From PRI, Public Radio International and KCRW Santa Monica, this is To the Point.

Hom schooling and the challenge to public schools.

Hello again, I'm Mormon-Aulny, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues Americans care about most.

Home schooling is on the increase as an alternative to what's called the cultural monopoly of public schools.

After decades of courtroom battles, the practice is legal in every state, some of which regulate it while others don't.

Most homeschooling is still for religious reasons, but secular families are getting in on the action too.

On to the point, do homeschooled children get the preparation they need to compete in a complex

high-tech society? Should they be monitored and tested by government? Or is the whole point

that education should be left to parents alone? What about the rules of democracy and learning

to live where religious and ethnic diversity are facts of life?

First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from subscribers of KCRW Santa Monica and from the Public Radio International Program Fund,

whose contributors include the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation.

Hello again. I'm a monolny back with To the Point. Home schooling is now legal in all 50 states an increasing challenge to what's called the monopoly of public schools.

On To the Point, do homeschooled kids get the education they need in a high-tech society?

Does homeschooling mean religious or ethnic isolation in a diverse democracy?

First, this news update, President Bush today made the first of what he called a series of speeches to rally Americans behind the war in Iraq.

He said opponents may be sincere and patriotic, but that they're wrong, and that a pullout now would be a boon to terrorists.

They would have a new sanctuary to recruit and train terrorists at the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions.

And we know exactly where those ambitions lead. If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad,

we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities. President spoke in Salt Lake City,

...