All children should be home-schooled

I enjoyed reading your argument, here are my thoughts. Now again, I must be clear about my resolution, which is that when not disabled by insufficient funds, or insufficient teaching ability, the home-schooling is to be preferred over public-schooling. Which is to say, in "Utopia," as you would have it, the children receive their primary education at home. So then, I will first address your objections through this lens, and then address the feasibility of implementation, although implementation is not directly relevant to my resolution. Firstly, I will skip to your first objection to the absolute value of home-schooling, that "there are a huge number of families in Western societies in which parents are in fact a bad influence on their children," and that "[h]ome-schooling would only increase the bad influence from bad parents onto their child(ren) and defeat the point of education - which is to provide an 'opportunity' to grow and improve upon previous generations." If parents are bad for their children, then they should not be raising those children in the first place. I think few would agree that it is a healthy dynamic for children to be living with bad parents, regardless of whether they attend public school. The only legal pretense under which a child is allowed to stay with parents is that they are more good for the child than bad. Therefore public school should not be preferred as a means to escape the bad influence of parents Secondly, concerning your objection concerning society: that "familial bonds are [not] 'the smallest and most crucial thread in society,'" but that "society is run on the bonds formed between people of the same interests and intellects." You give for example that "researchers do not work with their family to conduct investigations, they work with other like-minded people who have also dedicated their time and intelligence to similar subjects." This would be a valid point, if the aim of society were scientific progress, or any given sort of production, other than the production of good citizens. Familial bonds are indeed the fabric of society because it is through these relations that children truly learn appropriate social action. This is because love, that is, good-will, is the basis of proper social interaction. I posit a few things in this idea: that love is the natural reason for a man to treat another well, and that love exists naturally between family members and not between strangers, and that one must learn how to build the proper habits in order to treat loved ones fairly. The conclusion I draw from these things is that children should first form habits to properly treat those they have a natural love for, and thence apply those habits to those they have no natural love for. Simply put this: that every child should learn to love his neighbor as his brother, but first must learn how properly to love his brother. In light of this principle, I say that home-schooling is preferable as a primary education. Large public schools simply cannot provide the emotional care that young children require. As you were saying, in this phase of life, children are encountering all sorts of new situations that they have no experience with, such as working together, and sharing. According to human nature, these sorts of interactions will always result in some form of conflict; and at the heart of every conflict, is always emotion. In order to learn how to properly respond to and manage these emotions, children require a great deal of individual attention. In a public class-room setting, this is simply not possible. There are a few factors which contribute to this impossibility. Firstly, the number of students is simply too great, and the schedule too rigid, to allow each child the extensive individual counseling he requires. Secondly, the teacher, or principal, or any other school staff member cannot possibly have as profound a relationship with a child as the child's parent can, and therefore is not able to deal with the child with the same level of understanding and love. Thirdly, as most emotional situations at school are going to occur between students, the parents' respective authority over their children makes resolution of classroom conflict very difficult. Because each parent favors his own child, each is more likely to see through a bias, blaming the other's child as the offender. Whereas in a home environment, a parent is able to arbitrate and council each child, without bias towards either, loving them equally. This solution to this issue is attempted in the form of principal arbitration, however this is largely ineffective, as the child is most unwilling to receive discipline and counseling from a teacher, while his own parent disagrees. This is an example of the benefit of experiencing conflict first within the family. I do remind you, however, that I am not advocating for home-schooling up until adulthood. Middle and high-school are the perfect opportunity for children to experience a heightened level of independence, and put into practice more continually their social skills, learned within the family. Of course it is also important to remember that while being home-schooled in the early years, there are plenty of communities for the children to be involved in such as sports, arts groups, and local friends. These are the first trial grounds of the habits cultivated in the family, it is important that these trials take a secondary position to the actual formation of the habits. That being said, a few words on the practicality of the home-schooling. A private tutor for every disadvantaged family are of course not a feasible solution, you're right on that. However I do think you're overestimating the general price of the home-schooling. For instance, the government could establish whatever method they deem best by which to evaluate the quality of education, and individual companies could compete to provide packages of materials to educate with, which would drive prices down. Combine that with the lack of primary schooling facilities or teachers to pay for, I think that education could indeed be much less expensive, with similar academic results. The fact that some parents would be taken out of the workforce is a good point, but as said earlier, the proper raising of children is the most worth-while activity, so the slightly reduced economic growth should be accepted. They would only be out of the workforce until their child enters the sixth grade anyhow, so the economic retardant would be very slight indeed. On the point of certain parents being too poorly educated to teach their children, this brings into question the value of the public education system as a whole. If our public education program is effective, than those graduated should have all the education necessary to teach the same curriculum. Especially considering the fundamental nature of the first fifth grades. But again, if any family should have some extraneous circumstances, which for whatever reason entirely leave them unable to home-school, then an education should be provided to them, at the public expense. The fact that some families may be unable to home-school, does not effect whether home-schooling is the most preferable. Therefore, I summarize my case, that home-schooling is preferable to public schooling, because it provides for the proper development of relational habits.