There's a posting and prolonged comment-fest about home schooling going on at Crooked Timber. I'd like to have time to join in, but I alas don't.
The consensus seems to be that although in a perfect world home schooling wouldn't be allowed, the world being the messy place that it is now, it should for the time being be allowed. Very generous.
That's a somewhat ungenerous take on the discussion, Brian. Although I was initially asked whether it should be allowed, the sceptics have suggested -- somewhat tentatively I might say -- that in a perfect world there wouldn't be a demand for it. That's hardly the same as insisting it should be banned! And some of us are just trying to get our heads straight on an issue we haven't given much thought to before. But thanks for the link, anyway.
While agreeing with Chris that the post and the ensuing comments were explorative and not prescriptive, it WAS one of Chris's own comments which raised the question of whether parents should be given the right to home-school or not. So, not 'somewhat ungenerous' in that respect, at any rate.
Chris,
The mere statement "In an ideal system no child would be home schooled" speaks volumes about the differences in perspective different people hold on education.
My view is that "in an ideal system no child would be public schooled."
How would a Rawlsian settle our divide?
I am intrigued by Chris's expression, "in a perfect world".........Well, in a "perfect world", we would have no disease, ignorance, wars, etc, and hence no need for hospitals, armies, schools and, well, you get my drift.
Home schooling should not, in fact, be thought of as a last resort option for those parents sick and tired of the current system, but as part of a healthy patchwork of teaching methods in an open and diverse society.
