I believe this has been mentioned here before, and I think the person mentioning it was German. I suspect this is a cultural difference in attitude, and I suspect that you may have an exaggerated sense of how much impact home schooling actually has.

First, your assertion that the United States is alone in allowing home schooling seems to be incorrect. If the Wikipedia article is to be believed, there are several countries allowing home schooling, including France. In the US, the states regulate home schooling, which means that standards vary wildly from state to state.

I've heard it suggested that home-schooling is a major contributor to fundamentalism, but I am highly skeptical of that claim. Home schooling accounts for less than 2% of all students in the US, which may be enough to have some effect, but is very far from accounting for all fundamentalism here. As for being a threat to "the Republic", I don't think that's any more realistic. I do, however, think that there is a real danger in allowing the state to define and enforce its version of reality too strongly, and for that reason, I support diverse educational options. I also don't see any reason a public school education is necessary for students to learn proper civics.

Home schooling is not a trivial undertaking for parents, and the people who do it have to be extremely motivated. For that reason, if we ever reach the point that a large percentage of students are being educated at home, I would sooner suspect a major problem with public schools than a malevolence in those parents.

In America, it's not just extremely religious people who home school their children.

A large number of public schools in America (especially in large cities) are extremely underfunded, and therefore of poor quality and often unsafe. School funding is a huge educational (and political) issue. Many parents would rather educate their children themselves than send them to a poor-quality public school. Private school is always an option, but it is usually very expensive.

One of the major donors to this site, David Mills, author of Atheist Universe, is a major homeschooling proponent. America has and hopefully always will have an individualist streak in it. Regardless of religious background, there are many Americans who believe they can do a better job schooling their children than the government run schools which have all sorts of other agendas than solely educating children (protecting the teacher's unions, securing more funding, etc). It is not inherently a threat if you ask me.

Sure, and a lot of parents are doing that. But at the same time they don't want their children going to a bad school during the time it would take to get the school improved.

So while the stay-at-home mom or dad spends all this time protesting their kid gets a shitty education?  sure, maybe things will slowly change for the next generation but let's not forget their motivation for doing this in the first place was THEIR child's education.

I'm not saying parents shouldn't take time to make things better - hell, even those without kids should... but there is the immediate problem of their child's education. 

Something to keep in mind about the impact of taking children out of the public school system is that it has a direct, negative financial impact on the school.  Schools receive funding per student.

It reminds me of the political tactic for some polititians to underfund an agency to the point where it can't function well anymore, then state "See?  It's broken because government can't and shouldn't do this, let's privatize it."  I know that's not the goal of parents who home school their children, but they are harming the public school system financially.

Generally, in the US, home schooling is held to standards in much the same way as private schools. This varies by state, and some states don't have standards as high as would be ideal.

I don't think US schools, public or private, have anything comparable to your 'Ethik'. We assume that parents teach their children ethics. Maybe this is a bad assumption, but the US is a very diverse place with a lot of different beliefs, and a history of parental rights to teach children their beliefs.

I think the need for a class on ethics is a separate discussion.

I don't think this is necessarily a good thing. Seems a little too undemocratic to me.

And, anyway, if a child's parents are neo-Nazis, don't you think the child will probably be exposed to a fair amount of hate outside school?

To a limited extent, yes. But considering how much time attending school takes (and how much of that time is really wasted), this is probably not practical for a complete curriculum.

I think the argument against home schooling is just a tease-- the more important question is: should anyone be allowed to have children and raise them as they see fit? I can think of plenty of reasons why my answer would be no.

The funny thing about what you said, that individualism can't develop by itself and it is hard to imagine how... well, I agree, except I am an example of such a thing. I spent my childhood never knowing of atheism, or that there were non-religious people, but I decided for myself by the time I was in preschool that Christianity was man-made. My parents were Lutheran and took me to church as well.

In fact, I seem to have been born an individualist. My father recalls holding me when I was an infant, and that I would attempt to move my hand towards his face. He thought I was being affectionate. My father then says I continued to develop in my infancy, until one day he realized what I had been trying to do: I had finally developed enough strength to smack him in the face. Both of my parents say I didn't like being held and preferred to move on my own.

It doesn't seem like a coincidence then that, as a young child, I observed the behavior of my parents, decided they were not quite that smart, didn't know what they were doing, could not be trusted entirely, and separated myself from them psychologically.

I do not know what resource I had other than my own reasoning to make these decisions.

What we must also note is my sister: She believed in the Christian god since my parents told her about it. Indeed, our childhood environment was the same and yet she turned out to be far less skeptical. I, on the other hand, refused to accept a Biblical coloring book that my father intended to give to me during preschool.

I can only wonder what it means. And no, I was not adopted.

I was homeschooled and absolutely no one has accused me of not being individualist. As a matter of fact one of my college professors accused me of being "too radically individualist" and also "too happy". My parents took me out of a public school rampant with drug problems and violence. I learned a lot more because my parents taught me to think critically and my father being an excellent debater would play devils advocate with me all the time forcing me to question my own views.

I was exposed to outside views through a homeschool organization that was designed to offer opportunities such as musical education and science classes that some parents might have difficulty teaching. While 90% of my peers were extremely religious I found them to be far more reasonable in religious debate than many people I had debated in public school. They were not your stereotypical fundys although they were very strong in their conviction. At least they were willing to critically argue their positions without screaming in my face that I was going to hell.

When I went to college I found that most of my fellow students were far less individualistic than me or my homeschool friends. They were blind sheep who took whatever the professors said as gospel. One professor went so far as to say that we should ban the automobile and the lackeys were agreeing! My head exploded. Where I could have an honest political or religious debate with the majority of my fellow homeschoolers I found it impossible to have a real debate with more than maybe 5% of the student population in college.

While it is certainly possible that homeschool can be unhealthy in certain families and amount to brainwashing, in my personal experience most homeschoolers are capable of thinking far more critically than most people who go to public school. They also tend to be more disciplined and have a higher respect for a quality education. Granted, all I really have is anecdotal evidence but unless you have some studies or statistics I think your claims go way to far. 

America holds very dearly to the idea of leaving as much freedom as possible in the hands of the individual. Of course people aren't allowed to do absolutely anything they please, but in general the view is to try to fall on the side of too much freedom as opposed to too little.

In this view, it is generally held that parents should be allowed to raise their children as they see fit. Of course there are limitations; if you starve your child it will necessarily be taken from you. However, until it can be demonstrated that home schooling a child is bad for that child, there will be no way to support an argument that parents should be forced to send their children to school.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I believe that current studies suggest home schooled children are not disadvantaged, either socially or academically.