How does the American education system work?

In the US, if you apply the religious label to just about anything, you can get away with just about anything. In some states, they don't even test kids to ensure they are receiving even a baseline education when they are homeschooled. A kid in West Virginia sued the state because he went to college and had to spend the first 2 years just learning basic information because his parents were religious back jobs. He sued the state for allowing parents such as his own, to deprive their kids of a decent education.

Many parents where I live homeschool. Many do it because they feel they can provide a higher quality education than public schools, and in many cases, they can. But most of them do it because they don't want their kids to exposed to real science. I know a lot of those kids, and many of them are very intelligent. After graduation they go on to jobs at the outlets, working in retail. The best they can do is manager of a Pac Sun or an Old Navy. They simply don't have enough knowledge to go to college. It's really sad. Great kids, but their parents screwed them over.

It doesnt !

You go to school, and learn things dear

Education in the USA is a state thing, and in Canada, a provincial one. In general, there are core education standards - courses that MUST be taught to gain high/secondary school graduation certificate. Home schooling does not need special teachers at all. Parents can do it legally. However, all the needed courses, which generally include sciences, and maths to specific levels, MUST be taught.

we home school the kids who have no business being in school

Education is very localized. Religious radicals have seized some state and local governments and theyve passed religious exemption laws. It's why so many Americans don't believe in evolution or global climate change or a lot of other basic scientific principles.

Some say this protects a parents' right to decide what their child learns. Others say this just guarantees more useful idiots who will vote for deregulating gas companies or allowing corporations to refuse to provide birth control to female employees.

Not all homeschooling here is bad. A lot of it is really good. Better than our failing public schools. But sometimes it's antiscience and strictly religious... it really depends on the parents..

Our daughter was home schooled by ECOT, Electronic Classrooms of Tomorrow, her graduating class was the largest ever in our state. Many people home school for a variety of reasons, their child may not do well in a classroom setting, their child may be being bullied at school, their child may have some type of handicap, or physical problem. Home schooling may be best for their child.