Since this is the premise for the rest of your post, are you saying homeschooling is always better than Catholic school or just that the SSPX is basically equivalent to any other modern Catholic school?

I'm saying that:

1. SSPX schools might be for the most part orthodox (not the schismatic) and kosher (not literally I hope). Seriously, they don't have a lot of outright error, but there are downsides. SSPX schools are not without their problems, being as they are IN THE WORLD and drawing FROM THE WORLD for their teachers. They usually don't have enough money (due to lack of students) so they hire young ladies just waiting to find a husband and get married. By the time they have some knowledge and/or experience, they found their husband and they quit their teaching job. The problems become much worse when the school wishes to compete with worldly academic institutions... Let's just say they might hire the wrong kind of teachers.

2. Many (most?) SSPX schools are a joke compared to the pre-Vatican II parochial schools they are trying to emulate or replace. I'm not old enough to remember them personally, but based on reading and talking to older individuals, academic standards and curricula at SSPX schools are a complete joke compared to what could be had at a Catholic school in the 1950's. This runs closely parallel to SSPX Seminary curricula vs. what used to be normal at a Seminary pre-Vatican II. Ladislaus can elaborate on this one.

3. It's hard to teach groups of kids as effectively as a mother/father can do one-on-one -- when such an option is possible. One-on-one attention is always going to result in the most learning done. That's why private lessons are more expensive than "small group" lessons, which are more expensive than regular classes. Not everyone has the money, time, or ability to homeschool -- but that doesn't mean homeschooling isn't the best.

4. Jesus Christ was homeschooled.

5. The PRIMARY responsibility for raising and educating children rests with the PARENTS. Not just education in the Faith, but in everything. It's one of those inalienable rights that parents have. As in, if the State tries to take this away, it's time to fight. Now parents are free to delegate that task to the Church (parochial/private schools) or even the State (God forbid, since about 2000), but it's still the parents' responsibility to educate their children. No one else's. That's why it's laughable that SSPX priest(s) are claiming mortal sin for those who chose to NOT avail themselves of SSPX schools. IT'S THEIR CHOICE.

To be fair, "back in the day", if you had a parish school, you had no need to homeschool, you could rest assured that your children were being taught the fullness of the Faith, and the teachers were at least reasonably competent to teach non-religious subjects as well.  Therefore if the SSPX is seeking to restore what we had "back in the day", they have a somewhat good case.  And so far as I am aware, the 1917 CIC didn't anticipate homeschooling.  Homeschooling would only have existed in "the back of beyond" where there was no school at all, Catholic or otherwise.

Very few of us have "back in the day" circuмstances anymore.

I would argue that none of us have "back in the day" circuмstances anymore.

I sent one of my children to an sspx boarding school.  Worst idea ever.  Learned about porn, perverts, uncontrolled internet access, bad language, bullying, and how to be sneaky among others.

They had a high-school graduate teaching 9th grace English, and a math professor who thought a child should not receive "A" grades if the child didn't show the work (did it in their head).  

One of my nieces taught 5th grade at an sspx school when she had only just graduated high school.

Homeschooling is the only way to go. 

math professor who thought a child should not receive "A" grades if the child didn't show the work

What's wrong with that?

I would argue that none of us have "back in the day" circuмstances anymore.

I sent one of my children to an sspx boarding school.  Worst idea ever.  Learned about porn, perverts, uncontrolled internet access, bad language, bullying, and how to be sneaky among others.

They had a high-school graduate teaching 9th grace English, and a math professor who thought a child should not receive "A" grades if the child didn't show the work (did it in their head). 

One of my nieces taught 5th grade at an sspx school when she had only just graduated high school.

Homeschooling is the only way to go.

There is no reason to think that a well educated high school graduate is not capable of teaching well.

‘Back in the day’, teachers’s college did not exist. My brother who is 5 years younger,  tells me that when he started school he could already read because I taught him to read, so at that stage I would have been 10. I have no memory of this, but he swears I taught him and I believe him.

Mother Mary McKillop started a school in a stable which grew to be a great establishment, without training. You are either a teacher or you are not. Most HSing parents are not trained to teach, they just try and they do.

Teacher’s colleges mainly indoctrinate the students, can kill the imagination, and set them in a certain pattern which is hard to break out of. 

I taught “untrained” in a mission school for two years and did well and loved it. Your own schooling, whether school-based or home-based, is quite sufficient, if done well.

My grandfather, a country boy and farmer, always wanted to become a teacher and so went back to school (I do mean school, not college/uni) and achieved his ambition. As he fathered 12 children, he would have always had one of his own in class. But of course he got paid for schooling his own. I remember him well teaching me how to spell Constantinople, breaking up into syllables and making it into a little jingle.

This doesn't square. If the parents do not have the time and ability to homeschool, the results could be disastrous compared to sending to a school (SSPX or non-SSPX). I do agree with you that ultimately it's the parents' choice and right on the education of their children.

I agree with all that you say, but I think that what some here are suspicious (?) of, is the automatic/default response from the priest that if a school is available, and you choose not to use it, the results will certainly be spiritually and academically disastrous (and that this plausible risk -real though it is- is advanced almost in the form of a spiritual threat, as though the parents will be guilty of culpable negligence for their decision not to attend, whatever the reasons). 

One issue I perceive in all the trad schools I am familiar with, is that they have a very militaristic one-size-fits-all curriculum/rules/policies (almost as if they were pre-seminaries).  Some children will thrive in such an atmosphere, and some will not.  Will the schools take the blame for the failures as eagerly as they take the credit for the successes? 

I think the major point here is that parents, as primary educators, know what is best for their children, and it almost sometimes seems as though some clergy are opposing that notion (possibly even for self-serving ends, like growing their apostolate's numbers, as though that equated to saving souls, or a better chance of doing so).

What's wrong with that?

If a child can do the math in his head and get the problems correct each time, there is no reason to dumb-down the child and demand he show the work.  To the contrary, i would commend the child for his great brain.

PLUG


I recommend this home-school program.

They teach the "non judaized" sciences and history and grade all the tests and homework.


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Supplemented by the 3-days-long teaching of the doctors in the temple (Lk. 2:40-52).

[46] And it came to pass, that, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions.

[47] And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers.

I would argue that Our Lord was actually teaching the doctors.

As Jesus is God, he had no reason to be schooled at all. He knew everything. There was nothing that St. Joseph or Our Lady could teach him. It was the other way around.

It's just something that has occured to me. I wonder is this has ever been discussed by some authoritative theologian.