You are contradicting yourself.
I voluntarily entered a contract with the local school district for my daughter to attend their school, I was not forced to do so. That you have chosen to homeschool your children and my parents chose to send me to Catholic school proves there is no force involved.
There are consequences to not abiding by a contract you freely entered into and you agree to them when you agree to the contract. I voluntarily enrolled my daughter in the local school and voluntarily agreed to the terms of that enrollment.
If you are arguing the federal government does not belong involved in K-12 education, then I am with you 1,000%. I was a senior in HS before the federal DOE came into existence. One of the major failures of the Reagan Administration was not fulfilling his campaign promise to get rid of it.
I am not contradicting myself. The state can FORCE attendance if they want because of the compulsory attendance laws. I think this is a violation of the Constitution. If your daughter has reached the compulsory attendance laws you better have her in school somewhere (public, private, homeschool). Our compulsory age was 7 and now it is 5. My son wasn’t ready for school at 5. What if I hadn’t been able to homeschool him? I would have been forced to put him into school.
My homeschool is still under state compulsion. If I fail to meet state requirements, they will force my children into public school.
I admit my post 28 was confusing. The state should NOT have the ability to tell me what to do with my children but with compulsory education they do. I MUST start their education at 5 years old. I MUST continue it until they are 17. If they fail their standardized tests or fail to meet certain state requirements for two years, I MUST enroll them in public school. What if they fail in public school? Too bad I have no recourse to bring them back home.
If my son wants to finish his education early and start work as an apprentice at 16, he may not. If a father needs his son to stay home and work on the farm at 15, too bad, he must be in school. Don’t you think it is best to leave educational decisions to parents and not to the state?