"Bray Haven" wrote in message
...
And a lot of home-schooling advocates aren't above using the
statistics to draw a conclusion that's opposite of the truth. It's hard
to
believe that all of the people who quote these stats are so cavalier
about
them, or so ignorant of statistical methods that *all* of them fail to
see
the errors.

Ed Huntress
Once again, I find my personal experince to conflict with your
statistics. Not
that they are wrong ). Where I live, most home schoolers do so because
of a
totally ineffective local public school system which graduates high
numbers of
funtional illiterates.

Well, individual experiences *will* conflict with statistics, Greg.
Individual experiences are anecdotal. The range of possibilities is broad.
So anecdotes disagree with statistics more often than not.

But everyone has anecdotes. Good statistics are harder to come by. So I try
to look at both, because the statistics don't tell us about situations like
the one you're describing, and I'm sure there are plenty of positive
anecdotes about homeschooling.

I would never suggest that we make judgments based solely on statistics. But
making them solely on anecdotes is even worse.

Again, I'm not opposed to homeschooling. What I'm opposed to is glorifying
it with selective statistics, or relying solely on individual anecdotes. I
prefer to get a broad picture, one as accurate as I can find, and to combine
it with individual experiences. I don't see how you can understand big
social issues like this without both.

Ed Huntress