We all know from our own childhoods and, if we are parents, from our children's childhoods, that most education occurs in the home. There kids learn who God is and how to pray to Him, how to treat others, including their annoying siblings. Kids learn, if implicitly, from their parents' dinner conversation, from how Mom responds to their little crises, how Dad deals with irritating neighbors and with household challenges, how to think about and decide the questions that constitute life as it is lived everyday. Catholic tradition has always held, moreover, that parents have a primary, inalienable responsibility for their children's education. The state has no proper interest in standardizing kids, even where the kids are enrolled in public schools.
Home schooling is also a novelty.
The home schooling with which Catholic Dossier is concerned is news, a development of the last twenty years or so. The movement is well-described elsewhere in this issue. Yes, schools, especially the public schools, were increasingly delinquent teachers of the 3R's. Yes, grossly inappropriate material, not only pertaining to education about human reproduction, seeped into the curriculum. Yes, getting into and out of some schools safely made for a successful semester.