Thanks for bringing some fact to this debate of anecdotes and opinions.

Okay the kids the kids that I have known that have been home-schooled have all been smart and done well in college academically. On the plus side the girls didn't get pregnant and the boys didn't go to jail. On the downside they were all socially awkward.
You are mileage may vary.

Many year home schooler and if your kids turn out awkward they would have been awkward in public school.  If they are socially inept you have yourself to blame.

You have to be smarter than the subject you are instructing

Two good friends home schooled their first kids.
Realized their mistakes and sent the following kids to public school.

One went to an out of state Christian college and failed all his classes.
Came home and worked night shift at McDonald's because day shift was too stressful.
Currently working as manager at Bob Evans.

Second wanted to be a mechanic so they bought him the tools and he went to Florida for one semester.
Flunked out and is currently a counter man at Advanced "until I save enough to open my own shop".

In both cases both parents had college degrees and did not home school their younger kids with better results.

No matter how great a human being a parent may be, they're just one person, one influence, one point of view. That seems to be the big draw for homeschoolers but it's also it's big flaw. There are ways around any lack of social interaction and any weaknesses in a parent's knowledge base but nobody is qualified to fill all the roles, diversity of experience is valuable.

I don't think you do a kid any favors by sheltering them from diverse influences and ideas. They're going to be exposed to them eventually, and I've seen some truly spectacular failures happen when it happens all at once in adolescence.

Our kids are still going to have to live in the world, and it's a very specific group of people who choose to withdraw from the education system in large numbers and give up any influence on it and on the broader culture. That's had pretty disastrous results from that point of view.

From what I've seen of people using private and/or home school to try to instill particular values and beliefs and exclude others, it tends to backfire more often than not. Values and beliefs can only be strongly held if they survive a marketplace of ideas.

If this On the downside they were all socially awkward
led to this
On the plus side the girls didn't get pregnant and the boys didn't go to jail.
then I'm thinking I want socialy awkward kids

The main problem with public school is that there are so many crappy ones where the administration isn't thinking of the best interests of the kids.

A few months ago a guy posted about how his son had the crap beat out of him at school by some well-known bullies. The school was kinda sorta taking it seriously, but then again, maybe not. We have a multitude of examples where the school doesn't.

My experiences in school taught me that:
1) Don't trust authority, they aren't going to help. They'll look the other way.
2) Don't believe authority; they will let you down.
3) Authority doesn't care about you. They won't listen.

There's kind of a theme going with those three things, isn't there?

I wasn't even harassed or bullied that bad (by today's standards). It was just that the school wasn't going to do jack shit. That taught me something that I shouldn't have ever had to learn at that age. If I was an adult and was treated the way I was when I was a kid, there would have been some sort of pushback or consequences for my harassers. But since I was a young girl, it was like oh well. This is still happening to kids today. It shouldn't. Public schools either overreact or have completely retarded "rules" that punish people defending themselves (or being completely innocent) or they just look the other way or somehow enable the piece of shit troublemakers.

Fix that part of the public school system and it might—just might—be okay. But right now it's just a lot of bullshit that no kid should have to tolerate.

See, to me those just sound like valuable lessons you were bound to learn eventually, possibly in a much more costly fashion later in life.

I remember that thread, that was horrible. Our local schools seem to handle bullying fairly well, and I have no doubt whatsoever the staff cares about the kids.

It takes a community to have a decent school district though. The thing that's really grown to bother me about the right is the tendency to withdraw from the community rather than try to improve it. Whether it's religion or social issues or economics or ideology everything that makes up what it means to be conservative seems to conspire to hand all the levers of power to others.

Well, yes and no. No, we shouldn't trust authority. But I also learned to not talk to authority. I learned to expect them to look the other way. This translates to "don't even bother telling them" or, "You'll be the one blamed if you tell." I had good reason to believe that in school. But the real (adult) world doesn't always work like that, thankfully.

As an adult, I remember telling someone about my beef with school, and they played the old, "well you must not have minded because you never told anyone." Talk about not connecting the dots. You experience enough shit directed at you and you see the authorities look the other way, and what you learn from that is to not bother saying anything. But of course, you will later be blamed for not saying anything.

It's going to depend on the school and the community and the parents, etc.

I don't care if the right withdraws from the community. If I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I would have wanted to be homeschooled. The problem that I see now is that the school says, "We'll handle it" but maybe they will, maybe they won't. In that other thread, the bullies kicked the OP's son in the head. That could have easily killed him. Trusting the school to "handle it" and if they fail, the OP's kid could be brain damaged or killed next time. Screw that. The schools have had their chance and they've had decades of failure. I know not all of them, but the ones who have, screw them, they've had plenty of chances. I don't blame any parents for withdrawing instead of having their kids risk that.

I went to public school, and I'm socially awkward and stupid....

So yeah....take that!

My son's HS went from bad to worse. After trying to deal with administration who didn't care and wouldn't take time to respond to meeting with us for any reason we pulled our son out and placed him into home school. He was high achieving in elementary school then moved to magnet school for Middle where he made high marks and scored at the top of all his testing.

Enter local high school. The drop out rate was 38% and now even higher. We tried to move him to a different school but school board flatly refused. 1st year his grades went from A's to D's he didn't care, teachers cared less, He scraped by. Next year more of the same, guns in school, numerous bomb threats, daily assaults, rear riots, open air drug markets, and his grades got worse. We tried at length to sit with instructors/admin but were ignored or told they didn't have time. Sat with  School board officials who did little more. So we pulled him out.

Alabama has on-line curriculum for approved students that follows local curriculum but is administered by professors, in our case, from Troy University. Tests are proctored @ his local school or by nominated personnel approved by the school. In our case we do both and I am the assigned proctor It is self-paced although the student must make daily log-ins for 4 hours a day minimum, any less will result in notifications to the assigned local school personnel who will contact the guardian(s) or failing that the truancy personnel.

Initially our son was trying his best to sabotage the on-line classes. However, he has seen its advantages more than outweigh any disadvantage. He keeps the hours he wants providing his school work is completed. He is allowed to remain a student at the local school and can attend all school events. He misses the daily interaction between his school friends but since he has started all but one of his friends now are on-line students as well. He is hoping to graduate early. He had to catch up on some work due to his sabotage attempt but he is on track to graduate early.

He has encountered few roadblocks the most glaring problem he encountered was Math. He was struggling in Trigonometry and we were relying on my wife to help but soon she was out of her depth. On a chance, one of his former math teachers moved in down the street and we came to an agreement to have her tutor which she agreed to. Now an hour a week he has Math tutor and has been excelling in his classes.

Since he has no need to appear in school physically we are free to travel, which we do frequently. He can log-in and do his required work and once a point is reached where testing is required I send an email for the testing password(s) and he takes his test. If we are at home he goes to his HS and takes the test.

After pulling him from school we found there was a large amount of abuse happening to him at school by some students which he was ashamed to admit. He had a late growing stage which caused him to be quite a bit smaller than most kids which opened him up to be picked on, he then gained a lot of weight which added to it. He also has very different opinions which he voices which also made him a good target. Now he is looking like a pro football lineman so most won't give him much problem. The football is constantly hounding him to play but he has no interest.

Now that he is away from most of the people who were bringing him down his attitude has improved and he has lost his doom and gloom/self loathing aura and is back to being a happy go lucky kid. We are no longer having to fight him to do his work, we wakes up and logs in and does his studies even on the weekends We allow him to keep his own hours so he will game all night if he wants, just as long as his work and grades support it.

Right now it has been the best thing for him, and us as a family.

Yea you keep posting that study that supports your position like it's the proof that Homeschooling is the greatest thing going. No different then the climate change folks who have all their studies to prove man made climate change is going to to kill us all in 50 years. While I'm sure there are a lot of great success stories with home schooled kids I'm guessing there are a shit load of failures too. My point was, if you're an unqualified idiot and you home school your kids chances are you're kids are going to be idiots too

https://www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/policy-issues/abuse-and-neglect/educational-neglect/

https://www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/our-concerns/

More gubment!

That's a huge red flag to me.

When people bring up the whole "awkwardness and lack of socialization" concerns, I ask them if the type of socialization that their kids would get in public school is the type of socialization that want their kids to get.  I say that as a veteran teacher of 30 years.

Public school culture is cesspool of dysfunctional behaviors.

Sometimes it may be good for their self esteem later in life?

Imagine buying a home in a large city. Sending your little daughter OR son to a public school may result in a very / very bad nightmare for them that will become baggage the rest of their lives AND.....will cause many troubled, sleepless nights for you also if you give a dam / have ANY sympathy for them

Even a private school in the inner city can be *bad*  Hopefully this doesn't pertain to anyone reading this thread for the advice / thoughts of other members.

I have been homeschooled,gone to a co-op,and also been enrolled in public school.

I do not fit the SJW definition of normal,so what does that say lol?

Just like guns,cars,people,etc basically anything in life.....one size does NOT fit all.

I am proud to be who I am.  I am unique.

EDIT......

I also went to 2 different academic colleges and also a trade school.  Homeschooling did not hinder me from admission nor from completing class work.

It's not so simple a question as the poll would indicate.

I've seen deadbeat parents without high school diplomas decide to to "home school" their kids because they're pissed that the school district doesn't like them constantly sending the kids in late with dirty clothes and no homework completed.  Those kids are doomed.

Or those that home school because they allow girls in the classrooms with dresses above their ankles and they teach the kids that men came from monkeys and dinosaurs were real and not bones the devil put into the ground.  Those kids are probably going to turn pretty weird.

On the other hand, if the local school district sucks and one or both of the parents are reasonable intelligent and have the time and dedication for it, it could be a boon for the kids.  I think you'd need some sort of dedicated curriculum, plans for socialization and most parents would need to bring in specialized instructors in the latter years.  I know there are multiple possibilities for all of that.

This. We home school. I don't even debate all the dumb shit people regurgitate anymore.

No, I keep posting it because it at least suggests that all the people who say parents are unqualified to teach their kids are probably wrong.

No, the only thing it suggests is that "Brian Ray, the president of the nonprofit National Home Education Research Institute"
picked 12000 kids that preformed pretty well on standardized test when he did the study that the Home School Legal Defense Association hired him to do.

Whatever you have to do to justify your position.

Shitty poll choices.

Think it's GREAT to have the option,
that it can and should be a better educstion, but is not inherently,
that it can lead toward being more socially ackward,
that the option should always be available,
and most importantly, those that home school should get a tax break.

This. If the parents are invested in both the educational and social growth of their kids the results can be outstanding.

Strangely, where I went to college I was often surprised to find that the most socially apt popular students were homeschooled. There were a lot of weird fuckers too, but there are plenty of those in public schools. I think the extremes are just more pronounced with homeschoolers.