I have no qualms about actual homeschooling, but in the past few years partisanship has seen a lot of people in my area pulling students from public schools over mask mandates, science education, and "wokeism". As recently as Tuesday, some parents are suing my school district and homeschooling because a 14yo asked to be called by he/him pronouns [1]. And here in Michigan, there are no regulations on what a homeschooled student needs to learn - no testing, no curriculum, no justification required, you can just say "we're homeschooling" and until that child turns 18 they can be completely isolated from any perceived threats to your ideology.
Homeschooling can be awesome when done for the right reasons! Student-teacher ratios are awesome, the curriculum and schedule can be perfectly tailored to your child's needs, interests, and abilities, and as you mention it works far better for families that need to travel a lot and technology is making the downsides less significant all the time.
But it can be terrible when done for the wrong reasons. Increasingly, those wrong reasons are being used [2]:
> In the vast majority of states, there are currently no protections in place for children who are homeschooled. This is the case despite a 2014 study finding that 47% of children who experience child torture were removed from school to be homeschooled (and another 29% were never enrolled in school), and a 2018 Connecticut study found that 36% of children removed from school to be homeschooled were subject to past child welfare reports.
And those studies are even before the surge of people pulling students due to pandemic politics. These issues are the reason that the press is "attacking homeschoolers", not some conspiracy to get additional funding. The fact that the author does not mention this trend at all is concerning.
There is a pretty big difference between "abuse happens" and "this environment is fundamentally worse". Schools have pretty abysmal records as far as preventing abuse to children. Bullying is massive, be it student-student or teacher-student. Shunning, insults, whispered stories, hate filled slurs, popular groups vs outsider dynamics, to physical attacks. All of these are pretty common at pretty much any school you care to name. I don't think I've met a student who hasn't experienced varying levels of this. To many, it dominates their experience.
The pandemic and subsequent politics of education has put a magnifying glass on the problems there and many parents are choosing to hit the eject button. There is a concerted effort to remove that button as it's starting to seriously pinch budgets anywhere a student can leave and take their funding money with them.
Currently my state board of education is looking at a rule change to do just that. This battle is just warming up. If you get involved, don't be on the wrong side.
Of course there will be attacks.
Homeschooling resources have never been better due to technology, especially in regards to extracurricular meetups.
Also, families that travel a lot benefit from the flexibility.