Public school educrat blame shifting duly noted.
I don't think anyone will deny that parents who aren't engaged with their children's education are hurting their children. In fact, when you mention this, you're actually making a large part of wintertime's argument for her.
She has repeatedly said that it is PARENTS who make the difference, usually, in their children's lives. She has said repeatedly that whatever success children enjoy in traditional schools is strongly tied to the schooling that happens in the HOME.
And thus, she concludes (not completely wrongly) that folks might as well just homeschool, since the traditional school isn't the entity actually accomplishing education.
The flip side to that, the point you think you're making (but which is already implied in wintertime's argument), is that poor parents make for poor educational outcomes. Of course!
But a question you're not answering is, well, if poor parenting results in poor outcomes, whether through homeschooling or through traditional schools, and good parenting results in good outcomes, whether through homeschooling or through traditional schools, why do we need outlandishly-expensive, useless, ineffective public schools that burden the average taxpayer tremendously?
I appreciate your taking wintertime's side of the argument. Maybe we CAN all get along. ;-)
That said, I've seen more than one family do a great job homeschooling and then see the local public school undo all the good they accomplish.
My neighbor's oldest son went to our renowned elementary school till about 4th grade. Bright kid, but very physical, very energetic, needed to move around a lot. He could play a mean game of chess (I was chess coach of the homeschool chess club, and for the two years that the family homeschooled, he came to chess club weekly. Among a group of very smart kids, he quickly rose to the top.)
Anyway, by the end of 4th grade, our “high-quality” local elementary school had labeled him learning disabled, intellectually a bit slow, and ADHD. Drugs and all.
This public school thing wasn't working so well. So, mom, who worked out of her house, brought him home for two years. She came to us for advice on homeschooling, and she generally chose a pretty good homeschooling path. She used a reputable “curriculum in a box,” and was diligent. I felt sad for her when she told me of her son's troubles, ending it by saying, “We failed our elementary school.” No, they didn't. The public school failed her bright, sharp, fun-loving son. But she couldn't throw off her life-long indoctrination about public schools and see the thing as it really is.
Anyway, after two years at home, the young fellow went from being roughly a year behind in most subjects to about a year ahead. Except in math, where, by the end of 6th grade, he was doing basic algebra. Well, heck, he's a smart kid, why shouldn't he have been that far advanced?
Well, anyway, problem fixed, mom and dad decided to put him back into public school - middle school, by this point. The school ignored the advances he'd made in two years of homeschooling, and placed him academically according to where he was when he left the school system after 4th grade.
What a travesty.
And this is in the state of Maryland, which year in and year out has highly-ranked public schools, including a No. 1 rank in the last few years, in one of the top county school systems in the state. At schools which are considered models in the county's public school system. Highly-rated schools in a highly-rated county system in one of the top-ranked states in the country.
And they can't figure out how to decently educate a bright, energetic, pleasant, well-behaved but active young man.
Doctors go by the motto of, “First, do no harm.”
Educrats should at least try to live by the same philosophy.
He struggled through middle school and the first year of high school. He got pretty messed up in those three years. They finally sent him off to an expensive boarding school that specialized in fixing kids broken by crappy schools, he graduated high school and went off to college.
The lesson of all this is that poor parenting almost always leads to poor educational outcomes, whether privately-schooled, publicly-schooled or homeschooled. But good parenting nearly always leads to excellent outcomes in homeschooling, usually leads to good outcomes in good private schools, and, well, in public schools, it's a bit of a crapshoot.
I've never personally seen good, diligent homeschoolers fail, but I could tell you multiple stories like this one where good parents saw their kids fail to thrive in even “good” public schools.
Unlike others, I don't say that public schools always fail, or that we should immediately close them all down, or that no one gets educated in them, or that there aren't any public schools that are genuinely good and effective academically. My son goes to college with lots of kids from top-tier public schools, and they're all damned smart and damned successful, academically.
But public schools are generally suboptimal in obtaining a good education. Some kids do very well, perhaps even achieving their potential, more do okay, and unfortunately, a large minority get cheated out of an education. Much of this is due to the quality of parenting, especially when students are successful. Much of it is due to the schools, themselves, especially when students fail.
Nearly all children of poor parents will fail educationally, no matter the school choice. Parents are the first and primary teachers of their children. Parental involvement is the first and most important attribute of a successful educational outcome. But public schools often stymie and hinder good educational outcomes for children even of good, decent and diligent parents.
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