Homeschooling

I've posted a (mostly negative) comment at Prawfsblawg on the article by Prof. Kim Yuracko arguing that more regulation of homeschooling is a constitutional duty.  I'll just mention one point here dealing with empirical issues rather than theory.  Prof. Yuracko seems to think that the studies showing homeschoolers doing well educationally compared with non-homeschoolers are undercut by a selection bias of "family characteristics of the home schooling and non homeschooling families being compared."  But this makes no sense.  If homeschoolers do better than or as well as non-homeschoolers, what does it matter whether that's because homeschooling itself works better or because families who are inclined or willing to homeschool tend to have certain educationally positive characteristics?  We're not doing a scientific study to isolate the educational effect of homeschooling vs. institutional schooling; we're discussing whether homeschooling as an overall institution needs more regulation.  It seems to me, from anecdotal evidence, that homeschooling has a self-limiting nature that tilts it toward adequate education: i.e. parents drawn to it will tend to have energy for teaching their children well, because otherwise it would be a lot easier just to shoo them out the door to school.

Tom