Is Home Schooling a Challenge to Public Schools?

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Home schooling is on the increase as an alternative to what's called the "cultural monopoly" of public schools. After decades of courtroom battles, the practice is legal in every state, some of which regulate it while others don't, and has become an increasing challenge to what's called "the monopoly" of public schools. Most home schooling is still for religious reasons, but secular families are getting in on the action, too. Do home-schooled children get the preparation they need to compete in a complex, high-tech society? Should they be monitored and tested by government, or is the whole point that education should be left to parents alone? What about the rules of democracy and learning to live where religious and ethnic diversity are facts of life?

Credits

Guests:

  • Chris Klicka - Senior Counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association
  • Luis Huerta - Professor of Public Policy and Education at Columbia University
  • Elizabeth Canning - Mother of a home-schooled daughter
  • Robert Reich - professor of Public Policy at the University of California Berkeley, former labor secretary under Bill Clinton - @RBReich

Host:

Warren Olney