Who should pay for it. Should people be bothered.

We have to appreciate the effort of Rob Reich of Stanford, because he has collected the major misunderstandings of home schooling in one well written article.

There is a claim that not enough is known about the home schooled.  About a similar remark about some other groups, such as chess players, or school teachers, one might ask when is enough known?

Setting: A hotel in the Florida Keys during hurricane season.
Persona: Humphrey Bogart, burnt out war hero and hotel keeper.
              Ernest, well dressed professor, stranded by an impending hurricane.

Humphrey ....so what you want is more?

Ernest       That's right.  ...Pause... That's what I want. More.

And it is reasonable for Ernest to want more.  Focused on topic in his line of work, it is admirable.  The only questions are: Who should pay for it, and should people be bothered.

Rob Reich's logical ommission.

So... Because regulation is expensive, there should be some perceived problem with home schooling in order to justify regulating the home schooling. 

Rob Reich does not point to any perceived problems.  He does postulate novel arguments as purposes of education, these are the citizenship argument, that education should produce good citizens and the liberty argument, that "ethically servile" citizens should not be produced. 

We won't go into the performance of the public school system in this post. That there is no evidence whatsoever that home schooling produces inadequate or "ethically servile" citizens, at least none produced.  Rob would have to fill in this hole in the logical chain and then justify the cost to members of the public.

Home school is mainstream???

Home schooling is not close to mainstream.  It is at best a persistent group of subcultures.  You will search in vain for numbers of home schoolers at anywhere close to fifty percent.  The very idea is silly.  One supposes that Rob Reich mis-wrote in his paper.