In my comments thus far, I’ve been almost exclusively focused on preventing severe abuse and too much isolation.
Something else I’m unsure about, but not necessarily a hill I want to die on given that government resources aren’t unlimited, is the question of whether kids should have a right to “something at least similarly good as voluntary public school education.” I’m not sure if this can be done cost-effectively, but if the state had a lot money that they’re not otherwise using in better ways, then I think it would be pretty good to have standardized tests for homeschooled kids every now and then, maybe every two to three years. One of them could be an IQ test, the other an abilities test. If the kid has an IQ that suggests that they could learn things well but they seem super behind other children of their age, and you ask them if they want to learn and they say yes with enthusiasm, then that’s suggestive of the parents doing an inadequate job, in which case you could put them on homeschooling probation and/or force them to allow their child to go to public school?
Something else I’m unsure about, but not necessarily a hill I want to die on given that government resources aren’t unlimited, is the question of whether kids should have a right to “something at least similarly good as voluntary public school education.”
This seems like it would punish variance a lot, and de-facto therefore be a huge tax on homeschooling. Some public schools are extremely bad, if no home schoolers are allowed to be as bad as the worst public schools, the costs of homeschooling increase a lot, constituting effectively a tax on homeschooling.
Maybe you mean “a right to an education at least as good as the worst public school education”, but my guess is the worst public school education is so bad that these would already be covered by almost any reasonable approach to human rights (like, my guess is it already involves continuous ongoing threats of violence, being lied to, frequent physical violence, etc.).
Huh, it grammatically reads fine to me. I am assuming the first paragraph reads fine, so I’ll clarify just the second.
In my first paragraph I said that making sure that most reasonable interpretations of “a right to an education at least as good as voluntary public school education” would put undue cost on homeschooling. In my second paragraph I then suggested one reading that does not plausibly incur that cost, which is a right to an education at least better than the worst voluntary public school education. However, it appears to me that students already have a right to an education at least better than the worst voluntary public school education, as I am sure the worst public school education violates many straightforward human rights and would be prosecutable under current law (just nobody is bothering to do that), suggesting that adding an additional right with such a low threshold wouldn’t really make any difference.
Ugh, this is totally my fault, but I did mean “first paragraph”. (Second paragraph of the comment, of which the first paragraph is the quote… yeah, I know; I wouldn’t have figured it out either…)
What I am saying is: yeah, your second paragraph makes sense. But… aren’t you just describing exactly the same thing that you, in your first paragraph, said would be bad?
Like… you say that “if no home schoolers are allowed to be as bad as the worst public schools”, this would be bad, would put an undue cost on homeschooling, etc. But then you say that “a right to an education at least as good as the worst public school education” would be fine, but meaningless in practice.
But…
… aren’t those the same thing??
if no home schoolers are allowed to be as bad as the worst public schools
a right to an education at least as good as the worst public school education
What’s the difference? You can’t just be leaning on the “greater than” vs. “greater than or equal to” distinction here… right? (Because that’s obviously a trivial difference!) Other than that, are these two scenarios not literally, exactly the same? What am I not seeing here?
Ah, oops, now I get it. Yes, I what I wrote sure didn’t make any sense. In my first paragraph I meant to write something like “if no home schoolers are allowed to be as bad as bad or average public schools, the costs of homeschooling increase a lot, constituting effectively a tax on homeschooling” and then in my second paragraph I meant to strengthen it into “the very worst public school”. I did sure write the same clarifiers in each paragraph, being very confusing.
In my comments thus far, I’ve been almost exclusively focused on preventing severe abuse and too much isolation.
Something else I’m unsure about, but not necessarily a hill I want to die on given that government resources aren’t unlimited, is the question of whether kids should have a right to “something at least similarly good as voluntary public school education.” I’m not sure if this can be done cost-effectively, but if the state had a lot money that they’re not otherwise using in better ways, then I think it would be pretty good to have standardized tests for homeschooled kids every now and then, maybe every two to three years. One of them could be an IQ test, the other an abilities test. If the kid has an IQ that suggests that they could learn things well but they seem super behind other children of their age, and you ask them if they want to learn and they say yes with enthusiasm, then that’s suggestive of the parents doing an inadequate job, in which case you could put them on homeschooling probation and/or force them to allow their child to go to public school?
This seems like it would punish variance a lot, and de-facto therefore be a huge tax on homeschooling. Some public schools are extremely bad, if no home schoolers are allowed to be as bad as the worst public schools, the costs of homeschooling increase a lot, constituting effectively a tax on homeschooling.
Maybe you mean “a right to an education at least as good as the worst public school education”, but my guess is the worst public school education is so bad that these would already be covered by almost any reasonable approach to human rights (like, my guess is it already involves continuous ongoing threats of violence, being lied to, frequent physical violence, etc.).
Er… I think you maybe got the adjectives mixed up in a bit? As written, your second paragraph doesn’t make any sense.
Did you perhaps mean… “good” / “as bad as the best”…? But that is also weird… yeah, I don’t understand what you had in mind there. Clarify, please?
Huh, it grammatically reads fine to me. I am assuming the first paragraph reads fine, so I’ll clarify just the second.
In my first paragraph I said that making sure that most reasonable interpretations of “a right to an education at least as good as voluntary public school education” would put undue cost on homeschooling. In my second paragraph I then suggested one reading that does not plausibly incur that cost, which is a right to an education at least better than the worst voluntary public school education. However, it appears to me that students already have a right to an education at least better than the worst voluntary public school education, as I am sure the worst public school education violates many straightforward human rights and would be prosecutable under current law (just nobody is bothering to do that), suggesting that adding an additional right with such a low threshold wouldn’t really make any difference.
Hope that helps!
Ugh, this is totally my fault, but I did mean “first paragraph”. (Second paragraph of the comment, of which the first paragraph is the quote… yeah, I know; I wouldn’t have figured it out either…)
What I am saying is: yeah, your second paragraph makes sense. But… aren’t you just describing exactly the same thing that you, in your first paragraph, said would be bad?
Like… you say that “if no home schoolers are allowed to be as bad as the worst public schools”, this would be bad, would put an undue cost on homeschooling, etc. But then you say that “a right to an education at least as good as the worst public school education” would be fine, but meaningless in practice.
But…
… aren’t those the same thing??
What’s the difference? You can’t just be leaning on the “greater than” vs. “greater than or equal to” distinction here… right? (Because that’s obviously a trivial difference!) Other than that, are these two scenarios not literally, exactly the same? What am I not seeing here?
Ah, oops, now I get it. Yes, I what I wrote sure didn’t make any sense. In my first paragraph I meant to write something like “if no home schoolers are allowed to be as bad as bad or average public schools, the costs of homeschooling increase a lot, constituting effectively a tax on homeschooling” and then in my second paragraph I meant to strengthen it into “the very worst public school”. I did sure write the same clarifiers in each paragraph, being very confusing.