1) Great job by my friends Twyla McDougall and Monique Wilms. They represented homeschooling well as usual.

2) The CBC seemed to attempt to be fair, and I think this is written from a perspective of the general public, who are generally surprised that no “expert” is overseeing or assisting parents to educate their children. 

3) There is a presupposition that education is a responsibility of the civil government sphere. SHBE would see education as a family responsibility, whether delegated to civil or private institutions or parent-directed.

4) There is zero correlation between civil authorities monitoring or regulating home based education and the outcomes of such programs. (despite the undertone of alarm from the CBC that only Alberta and Quebec monitor parents – which is inaccurate: Saskatchewan monitors home based education programs via reporting to school divisions, and Alberta has a notification-only option)

5) The research indicating that home based education results in higher academic success has zero indication of only testing high achievers. The underlying data is a bell curve without any missing middle – you can measure when a sample set is artificially selected, and there is no indication that such selection (self-selection or designed selection) has taken place. Also, some of the studies are from U.S. jurisdictions, using raw data provided by civil governments (some jurisdictions have mandatory standardized testing) or post-secondary institutions.

6) Statements such as “the research is inconclusive” are common but false. The research consistently and conclusively demonstrates that home based education outperforms government-delivered education.

7) As previously stated, Saskatchewan does monitor home based education programs. The policy manual actually uses that language (“monitor”) . SHBE would prefer a notification-only option. The province of Saskatchewan does not mandate financial assistance for home based educators. Saskatchewan provides provincial funding to school divisions, but does not specify that any of that funding needs to be used by the school divisions to support students or parents. School divisions can assign some, all or none of the funding to home based education.

8) Alberta has recently added a notification-only option for parent-directed home based education. Ontario has similar legislation. Again, based on results in those provinces, compared to high-regulation provinces like Saskatchewan, there is zero correlation between government regulation and student success.