I agree, but generally the 6000 year thing and "only a theory" would only be taught in private religious schools anyway.

Not sure what you mean - I graduated almost 15 years ago, and went to a very rural school - but was told in History class that Jesus Christ was a real person, and evolution was never really emphasized. The Biology professor I had in college for intro didn't believe in evolution (!!!!!!!!)

Unfortunately, that was before I was an atheist activist. I would have raised hell about that if I knew what I did now.

Hehe no nothing as in depth as that just the social group cliches (nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, etc.). The US society is so vastly different from here (at least how it is portrayed) and that interests me.

Australians, especially the mainstream youth, model themsleves on what we are shown in American TV shows (sad but true). Thisis especially interesting as I seem to be finding that increasingly our laws are becoming more and more conservative, while our attitudes remain very liberal. Large disparity between what the public actually wants and what we say we want perhaps. Or maybe our leaders arent exactly the representatives they should be (what a shock!).

Indeed, a worrying situation for the whole world considering the influence the US has over its fate. 

I don't know the statistic exactly, either, but I think 75% being evangelical is pretty close. The only home schooled kids I've ever known were children of devout Christians.

The school systems here are in trouble, from top to bottom. The emphasis is on getting a certain percentage of students to graduate -- not to teach students a certain set of knowledge. This has become particularly evident in Georgia, where we have a Hope Scholarship. In Georgia, if you get a B average in high school, the state pays for your college tuition. As you can imagine, this puts enormous pressure on the high schools to get the kids up to a B average. No particular reward is given for a real base of knowledge, so the net effect is to dumb down the schools, which allows more people to graduate, and to get free college.

Not that getting a free college education is a bad thing, but the drop out rate after the first year is very high for Hope students. They get here and realize that they don't have the knowledge they need for even the basic freshman courses, and they end up with horrible grades, and lose their scholarships.

I could go on for a while about education, but there actually was a point I wanted to get to. Home schooling is a symptom, not a problem. If the schools were better, if parents had been educated better, if we weren't so damned religious, if if if if if... then home schooling wouldn't be an issue.

We did discuss this issue in one of our shows, so if you heard it sorry for repeating myself, but I homeschooled my kids for two years, and although most of the other homeschoolers that I encountered were doing it for the purposes of sheltering their children from the evil "world", I did it because I believe that mass education is designed to produce automatons and supress critical thinking skills. Binge and purge education with standardization as the norm just doesn't foster the kinds of qualities that produce leaders and innovators. Not everybody can homeschool, and my children are attending school now, but from a philosophical standpoint I do believe that public education is woefully inadequate if not detrimental to the children upon whom it is forced.

I just thought I'd throw my $0.02 in.

I was homeschooled from 2nd grade all the way to graduation. My parents did it partly because the public schools do a poor job, and partly to shelter me (I came from an evangelical christian background.) I didn't like the sheltering part, but I think homeschooling did give me the means to overcome it. Here's how.

I basically taught myself middle & high school. I know how to learn on my own, and I still love learning. I usually got done with my school work (my parents kept me on a strict schedule) about 1:30 in the afternoon, so I had hours before all the neighbors came home to do things. I became very good a playing guitar and taught myself computer programming as a teenager.

Many students I've meet who come from public school backgrounds do not know how to learn on their own. They need to have someone spoon feed them. I say this with 4 years of tutoring math at a junior college and 2 years as a TA at a university.

I also think my self learning ability and natural curiosity help in my overcoming my theism.

But homeschooling is not for everyone. It requires a lot from the parents. And you need to be self disciplined.