However, there are other stories: tales of truancy and poor academic achievement, parents who abduct their children and live on the run, and families who use the cloak of home schooling to help shroud neglect or abuse that has led to murder.
While the triumphs far outnumber the tragedies, the evidence is anecdotal for both. There is no genuine government effort to collect information and study the phenomenon.
Only a few states require that home-schooled children be tested. The nation's second most populous state, Texas, and many other states require nothing _ no registration, and no academic accountability.
Friction exists between home schoolers, who see their movement as a fundamental parental right, and the social workers, school officials and others who try to monitor the children.
They just couldn't make it a positive story. They had to end it with this crap.
It was such a positive article until the end.
It looks like they had to make the article look more "objective" or "unbiased", so they added the last few lines at the end as an afterthought.
Really, the line, "Approx. 1.1 million children are being educated at home," is just a repeat after the article already stated that. Maybe an editor told the writer to add those lines at the end... Or maybe the writer read it over at the last minute, thought the article sounded too pro-homeschooling, and added the lines.
Just a thought. :-)