Even if they’d rather hear an unqualified religious crazy teach them (they don’t), that doesn’t make it a good idea. Children would prefer to spend all day playing video games, so I don’t know if preference is the measure to use here.
Maybe in your neck of the woods, but around here, it’s a minority. I’d say about 40% homeschool because institutional school doesn’t have enough services for their special-needs kids (ADHD, hyperactivity, giftedness, dyslexia, etc.), about another 30% do it just out of conviction that there’s another way that kids can learn (especially the whole unschooling movement, but there’s also Montessori, project-based learning, etc.) and there’s no alternative school around, the other ~30% is a mix of family circumstances, bad experiences with schools (bullying especially) and yes, religious zealots. The law was drastically tightened a few years ago, mostly because of these religious zealots, so they aren’t very popular here.
COVID also changed that landscape a lot; a lot of anti-vax and anti-maskers started homeschooling when institutional schools started mandating these things, but most of these parents soon realized it was much more work than they thought and returned their kids at school as soon as the mandated were dropped.
Even if they’d rather hear an unqualified religious crazy teach them (they don’t), that doesn’t make it a good idea. Children would prefer to spend all day playing video games, so I don’t know if preference is the measure to use here.
Who said anything about religion?
A good 80% of home schooling is done so religious crazies can shelter their children from anything that disagrees with their holy book.
Maybe in your neck of the woods, but around here, it’s a minority. I’d say about 40% homeschool because institutional school doesn’t have enough services for their special-needs kids (ADHD, hyperactivity, giftedness, dyslexia, etc.), about another 30% do it just out of conviction that there’s another way that kids can learn (especially the whole unschooling movement, but there’s also Montessori, project-based learning, etc.) and there’s no alternative school around, the other ~30% is a mix of family circumstances, bad experiences with schools (bullying especially) and yes, religious zealots. The law was drastically tightened a few years ago, mostly because of these religious zealots, so they aren’t very popular here.
COVID also changed that landscape a lot; a lot of anti-vax and anti-maskers started homeschooling when institutional schools started mandating these things, but most of these parents soon realized it was much more work than they thought and returned their kids at school as soon as the mandated were dropped.