That’s interesting information about online homeschools. It sounds to me that if all that is going on, it’s the parents who are dropping the ball! If they’re like the homeschooling parents I know, they would keep an eagle eye on their kids and the work they’re doing.
It occurs to me, also, that you’re describing what goes on in thousands of public school classrooms: kids cheating, not really learning concepts, being passed on to make it easy for the teacher, teachers trying to avoid confrontations with parents. I guess whatever is “new” is just the same old, same old!
I prefer sitting down with my kids, refusing to go on to the next lesson until what we’re working on is finished satisfactorily. I prefer being able to model the correct way of approaching a problem, writing a sentence, etc. over and over again, if necessary to just throwing out information and hoping my kids “get it”.
I’ve been blessed with extremely smart kids who make me, the homeschooling mom, look good, but I’ve been on the other side of the fence as a public school teacher, frustrated with time limits, low parental involvement, and all the other ills of the system.