That homeschooling as a form of alternative education should be abolished

First I want to deal with the stats of homeschooling. I am not going to try and argue against the good test scores or the proficient emotional ability of homeschooled kids although some of the studies have been criticised I don't think that is what this debate is about. There is still only a minority of kids getting homeschooled and judging that minority performance in standardised testing against the majority of kids who are in public school is difficult to say the least. I think the reasons that parents take their kids out of school is what this debate is about. I want to show that these reasons cause problems as homeschooling grows in popularity and that we can and should solve the issues that are currently present within school.

The reasons sited for homeschooling are [1]:

This to me becomes three overarching reasons:

I'm focussing on the first two in this post.

Using the USA as an example, it is generally true that the quality of public schools are shocking and this is particularly true in disadvantaged areas. A Government needs to be far more accountable to the population when it comes to education because every child has a right to fair education and the government should be providing equal opportunities. At the moment homeschooling being an option for some families relives the Government of some of its responsibility to provide adequate education because if they don't like the school they can go to a private one or be homeschooled. Unfortunately this is not the case for all families particularly in disadvantaged areas. A single parent would really struggle to homeschool their children and work to support them. Even families with two parents in a lot of cases desperately need both parents to be working hard jobs to make ends meet. This policy now holds the government fully accountable to the populous in terms of providing education because they are now the only option for disadvantaged kids (apart from scholarships which are few and far between). This puts pressure on the Government to improve the standard of school as more and more parents will be lobbying to make this change. Parents are a large part of the population and if a government wants to be reflected next term then they have political reasons not to anger parents but instead t please them in order to secure votes. There is also social and economic incentives to having a well educated population. First of all a good education gives you more options for later life so means that crime is a less likely career path [2]. Lower crime rates are something is inherently good for a functioning society. Also the economic reasons for the individual but also the stimulation of the markets are caused when people have a better education and can work in better paying jobs (also just more likely to ave a job) [3]. These are the reasons that a Government will improve the quality of education. I do have to defend here a lack of resources at the moment because that was a reason cited for why homeschooling was better. Here [4] it is shown that the USA military budget is 54% of the total Government spending while education is only 6% ($70 billion). Say we double the education budget and take that from military spending. This would be a reduction of just 12% of the military budget leaving it at $528.5 billion which seems reasonable to me. So we would have the resources to apply the changes and there is the political incentive to do so.

This is the main problem I can see with the rise of homeschooling. Many people are citing religious reasons accompanied with an objection to the teachings of the school and to instil their own view of morality onto the children. Parents and religion already have an adequate amount of space in the childs life to impact their morality and view of the world. What a school can offer is the support structure and the neutrality for that child to voice, explore and form a morality and world view of their own. This works because they can and should be taught by the teacher that there are multiple view points and these opinions should be respected. A parent who is taking a child out of school to purposefully teach a specific morality or view point will necessarily have to say that other view points are wrong. This does not give the child the frame work that they need to compute two opposing viewpoints and make a decision about what they believe is correct. This is problematic in the future if the rise of home schooling continues because it would become more and more acceptable for parents to be the sole arbitrator of their childs morality. While the parent does have a right to impact that decision in some way homeschooling allows this to be taken to an extreme. When less children are brought up having to understand why multiple opinions can be "true" and should be respected social cohesion is much harder. For example a parent teaching a child that being gay is wrong. This would happen to a certain extent with public schooling but a school system has to recognise a certain utilitarian calculus and therefore these views are likely moderated with a teaching providing an alternative opinion i.e. all love is equal and should be respected. Homeschooling solidifies a parental opinion in the child without giving them the opportunity to explore and make their own decisions. This leads to community isolation and makes it much harder to move past the idea the "i am right and you are wrong". it makes it harder generationally to present new ideas to further moral debates because the previous generations moral compass is so ingrained within the children.

Sorry this was late and rushed but I look forward to the rest of the debate.

[1]http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp

[2]http://eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/lm46.pdf

[3]http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099079934475/Edu_Quality_Economic_Growth.pdf

[4]https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/military-spending-united-states/

Homeschooling shouldn't be abolished. Parent's have the right to choose what kind of education they want for their children.  Abolishing homeschooling is limiting people's rights and freedoms. I know that we can't let people do whatever they want, that would be debauchery. What demarcates the limit between freedom and debauchery is the impact of an action. If an action harms the others, it's debauchery. To sum up, my rights end where your rights start. Let's apply this to our main problem. homeschooling harm anyone? If I get homeschooled, will the others get harmed? Both are no. Then, allowing homeschooling is freedom not debauchery. Therefore, we must support it, not abolish it.

Homeschooling also provides the opportunity for parents to introduce their religious ideas to their kids. In this way, parents would be sure that their kids get the best moral education, according to them. Parents have the right to teach their religion to their children, and homeschooling helps.

Besides that, the emotional and physical freedom also increases. Homeshooled kids are free from strict time tables, homework, peer pressure, bullies, and so on.

The obvious objection to homeschooling is that, since parents aren't teachers, kids could have a bad education and we wouldn't know it. This can be solved, and actually, it's solved in this way in many countries where homeschooling is allowed. Homeschooled children should be tested in order to confirm their level of education. Then, we can ensure that homeschooled children have the same level of education as the not homeschooled children.

Another famous objection to homeschooling is the increase of the parents' time demand. It's true that some parents don't have he needed time to homeschool their kids, but that's why homeschooling is an option. If you want and you can, then go and do it. If you can't, then don't do it. We shouldn't take away the freedom of choice from parents just because a few can't homeschool. 

Lastly, some people say that parents that struggle economically can't afford homeschooling their kids. But again, homeschooling is not mandatory but an option. If you can't, don't do it; but if you can do it.  Saying that a few can't homeschool their kids, is not a reason to prohibit homeschooling to everyone.

Ph.D. Ray D. Brian makes a summary of what home schooling research has found in his article "Research facts on Homeschooling" (2015). However, if you want to read the actual studies I can provide a list: 

What all this studies and papers claim is very positive towards homeschooling. Here are some facts about homeschooled confirmed by these studies:

So studies show that there's no negative impact on homeschooled kids.

Homeschooling does not harm the kids nor the others. We should permit parents to choose whether they want to homeschool their children or not. Abolishing it is limiting freedom with no real reason. We shouldn't abolish homeschooling.

I'll rebut the rest of Con's arguments separately.

I argued none of these and don't intend to because I agree that these are poor oppositions to homeschooling.

My opponent presented 9 studies and claimed "What all this studies and papers claim is very positive towards homeschooling". There is first of all no way anyone has time to read all of these to verify that assertion and besides that, I already conceded that most students who are homeschooled do well in tests and sometimes even better than public schooled kids. My opponent stated in their opening lines "I can't say if homeschooling is more effective than traditional schooling with a 100% certainty. However, that's not the discussion here." I agree with this and stated so in my opening round, so this all seems like a moot argument by Con's own admission. My opponent then goes on to state some facts without showing where they were referenced from specifically and states these facts show that "there's no negative impact on homeschooled kids". This is an untrue assertion; all Con has proven is that there can be academic benefits of being homeschooled. This is not analysis proving that no negative impacts exist especially after Con conceded that the debate is not about academic success.

The best and most relevant argument my opponent provided was the analysis on freedoms and I agree this is the most important comparative in this debate. There was no direct rebuttal of my opening arguments but some of this analysis implicitly interacts with mine. I will go through my opponents argument in detail and rebut the analysis while providing some direct comparisons to my own analysis from round 1.

I disagree with the first statement here and agree with the second. I will argue that parents rights should not extend to the ability to take children out of school to teach them specific religious or moral lessons or because you as a parent disagree with what the school is teaching. Note that Con has not analysed why parents have the right to choose the child's education, this was just asserted as the premise of the rest of the argument. Governments already dictate necessary areas of education for all students (homeschooled, private schools, public schools) I am arguing that I believe Governments should extend this to teaching moral and religious education in a neutral and comparative way. This cannot be guaranteed in homeschool households because of the fact many parents want to homeschool their kids for this specific reason. I argued in round 1 that an increasing popularity of homeschooling for this purpose means that parents can and will promote their own moral standings and religious ideals as objectively correct. Schools by law [apart from religious schools which is am also happy to argue should be banned] have to present moral and religious ideas in a balanced and neutral manner. Good teachers will also have discussions with their pupils on controversial issues such that they understand both sides of the argument and understand how to balance these opinions in order to form their own. This is crucial in developing a respectful and tolerant population. This should be high on a Governments agenda because a tolerant population means less hate crimes, less victims of hate crime, less extreme views and because minorities that are at risk from this are citizens that the Government also has a duty to protect, allowing them to live a safe life. More tolerance leads to less social unrest which makes the country much easier to Govern. This is why it has to be a Government priority. This is why the Government can limit parental right to choose what kind of moral education children receive. I agree that it is limiting rights and I will analyse why this is allowed next.

First and third party harms are not the only reason rights can be limited; where a Government has a duty to provide something for all citizens then rights can also be limited by Governmental control. This is what I argued above. It is also simply asserted by Con that no first or third party harms exist. I have analysed why parents having the sole influence over their child's opinions and morality. I have explained why this does not allow children to grow up with the skills to compare opinions that are different and generate your own opinions from this. This is a crucial skill of analysis that helps you navigate politics and most situations of social discussion or conflict. This limits your ability to contribute effectively and make informed political decisions which I argue is harmful to you as an individual. It also means that it is more difficult to be tolerant of other people's lives and opinions. This does not always lead to hate crimes but ignorance and intolerance are certainly reasons why people speak out in anger and hate against one another. This is a third party harm. I argued in round 1 that as homeschooling grows in popularity communities become more isolated as opinions are constantly solidified to the child in the echo chamber of the household teachings. This means that intolerance will increase as less children are presented with counter opinions in an informative educational way. This means the Government has a duty to control this to prevent intolerance getting worse for the reasons I gave above.

Yes this is true but it is problematic because it would be the only opinions that the children are taught as I analysed above. When children are not in school they are normally with their parents who would teach them their religion and beliefs as normal however while they are in school the are exposed to other ideas and taught to be tolerant of different opinions. Parents can still teach their children religion but children should also learn in a factual way that other religions exist, what those beliefs actually are and how you can disagree with those beliefs but still respect the people who believe that. Parents who are homeschooling their children to teach religious issues will necessarily teach those beliefs as they only truth. Religious studies at the moment is not something the Government can legislate should be taught therefore there is no reason for the parents to provide their children eduction on other religions. Even if this could be legislated we cannot control wether every parent is teaching these beliefs in an impartial and tolerant way particularly when they are diametrically opposed to the beliefs that the parents hold. In schools this is more achievable because the teachers are part of a hierarchy and feedback structure.

Finally this is also an untrue assertion that Con has made. There is no indication that parents won't teach their pupils in a strict timetable [they may want to teach punctuality and see a benefit in introducing structure to a child's life], there is also no analysis as to why a strict timetable is a harmful thing. I find it kind of funny that my opponent thinks that when all of the lessons are taught at home the child does not have homework. Presumably this is called independent study to supplement the lessons taught. Again there is no analysis why homework is bad. So if the pupils are homeschooled they will not experience bullies or peer pressure? Schools are not the only place this happens. Kids can be and are bullied at home and the children should presumably be interacting with people their own age at home when they are playing or at clubs so are still subject to peer pressure. There is no analysis as to why this would not happen if the pupils are homeschooled. 

I have rebutted all of my opponents arguments but I am still waiting for a direct response against the material I provided in round 1 and have extended in this round. I have proven why there is a direct harm to the children in terms of there ability to weigh contrasting opinions and why parents solidifying moral structures on there child without this analytical ability means that intolerance and community isolation will continue to rise. I have shown that it is the Governments duty to prevent intolerance therefore it is acceptable for parents rights to be deferred to the Government on the matter of education. This means that homeschooling should be abolished.

I look forward to the rest of the debate. 

To sum up quickly we both agreed that this debate was not about the children's abilities to pass tests or engage socially but it was a debate about wether the government or the parents should have educational control for their children. 

I argued that the government currently has control over most of the educational subjects however with homeschooling they cannot control the way in which ideas and morals are taught which. This means children are less able to make a reasoned comparison between two ideas and form their own opinion because parents are increasingly taking children out of school to enforce their own morality on to their children. I argued this has long term harms with wider integration meaning that this is something the government should have control over and not the parents. Con argues that it is ok for the parents to teach their children morality and I agree with this. Parents still have the opportunity to teach their own morality even when the children attend pubic school but with a school environment they have an opportunity to be more exposed to different ideas and morals and have the opportunity to learn how to form their own opinions.

For anyone judging; please don't just use the fact that forfeits happened as the justification, a lot of stuff happened in the debate and I think it was class commitments that kept my opponent from posting so please give both of us more of an opportunity to learn. 

No matter how you judge, thank you for reading this.