Which Is Safer—Homeschool or Public School?

A case of child abuse in California made headlines a few weeks ago, and the media and leftist politicians wasted no time in calling for greater regulation of homeschooling. Of course, parents abusing their children is a horrific thing. But what does this have to do with homeschooling?

The explanation is that a homeschool family opts out of the public school system, which means that the children do not interact with school teachers outside the home and parents can more easily get away with child abuse.

A problem here is that this explanation fails to account for the many child abuse cases happening among families that send their children to schools outside the home. Moreover, it seems ridiculous to further government intervention and oversight of families just because of a rare case of abuse. The nanny state is not the solution to all the world’s problems.

Some statists would go so far as to completely outlaw homeschooling. But this notion strikes me as odd since these same people would never consider outlawing public schools because of the risk of violence.

Of course, I am referencing the recent school shooting in Florida. While violence is a regular problem in public schools, there has certainly been an uptick in mass shootings in the past 20 years. Yet in the case of public school shootings, few people are pointing the finger at the public schools themselves. Instead, a good portion of America is blaming guns.

So when there is violence by one homeschool family, they blame homeschooling. But when there is violence in many public schools, they blame guns.

Is something not odd here?

This inconsistent analysis may have something to do with the fact that the public school system has become the closest thing to America’s official religion. Public schools are untouchable. They cannot be criticized, and all their problems are due to a lack of funding.

We know better than this. And in the case of gun violence in schools, it is quite clear that something has changed in the past generation—and it’s not that there are more guns. Rather, something has changed with American culture. And when it comes to major cultural influences, America’s public school system is right up there with the media, the entertainment industry, and the legal system.

The public school system must take some of the blame, especially when we know these schools teach Darwinian naturalism and promote sexual immorality and gender confusion. They leave God out of the schools yet expect this to have no ramifications. Doug Wilson said it well:  

We don’t need to do anything about the guns. But we do need to do something about all the fatherless boys who are loaded up on psychotropic drugs, administered by the school nurse, and educated by a school system that is prohibited by law from telling anybody what the meaning of life is.

That is your toxic mix, and if you don’t want to do anything about it, then you need to stop pretending that you want a systemic solution.

There is something deeply wrong with American culture, and all of this can be seen in the schools that train our children. There are certainly things that can be done to minimize these mass shootings (e.g. abolishing gun-free zones, implementing school security systems, and limiting the prescription of violence-linked antidepressants).

But there is something that would be even more expedient—separate school and state.

Have you noticed that all of these school shootings happen at large public schools? There is something about the environment of these places. This has been noted in the article 13 Ways Public Schools Incubate Mental Instability in Kids. As the article points out, public schools are too often like prisons that separate children from the stability of family life.

The fact is that public schools are dangerous places. They are dangerous spiritually and morally because of the secular and atheistic worldview taught there. But they are also dangerous physically because of the violence that takes place in these schools. Violence is common in the inner city schools. And now, mass shootings are becoming common in the large suburban schools.

We cannot solve the problems of everyone else. But we can make decisions that are best for our own families. So we must ask—is homeschool or public school safer?

There are many other reasons to opt out of the public school system, but safety is an important issue. And if you want to protect your children, you should consider every option outside of the public schools.