Homeschooling hits record numbers

In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a strong desire to supplant science and history with religious ideas and principles.

That is exactly what I've seen, to keep kids in their brainwashing bubble.

Where I live in the Midwest that is absolutely the case. The homeschool "groups" are almost all religiously oriented in some way.

I hear this a lot, and it may be true, but I am very skeptical that it matters. The statistics about home-schooled children don't support the idea that they have horribly inaccurate models of the world guided mostly by religious thinking. Or if they do it doesn't seem to affect life achievement in any important way. Instead home-schooled children are typically more advanced at graduation and have higher lifetime achievement metrics than their public school counterparts.

As an athiest, and a bayesian, it's difficult for me to worry about other peoples religious beliefs that don't seem to negatively affect them or me. Especially when there is propaganda taught in the public schools that does warp the students' world views in ways that harms them and me.

That has been the case for a long time, and I guess something about the current generation of parents has gotten them to act more on it. My dad came from a very religious family and they all did private religious schools for their early grade school years. Then they went to public for high school years.

If I had to guess, its maybe something about the demise of church life that has gotten religious parents to just pull back entirely. It wasn't that uncommon for public schools to make nods toward Christian ideals/lifestyles before like the 90s, but now that stuff just doesn't happen anymore.

> It wasn't that uncommon for public schools to make nods toward Christian ideals/lifestyles before like the 90s, but now that stuff just doesn't happen anymore.

Schools should absolutely teach Christian mythology and history, and Greek mythology and history, and Egyptian mythology and history, alongside many other subjects. But to the extent that they used to make "nods" towards "this is the cultural default we defer to", nope.

> The statistics about home-schooled children don't support the idea that they have horribly inaccurate models of the world guided mostly by religious thinking.

I'd be surprised if any such statistics exist. I've seen studies about the reasons parents choose to homeschool, and various outcomes of homeschooled kids versus public school kids, but none about what particular beliefs homeschooled kids have regarding, say, the age of the Earth.

> Especially when there is propaganda taught in the public schools that does warp the students' world views in ways that harms them and me.

This sentence caused a record needle scratch sound in my head.

I'm afraid to ask what you mean, and it seems like you might be afraid to say, because it's a bit bizarre to drop that line with no explanation.

States are saying that schools have to post the 10 commandments and when teachers put up a poster about “everyone is welcomed here” showing kids of different colors it’s “too woke”.

Which is funny since I (a Black guy) went to a mostly White Christian school in the 80s where they sung “Jesus loves the little children - red and yellow black and white they are all precious in his site”.

I won't pretend to know where you live or what those people's desires are but I definitely started homeschooling after the last US administration took moral volatility to new standards. The principles taught in schools just did not align anymore with what was common sense when I was in school and what I believe in. Now before you judge, I'm not looking for a fight. My wife and I have both master-degree educations in CS and law and our four kids have been to public school in the US and abroad, they've been to an evangelical christian school, and now that we've decided to homeschool for two years, we're not likely to take them back. The traditional school aspects take up 2-3h per day at most, then comes the school of life: raising and caring for animals and plants, fixing the truck or other engineersy activities and of course plenty of fun activities outside of the too-busy-to-be-fun times. My kids have learned of historic events such as Jamestown, Gettysburg or Mount St. Helens at the actual site of the event, they've been to most of the national parks and the fear of being socially-disconnected is not more than a fear before you start. Heck, thanks to Starlink they can even talk to their friends while we're driving through a desert.

Now let me also say that preparing the curriculum, ordering the materials etc. takes a lot of effort and discipline. It's definitely almost a full time job and I'm blessed with an amazing wife that's gifted in all that but the reward is more than worth it. Also, if you're thinking about it, many states have home school support programs and put you in touch with other home schoolers in the area.

Homeschoolers tend to outperform their regular school peers. But I think parental involvement is a significant differential and is probably contributing to the outcomes.

Propaganda being the incorporation of political ideology into much of the lesson plan - even when banned.

Whatever it is, public schools are an absolute failure. But that could be attributed to the immigration in the US over the last half decade. North Carolina lost like 20% of their student base following mass ICE raids.

Many teachers around me have mentioned how the portion of non-English speakers has dramatically increased and is causing significant degradation to their effectiveness in the classroom and the outcomes.

In what and citation needed.