We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control

arfies recently linked to this article on homeschooling. I'm sure there are many valid reasons to homeschool kids, but the "I want to control every single aspect of my child's life" attitude expressed by this guy creeps me out. Parental involvement is obviously vital, but isn't getting a variety of viewpoints important? At least students at public schools (and private schools, for that matter) get input from parents, peers, and preceptors. Sure, a lot of them are just going to do whatever damn fool things their friends do, and that's a concern for a parent. But as a parent, you have to keep in mind that, um, you're not always right. Somebody needs to make a poster or bumper sticker for parents like that, with a caption along the lines of, "Don't let the schools brainwash our kids!" and then in smaller letters, "We're perfectly capable of doing that ourselves."

I don't know. I was just recently discussing the school system with bethje, and there are definitely problems with public schools. I'm somewhat convinced that some people go into elementary or secondary education because they only have to know slightly more than their students. Like, take that Debra Lafave who was in the news recently. Even putting the sex scandal aside, she just came across as really friggin' dumb. School supervision also strikes me as being rather lax, and I say this as someone who went to SUBURBAN schools. But there are also a lot of GOOD public school teachers, and some of these problems can't really be blamed on the school administrators anyway. I mean, when you live in a society that puts insufficient funds into education and encourages people to crank out as many kids as possible, what do you expect the result to be?