I actually have a lot to say about this, as someone who’s seen both secular and religious-reasons homeschooling families, and was homeschooled for part of my childhood for moderately good reasons (overall some problems some benefits, it’s the only life I’ve got so I try not to overthink it)
Anyway, I’m kind of intrigued by the “trickle down stupidity” statement, because overall the homeschooled teenagers and post-homeschooling adults I’ve known were solidly at or above grade level at basically everything, with the exception of the young earth creationists being young earth creationists (obviously).
I’d say the major downside is that every homeschooled person is noticeably socially delayed, and it’s one that I rarely see mentioned by people in education policy, probably because they don’t want to admit that self-teaching from a textbook works no more poorly than middle school. But there’s absolutely a “homeschooler voice” that you can learn to pick up on, mannerisms, and so on. It’s almost like “induced autism” for lack of a more tasteful description. You’ll have these people who are obviously mentally operating at a high level, but they’re just slightly off in terms of interacting with their peers, or any adult they don’t perceive as a parental figure.
There are obviously huge confounding variables here, in that all secular homeschool families basically do it to protect their overly sensitive children from the school system and most of those kids are neurodivergent, but it does seem to delay many social milestones.
Anyway, just an aspect that I’ve noticed missing from the discussion. Although I understand that people in education policy probably find it uncomfortable to ponder if the major value of the school system is teaching kids how to talk to other kids so that they can learn to have romantic relationships at the right age and making sure they’re up to date on pop culture touchstones
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