"Almost always" is way, way too broad. Yes, some parents' values are crackpot nonsense, but many are not. One does not have to be a crackpot to prefer homeschooling to US public schools.

Also, the values that the people who set up the US public school system explicitly said that system would indoctrinate children into are nothing to write home about either.

> Have some humility

Take your own advice. If anyone is being way overconfident here, it's you.

> let the kids figure out what they think for themselves

It seems to me that homeschooling is far more likely to let kids do this than public schools are.

> The public school gives them a reasonably neutral basis to do that

In the US? You must be joking. Public schools in the US are anything but neutral.

What are some examples of values that would lead one to prefer to homeschool their child, and are not "crackpot values"?

Values such as the ones the US was founded on: things like individual liberty and deep distrust of governments, particularly governments wanting to indoctrinate children. And governments have done plenty to earn such distrust.

While I can relate to the deep distrust of governments and have a strong belief in individual liberty, I don't understand the connection to homeschooling. Could you elaborate?

> particularly governments wanting to indoctrinate children. And governments have done plenty to earn such distrust.

Do you have any evidence of US public schools indoctrinating children en masse? I find this a rather extreme claim that I am unaware of convincing evidence of. Thus, I'm a position where, as a rational person, I must assume that the two most probable situations are that the claim is either false or I am woefully ignorant, and that I am ill equipped to engage with this without further exposition.

Also, the US very much was not built on distrust of government because building the US meant building a government everyone would trust.

i'm sorry, but surely you're joking? no schooling - especially public schools of today - is aiming for neutrality. neutrality is a fiction, and saying it is possible is lifting up something vacuous as the standard.

schooling - especially schooling - is always done with a worldview or, if you like, an agenda. read up on the history of schooling. look up a bit on the history of education. the parents know this, the leaders know this, and i hope you'll be honest with yourself for a second and agree also.

this idea of "schooling is neutral, we will sit above everything being taught as an impartial observer and present ideas without taking part or judging" is laughably foolish and impossible. teaching that it is possible is... well at least showing the hand.

> you yourself may be wrong...let the kids figure out what they think

your advice to "show some humility" would be better received if this wasn't such an unloving proposal crouched in an argument against an arrogant straw man. should children be micromanaged, told always what to do and think? that also is unloving. but to let them figure it out for themselves? surely you can't mean something so cruel as to tell them to just trust their individual judgements, rest of the culture (and authorities and parents) be damned. read your history, please, that is the short path to horrors not the way to the chosen land.

Thank Prussia for a system that -- for all its faults -- provides a way out for kids born into religion.

shame on faith communities - and parents - that teach laziness of mind. the effects are obvious, you are not the only person saying this.

> Public schools weren't indoctrinating anything. Rather they taught me to think critically, using proven methods, and avoid fallacies

you are not the first person to claim religion indoctrinates but public schooling doesn't. i'm always surprised how quickly logic and clear reasoning are thrown out in these statements. has it never occurred to you that critical thinking must be founded on something? that proven methods, useful as they are, can also be misused to support accepted truths that are wrong? that distinguishing fallacies requires recognition of truth, which requires acceptance of certain things as true? i guess what i'm trying to point out is that the list of things you were taught is indoctrination, and that to a high degree.

indoctrination is not a bad thing in and of itself. but a system of indoctrination that teaches it isn't indoctrinating scares me.

I don't know which public schools you went to, but the ones I went to (in the US) most certainly were indoctrinating all sorts of things. Nor has that situation improved since I went to school; if anything, in the US it has gotten worse.

As for teaching critical thinking, some of the teachers I had in public schools did that. Many others did not. And I think I was among the more fortunate students; many, as far as I could tell, had no teachers who taught them critical thinking.

Nor should the fact that US public schools are indoctrinating children be a surprise. As I have noted elsewhere in this thread, the people who set up the US public school system explicitly stated that indoctrinating children in the values the State wanted them to have (whether or not their parents agreed) was a goal of the system.

Like what?

That people should be treated with respect? Or how about that literacy is important?

That slavery was bad? Or how about that lesson plan on how the Holocaust was a really bad thing. Maybe it was that time that schools taught that we killed a bunch of Native Americans for their land.

My (public) schooling was rather politically neutral to be honest, but using a banana they did demonstrate how to put on a condom and they talked about STD and pregnancy prevention. One may consider that "indoctrination" but last I checked the "abstinence only" crowd kept getting pregnant out of wedlock at a higher rate than teenagers who were told how to actually prevent pregnancy.

Or maybe people are upset that public schools make such outrageous statements as "some kids have two fathers or two mothers at home."

Which is a fact, since same sex marriage is now the law of the land as ruled on by the supreme court.

Or how about the outrageous statement "some people change their gender". That does indeed happen.

Saying stuff that is true, but that makes some people uncomfortable, isn't indoctrination.

Meanwhile other countries make children memorize speeches by the country's "president for life". That is indoctrination.

Yeah, a school that works.

Seems like the same lesson as private academies that were used to enforce de facto segregation. Run away from the scary change, and try to keep doing things the old way. It's just not sustainable the way public institutions are.