YOUR RESPONSE: No. Some reasons:
MY FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS: At first blush, these are the concerns I'd have:
• Won't the home school children be stunted in their ability to relate to peers and other adults?
• Won't they miss out on the expertise and wisdom from the teachers? Afterall, the parts of the Body of Christ have their different gifts to offer.
You're joking, right? Either that or you have never encountered the concept of homeschooling before, except in the parody offered by the leftist TV networks. Even Time and Newsweek have dropped this canard.
For the record, in every situation studied, homeschooled students relate better to other children, of all ages, and to adults, than institutionalized students. This is just common sense.
Won't they miss out on the expertise and wisdom from the teachers?
There are teachers out there with expertise and wisdom, who can also teach :-). Assume your hypothetical school is full of them. And maybe, in the context of a class of 30 students or so, they would manage to impart some of that to my children.
So yes, they would miss what that particular teacher had to offer. However, if they were in the teacher's classroom, they would miss the wisdom and expertise of a much greater number of people who pass through their lives as homeschoolers.
So it's a tradeoff, as everything in life is. You can't have every experience, or learn from every person who might benefit you. I had some experiences with excellent teachers as a public school student. Was it worth the rest of it? No way.
In school, no matter how great a teacher is, you move on after a year; those relationships cannot last. In homeschooling, children can form lasting relationships with other adults, particularly their parents. My husband has been out of work for eight months. If the kids were in school, they would have missed eight months of every day contact with their father. Nothing is worth that trade-off!
• Won't the home school children be stunted in their ability to relate to peers and other adults?
Quite the opposite. What meaningful interaction occurs with peers at school? During class time, it's supposed to be eyes front. Between classes kids talk about what they saw on TV last night or who's "dating" who. Same with the cafeteria. The environment is prison-like, especially if school authorities don't maintain discipline. Cliques and gangs arise in schools for the same reason they do in prison: protection. They represent islands of order (of a sort) in a sea of chaos.
Homeschooled children either play with other children or pursue interests that they share with other children. Social association is largely voluntary. Children tend to work together toward a common goal, even if it's something as mundane as playing house. Homeschooled children also have the freedom to choose to disassociate from other children. This is a very important life skill.
Additionally, homeschooled children learn to interact with adults outside of the order-giver/order-taker school norm. To homeschooled children, adults do not represent only authority figures who are to be avoided. Instead, children learn to judge adults just as they learn to judge other children, by what they say and do, and have the freedom to associate or disassociate with them as they see fit.
• Won't they miss out on the expertise and wisdom from the teachers? Afterall, the parts of the Body of Christ have their different gifts to offer.
What benefits exist are provided to a greater degree from interaction with adults in the outside world, in situations that are more "organic." Teachers are slaves to their job scope, their position of moral neutrality, and their (usually horrible) textbooks. It's very difficult for them to speak from the heart. Adults outside the school institution are not so restrained. Children who interact with adults in the non-school world get a truer picture of adults.