Like almost every other child in the Catholic parish where I grew up in Portland, Ore., my siblings and I were home-schooled. Our parish had a robust home-schooling community that organized group classes, dances, camping trips and graduation ceremonies. When my siblings and I eventually switched to a Catholic school—and later some of my siblings went to public school—many members of our parish saw this as a mistake.
Catholics and evangelical Protestants who home-school may do so for a number of reasons. They want to ensure that their children receive a strong religious education; they hope to protect them from cultural influences they see as dangerous and immoral; they want their children to have a robust education and do not trust conventional schools to provide one. Many people I knew saw the public school system as a secularist and politically liberal project that indoctrinates children, but they also were skeptical about Catholic schools. The opinions of home-schooled children vary widely.
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