They guarantee the right to /access/ education. This is not at all the same as guaranteeing that all children "must be educated at a state approved school."

> If nobody outside the home ever sees or talks to the kids, there's not much the state can do to even start an investigation.

I read an incredible number of police reports. There's a lot of abuse that gets detected outside of daycare and schools. Unless the children are literally locked into a basement, I doubt that the parents can continually exercise enough total control to keep whatever other abuse their committing hidden.

To the extent that if it is happening, it's an exceptionally rare case, and I doubt that simply forcing all parents to send their children to a third party for education is going to have any impact on these particularly pernicious cases.

I understand the instinct, but I think the solution is wrong, and it's an inappropriate case to use to defend schooling in general.