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Such children exist in greater numbers in the public schools. In fact, the public school environment can exasperbate these problems.

Maybe in the inner cities schools have such issues but around where I live the public schools are not "bad" at all. It would be inconceivable for a child to have those deficiencies in knowledge in the public schools around my area.

What do you mean about "social issues"? If it is rude or aggressive behavior, that would at least mean that the rest of the children aren't being influenced by it.

Without going into great detail, because it probably would not be appropriate for me to do so, "some" of the home schooled children have serious issues. I mean... something along the line of a "complete inability" to deal with other children (who also happen to be home schooled). There is nothing wrong with simply being "weird" (hey I was guilty as that as a child.

If it means being considered a bit weird, well there are those in the public schools as well. Moreover, I would rather have a child with "social issues", if that means non-conformity with modern anti-culture, than for him to be trained into docile acceptance of all sorts of peer pressure.

Why do you have a chip on your shoulder?? As I said in my last post many of the homeschoolers my wife deals with are very smart, well behaved and are great children. My point was that the "few" that seem left behind, well... they are really really REALLY left behind.

I don't have anything against home schooling at all. If anything it seems to produce some very smart children. I simply think there are "some" parents that do a very bad job of it and according to the parent, it is on purpose. Things like "math isn't important" type of attitudes. That kind of thing where they come right out and say that some of the basic tenets of any education just aren't deemed important enough to teach.

I mean... something along the line of a "complete inability" to deal with other children (who also happen to be home schooled). There is nothing wrong with simply being "weird" (hey I was guilty as that as a child.

Those types come along in public schools as well. I attended the 1970's version of a "good" public school, and those types were there.

Why do you have a chip on your shoulder?? . . . My point was that the "few" that seem left behind, well... they are really really REALLY left behind.

I do have a bit of a chip on my shoulder, because the standard for home schoolers is set so much higher than it is for the government school system. My fear is that this handful of non-social kids will be used as an excuse to monitor and regulate all.

I simply think there are "some" parents that do a very bad job of it and according to the parent, it is on purpose. Things like "math isn't important" type of attitudes. That kind of thing where they come right out and say that some of the basic tenets of any education just aren't deemed important enough to teach.

I do concede that such parents may exist (in some cases it might be because the child is going to be, literally, a truck driver like daddy, and that is not the worst thing in the world). I am certainly willing to risk having a parent responsible for a child's upbringing fail in individual areas (e.g. math) than risk the wholesale failure of entire demographic groups (inner city kids, social engineering classes, "new" math, whole language and look-say). A lot of kids got really really really left behind, as whole language and new math taught them not only to be disinterested in the subjects, but to hate them.

I do place the blame as much on modern parents as on modern teachers. The parents expect the schools to do everything for them.

You are right that homeschooling is not utopia, and it is not for everybody. I do not want the government deciding who it is and is not for.

There would be fewer chips on homeschooling parents' shoulders if public schools were not supported by tax dollars, if the National Education Association were not the red propaganda organization that it is, if atheism and agnosticism and political correctness were not the creeds of the gummint skewels. I live in a town so rural that it has fewer than 500 residents. That is no protection from the evils endemic to public schools. There is simply no sense living one's life in constant warfare with public or even parochial school authorities. I have far better uses of my time than squabbling with left-wing school boards or administrators. I have no obligation to expose my kids so I can defend yours.

You may prefer public schools and that is your business. I don't and that is mine. You should not have to fund my ideas. I should not have to fund yours. When my kids have kids, they can decide for their children. The SCOTUS, as long ago as 1927, in Pierce vs. Society of Sisters, decided that parents are constitutionally entitled to make educational decisions for their minor children within reasonable boundaries. More recently, SCOTUS decided in a case involving the Amish, that they could, as a matter of religious freedom ignore state mandatory schooling laws to the extent that they purported to govern Amish kids over 12 years old.

One of the DUMB myths believed by "suburbanites" in Nazi Jersey: "Oh, the schools in Newark are bad, but in my town they are 'blue ribbon!'

Most public schools in suburban areas of this state are mediocre at best, with dumbed down curriculum geared toward the lowest common denominator. When you try to be all things to all people, you ultimately must settle for the flaccid, middle course.

Public schools are nothing but socialism for the middle class. Hopefully, when Corzine gets the schools consolidated on a county level (which, if he wasn't in charge, would mean lower property taxes!), NJ parents would do the right thing and abandon the Socialist Day Care Centers en masse.