Resolved: Homeschooling is better than public schooling

I will attempt to show that homeschooling, defined as either strictly at home or with a co-op, is a better form of education that public schooling. We will only discuss educationally related issues, not finances. My opponent will argue that public schools offer better education than do home schools. Rd. #1 is for acceptance and definition questions only. I look forward to a fun debate. Good Luck!

I wish to thank my opponent for the opportunity to debate. I hope to learn something new and perhaps I will be dissuaded from my position before the end of the debate.

Is my opponent referring to education in terms of academic knowledge (if so, how should we measure that?), or social prowess and hands-on skills as well? Inversely, may I argue from the position that education's function should be to ready an individual for society? Thus, good education is anything that helps align an individual to a prospect goal or niche in society?

May I assume that public schooling is considered in conjunction with education from parenting?

Have fun and good luck!

Thanks to my opponent for accepting the debate. First of all, definitions.

1. I view education as the complete package. Academic knowledge, social skills, etc.
2. I wish to compare simply the educational styles. Simply put, I don't desire to debate the worst possible aspects of homeschooling such as neglectful parents, etc. I wish to compare a conscientious, educationally minded parent and an average school system. I'm not talking about the best or worst ends of the spectrum. I simply propose that homeschooling, as a method, is better than public schooling. You may assume as stated above, but the majority of the focus is to be placed on the schooling time, not after hours instruction in either type of schooling.

I will now begin the debate.

There are numerous benefits of homeschooling. Following I will list some of the outstanding ones.

1. One-on-one teacher-student interaction, which allows the learning style and speed to be tailored to the student involved, rather than being forced to move at the average class pace, which may be too fast or too slow for the student.
2. The absence of harmful peer interaction. By harmful, I mean the constant proximity during the school day to ones peers, which may bully the student or provide a bad example, etc. Homeschooling allows students to select their friends and interact only with the people that they and their parents deem appropriate.
3. Flexible scheduling--the student will be able to select off days to correlate with the schedule of the parents. Dad off on Monday and Tuesday? It's easy when homeschooling to work the schedule around events, etc.
4. Ideologically consistent education. This is the ability of the parent to educate their child within their own belief system. A Christian, Muslim, or other conservative religious student would not be forced to undergo teaching about useless and counterproductive subjects like the obscene sex-ed classes. This would give parents educational freedom.

These are only a few of the benefits of homeschooling. I will now turn my attention to the detrimental effects of public schooling.
1. All of the effects as listed above have opposites which are present in public schooling, and are detrimental to education.
2.Added to this are the liberal philosophy of many school districts which, as a rule, discount our Christian heritage, teach exclusively the hypothesis of evolution and the harmful and illogical notion of multiculturalism. All of these are serious flaws in the public school curriculum.

I will allow my opponent to present his arguments on the negative aspects of homeschooling and the positive aspects of public schooling, which I will then attempt to refute, etc.

Supposing my opponent and I have agreed the objective of education is to prepare the population for their roles in society, I will attempt to demonstrate why public (or private) schooling is ultimately better mainstream tool for education than homeschooling.

I argue that:

1) While homeschooling statistics indicate that children taught under this method become more successful financially and scholastically, this is due to the types of individuals who attempt to home-school their children and not necessarily because of homeschooling itself.

2) If homeschooling were adopted in a mainstream fashion (taken outside the usual demographic of homeschooling parents), we would witness a decline in the success rate of home-schooled children.

3) Students of public education often have children younger. Large families are important for the working class, thus public education is better at preparing individuals who desire the working class as their role.


I will now rebut your points:

1) Public education, used in conjunction with customized tutoring provided by that education system will provide equal if not better result compared to homeschooling. Public education forces the child to recognize and adapt to different teaching and expectational patterns when used correctly. Students who take part in social events and actively seek assistance in their education are statistically more likely to perform better in public or private school. Most public high schools will allow students to enter courses beyond their grade-level if they have obtained the prerequisite credits. A well formed public education system is flexible and customizable to a student's needs.

2) Learning how to deal with bullies or disliked coworkers is paramount to successful operation in social networks or businesses. A lack of exposure to these kinds of interactions can lead to higher levels of anxiety in later life when they are met.

3) In order to prepare student's for the realities of the working world, it is important to have some rigidity. However, public school teachers may also be flexible in terms of due dates and absences (such as for community events one is involved in). Being forced to negotiate with strangers (and not just our own parents) becomes an important skill later in life.

4.a) Religious pluralism and secularism are of absolute importance for maintaining social tolerance and building an understanding within each of us to respect the thoughts and opinions of others. I am from Canada, therefore any argument about the nature of the heritage of the United States does not apply to me (Canada is multicultural).

4.b) Subjects such as creationism are still taught here in Canada (albeit in philosophy class). In a properly formed public system, teachers only instruct on schools of thought, not what ought be considered objectively true. It is more important to give someone the tools of understanding to let them choose their own path, than to cage someone's mind within indoctrination and ignorance.

Unfortunately, the argument ablout adopting homeschooling as a mainstream option is not essentially germane--we are only talking about educational forms. Other forms of socialization are available besides school--church, youth groups, co-ops, events, etc. Flexibility means general schedule flexibility, such as the ability of myself to be off on Modays and Tuesdays to coincide with my father's schedule. Socialization only wiht a particular age group is useless, businesses feature wide age ranges. In the US, atheistic only philosophies are taught as a rule. I agree wiht 4.b, but it is unfortunately not the case.

As my opponent is from the United States, I will justify my arguments with statistical evidence from the U.S. and demonstrate that homeschooling is not the cause of more successful education.

According to HSLDA (Homes School Legal Defense Association: http://www.hslda.org...), the average income of a homeschooling family is $52,000 annually (marginally higher than the average income of a typical American family).

Studies have shown that a family's financial standing significantly impacts on a child's ability to succeed academically (http://www.irp.wisc.edu...). Regions with more developed educational infrastructure and higher median family incomes will have children score better on testing (e.g. http://www.daytondailynews.com...).

When comparing the test scores of Home-schooled children with their public school counter-parts of equal or approximate family structure (income, state of parents' marriage, etc), there is no statistically significant difference between the two groups.

Emotional stability at home is a fundamental pillar for the ability to emotionally invest in scholarly success. 81% of home-schooled children live with both parents, and 54% of home-schooled children have a parent that is not in the workforce (http://www.rohus.nu...) compared with 43%-51% for public or private schooled. Homeschooled children are more likely to have two or more siblings. The demographic qualities by themselves justify the home-schooled students currently have a higher average – not because of homeschooling.

Public education has every advantage of Homeschooling (and more). While I feel that properly formed and funded Public education offers a more constructive forum for educational growth. In regards to the statistics in favour of homeschooling, I contend that someone's success does not necessarily pivot on the flavour of education but an individual's drive to learn more and grow - and that drive is derived from the conditions at home.

I leave the question to the audience, given the evidence, is a properly formed public education system better than homeschooling?

I want to thank my opponent for this debate, and I ask the audience to vote mindfully and carefully consider my argumentation and my opponent's.