I have known many wonderful parents who have some of their kids turn out well, while one or two of their other children have serious academic and social problems. These kids are being raised by the same parents, in same family. Amazing! Every one of these parents has said that it was the friends made in government schools that were the cause of their unsuccessfully children's problems.
In my opinion, government school is taking a crap shoot with your child's life.
We all have tarts and abusers as kids, we don't know how to raise polite, conservative, smart, funny or nice kids.
Smart, polite, funny, curious, and socially poised government schooled children do NOT come to my office. Every homeschooled child coming into my office, without a single exception **is** polite, smart, funny and nice. All the homeschooled child are not conservative, since liberals homeschool too.
The deterioration of the homeschooled child, once admitted to government school, is also plainly evident to me and my entire staff.
The only good kids are raised by the wonderful bunch of selfless parents who don't trust themselves to be a better role model or a greater infuence to their children than some teachers (not to even consider the fact that there a a great deal of good teachers) for a few hours a day
The child spends 6 to 7 hours in institutionalized schooling. Then there is 1 to 2 or more hours of homework at night. Add to this 1 to 3 hours of bus stop and bus riding time. Then add in a few hours that the child spend socializing with his government school "friends" on the Internet, phone, and text messaging. I would add the hour of the pre-school "morning out the door" hassle. Throw in an afternoon and weekend activity or two.
Then subtract the 9 to 10 hours of sleep needed by children and teens.
What is left for this wonderful time left for parental influence? Precious little. Any parent who thinks they can overcome government school influence and socialization is shouting at a government school cultural tsunami.
Thankfully, humans are very resilient. Most overcome their toxic government school experience. Sadly, too many do not. Some siblings seem unaffected, other siblings from the same family drown in the cesspool.
I would ask if you were running some sort of welfare clinic, but even among the less affluent public school students I teach, I've found some who were smart, polite, funny, curious, and socially poised.
That sort of student is more prevalent in the more affluent group of public school students.