All forms of education have their pros and cons, benefits and risks. As many have said, I don't think much in our current system is better for the vast majority and yes, that is concerning.
I think a lot in home education in the UK has changed since 2020 - not the least of all being how many now call it homeschooling, which previously in the UK meant when the LA was still involved, Elective Home Education when they are not.
Part of that change I think is more parents withdrawing over issues with schools that would have been resolved differently before - both because parents are withdrawing faster and because schools have figured out if they just send out a letter about how they don't approve of home education and ask for a meeting that will almost always put an already frustrated parent's back up and be ignored, they can "prove" they're not off-rolling, they're not avoiding part-time schooling or other options that many schools hate as it's a lot more paperwork (for example - they have to show safeguarding for the entire school day even when those students aren't there) but do have as options when needed and really pushed by parents and outside professionals.
My kids have been home educated, school educated, and done part-time school and home. They all have additional needs and when they were little, we lived in a place that had very poor education outcomes and no support for their needs.
I home educated for a couple decades and have absolutely known people who did it for anti-establishment reason or just because they hated their secondary school. I've known the so-called mythical home educators who not only rely on their kids to teach themselves, but brag about it. I've met the ones who complain and encourage their kid to leave college because it requires require maths and English - I think the worst was being told that his kid didn't needs maths, she needs science.
The thing is, these types don't tend to be in structured home education groups, at least not for long. They carry that attitude with them and tend to leave groups quickly if it doesn't completely bend to them and their kids. They can be loud in some online spaces, especially around not cooperating with the LA, but they're not who most are going to see offline. They aren't the ones getting tutors and grouping together with others. I can see why some home educators who haven't been in those spaces might never have to deal with them and see them more as a boogey monster used against us.
I'm not in an area where there are many home educating parents getting tutors or paying for many special GCSEs - we haven't had any centres that will take private candidates in many years, the last ones closed well before COVID and that shrunk things down further. I've done the private GCSEs with my oldest - it's expensive and required us to travel to a much larger city, I'm glad we only did it for one and he wasn't one like many I know who due to COVID had theirs cancelled (a lot of home educating families had issues with that).
I've also been in the conversations schools have had about parents withdrawing, both the dismissive ones where they go on about how they'd never want to spend that much time with their kids and the ones where they've had to get education welfare and social services involved for the wellbeing of the child. I've been in meetings with our local head of Education Welfare when she called all home educating parents arrogant and basically called all home educating parents idiots as she mockingly read aloud extracts from emails which were literally parents asking for help - they had obviously been confused likely by online rhetoric about the difference between Education Otherwise Than at School - what we used to call home schooling where the LA gives support which is a rarely but possible help for some child - and Elective Home Education, and this seemed to amuse those in power. There is a divide that there is little desire from either side to repair.
While I support parents being able to register for home education in the same way we can register for schools, I understand why some parents are very untrusting of the system as it is and also why some don't see the benefit of bothering. I was a very cooperative home educator, did the visits, did extensive reports on curriculum, and after a while, all I got was silence. I spent the last 8ish years as a home educator with no contact with the LA. They were useful when someone tried to report us for home educating - they had the reports and the boxes ticked - but other than that, it was meaningless.
The more uproar there is against home ed, the more clamp downs the government try to bring in which affects ALL home educators, not just the few who take advantage of the system.
Try is the operative word there, and really I think the regular so-called consultations they do every few years is more to look like they care than anything else. The law that parents are responsible for education is there for a reason that very much benefits any government. They don't want that responsibility.
There has not been any change to the laws around home education in decades, and no sign it's going to be.
She probably saying this about schools as she sick of all the negativity and m
misconceptions around home Ed.
Yeah, there was similar reasoning used during the Badman report times when there were home educators who put out fake news reports that the government wanted to intimate checks on our kids and similar to try to frighten parents in joining them in the protests, forgetting the kids they were terrifying in the process. It was pretty unforgiveable to me.