the average in the 59th percentile compared to students homeschooled the last two or more years who scored between 86th and 92nd percentile. [1]" My opponent says homeschooled children are taught the same core curriculum. If you look at my source, then you will see that weeding a vegetable garden can be considered a science lesson and walking a dog can be a nature experiment. Seriously? You say to me this is core curriculum? To me it is almost laughable. My opponent also says home schooled students get better scores, but what he is failing to tell you is that the students that take these types of tests are self-selecting, in other words, it is up to the parent if their child is to take this test, so you can't argue that homeschool students overall are doing better than their public school counterparts. Also, when broken down demographically, homeschoolers may not do as well in testing since homeschoolers tend to come from higher earning parents whom have more formal education than parents in the general population; the median income for home school families is significantly higher than that of all families with children in the United States; and almost all home school students are in married couple families. When samplings are done, successful homeschooling parents are more likely to allow their children to be tested; in a public school you don't have that option, so the validity of these tests are inaccurate. The total numbers of homeschoolers is actually unknown, and so again if you do not know the number of homeschoolers, you cannot truly give accurate numbers. Brian Ray, president of the Home Education Research Institute that "achievement was statistically significantly related, in cases, to the father's educational level, mother's educational level, gender of the student, years home educated." However, dismisses this relationship no supporting evidence and simply wrote, "the relationships were, however, weak and not practically significant." Now, when related to publicly schooled children, the negative effects of divorce, minority status and television are considered significant. When related to publically schooled children, the positive effects of parental involvement, parents' educational status, and the expectancy theory are considered strong and significant, so why does Brian Ray, a president of Home Education Research Institute, feel that the relationship is "weak and not practically significant" when related to schooled children? Also, other researchers also have recognized the relationship between the demographic characteristics and high test scores of homeschooled students. http://www.eric.ed.gov... Also, I would like to point out, like I mentioned above, that typically a homeschool student belongs to a family that have obtained bachelor degrees and masters; by law, the only qualification a parent or guardian needs is a high school diploma or GED at best. Now, consider this, people who opt for GED's are usually people who had trouble in school, dropped out of school, lacked the desire or hope to finish a traditional high school. These troubles may include poor performance in school, lack of discipline or effort, undiagnosed learning disabilities, a dislike for their educational environment, boredom with traditional learning models, teen pregnancy, lack of parental support, or drug and alcohol addictions. In other words, GED recipients in general were not successful students who were likely to achieve a traditional high school diploma. http://nces.ed.gov... http://www.doe.k12.ga.us... http://www.essortment.com... "A study of adults who were home educated found that none were unemployed and none were on welfare, 94% said home education prepared them to be independent persons, 79% said it helped them interact with individuals from different levels of society, and they strongly supported the home education method. [2]" To counter this argument I will refer back to my statements above. Children that come from homeschooling are typically High income, VERY well educated families that hold HIGH expectations for their children to excel socially and academically and do not take in to account the total number of homeschooled children since this number is unknown. So, why would you have a person coming from a wealthy family on welfare? "All of these are what if questions, Home schooling out preforms public schools in reading, (50% in public ve 65-75 in hpmeschool) So once again, on average the home schooling method trums a public school in all subjects, well maybe except art ad such, but your argument here doesnt work because the numbers are against you. Also the numbers here can be found in my second source." Once again, his numbers are not showing the total number of student's homeschooled. Since these tests are self-selected on the homeschooled children, let's let the public schools do a self-selected test, then I bet these numbers would show a drastic change. If you let one be self-selective, then why not the other? "Also home schooling is cheaper Another obstacle that seems to be overcome in homeschooling is the need to spend a great deal of money in order to have a good education. In Strengths of Their Own, Dr. Ray found the average cost per homeschool student is $546 while the average cost per public school student is $5,325. Yet the homeschool children in this study averaged in 85th percentile while the public school students averaged in the 50th percentile on nationally standardized achievement tests. [1] So home schools are cheaper, and you get better scores on average, best of both worlds, cheap ad good. Saves the taxpayer money: Home education families are not dependent on public, tax-funded resources - they likely save American taxpayers over $10 billion per year. [2] So overall they save 10 billion dollars a year in tax money for americans, so thank them." First, public school is technically free, I mean the taxpayers do pay for it, but there is a reason you can claim educational credits on your taxes. You could argue that it really isn't cheaper considering that the parent has to buy or rent books depending where you live and free to the student attending public school. Cheaper to the tax payers, but you are paying taxes either way. Overall it is only cheaper depending on you choose to teach your child. Conclusion: 1. My opponents' numbers are flawed due to the unknown number of homeschoolers. 2. Public schools allow for more interactions because they have more children to play and interact with. 3. Almost all of my opponents' arguments are based on numbers that are flawed since the total number of homeschoolers is unknown. 4. Not all of kids that are homeschooled receive a better life. This is research in which I believe would allow the person to agree or not agree to participate in this research. How many refused to do this research that was homeschooled? 5. If homeschooling was so great then why isn't everyone doing it? I think numbers would be a lot higher if it so much cheaper, especially with the American economy doing bad. Thanks =)