In my experience, most of the people who home-school their kids are young-earth creationists or some other kind of nutters who don't want their kids exposed to science as taught by mainstream schools.
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/statisti...
Under "Parents’ Most Important Reasons for Homeschooling Their Children", "A desire to provide religious instruction" comes in fourth, and "A desire to provide moral instruction" comes in fifth.
Also desire to provide religious instruction and concern about the environment in other schools (top reason) are not mutually exclusive. How do you know that the parents who were concerned didn't also list "A desire to provide religious instruction" as their second?
Also, note that this would include any kind of religion, not just the kind of Flat Earth stuff that the OP was suggesting.
If you look at the table immediately above it, it shows 'moral' at #2 and 'religious' at #4, with the vague 'environment' again at #1. 2/3rds to 3/4s of parents gave the religious/moral answer. This doesn't define them as young-earth creationist nutters, though - it just lends support back to the GP...
That being said, while Australia (article location) does have some hard-core christian right folks, they're generally not young-earth creationists. Not a lot of biblical literalism here.
Both my kids have been homeschooled. My oldest, 15, entered a public high school this year, is a solid A/B student, and is taking senior-level classes. My youngest, 13, is still being homeschooled and will likely go the same path in a couple of years.
We don't go to church. We teach evolution. Both kids are passionate about science, especially biology and astronomy.
Amongst other homeschooling families in our area, we are not atypical. Yes, there are outliers... but they generally don't socialize with other homeschooling family groups set up on Facebook or Meetup.
We started homeschooling because our local school district failed our kids. Adults in the classrooms weren't teachers, they were classroom managers. Mentorship? Teaching? These things were replaced with tight schedules, teaching-to-the-test, and checkbox leadership.
Homeschooling isn't for everyone, for both financial and teaching capability reasons. But don't lump everybody in the same pile as the loonies; that ignorance doesn't belong on HN.
Maybe homeschooling is a filter bubble.
So maybe homeschooling is a filter bubble. And maybe that's a good thing.
Parents also have a responsibility to integrate their children into society, and if they refuse to step up to that responsibility, then it's the government's job to step in and place the children under the care of those who will.
I can agree that making sure children can read, write, and do some amount of math is fundamental to them being able to succeed as adults. But I'm skeptical of any attempts to make sure that children are "integrated" into society.
I have a four year old daughter. There is no way you're going to convince me that putting her in an environment where girls are pressured into sending nude photos to boys is good for her. I'm sure there are things which can be done to mitigate these risks, but I like to play games where the odds are in my (and my daughter's) favor.
There are others who Homeschool, in part, to avoid religion or discrimination in public schools.
I have noticed quite a few Homeschool sites promote very pro-Christian materials, whereas we are very secular, pro science/evolution.
There are quite a few reasons for Homeschooling, so its a diverse bunch - some are very pro-education, perhaps focusing on Science/Math or reading the classics. Some are "un-schoolers" who like to have almost no structure.
Some are fundamentalists in the sense you mention, many aren't.
I would expect that from home school families in general, because families in a lower socioeconomic stratum generally have both spouses working full-time jobs rather than staying at home, available to teach children.
The other group that I was familiar with when growing up were friends who essentially dropped out but we're able to use the homeschool thing to stay enrolled a little longer. I'd guess they don't make up a large portion of the homeschooled populous though.