Point is, and one with which I agree (Surprised?), the school setting has the advantage of teaching kids subtly about the "real world" It's like a job, and I've learned how to deal with reporting here every day and so on owing to lessons I learned from schooling. I wasn't with a bunch of people I liked all the time. I had to deal with people I thought were assholes... I had to improvise when I forgot my lunch... shit like that. Just like the real world, where I don't get to hang out with my buddies and loved ones all day long singing songs and cleaning up parks.
There is also no question in my mind that the schools can and should be improved in terms of education. That is, it's not so bad (in my mind) that our kids are nothing but drooling idiots or whatever (there's good schooling out there, and I happen to have purposely moved to where I did so that I got in a good school... err.. my kids did, I mean) but it certainly can be improved.
While there are indeed folks out there who would do well in the home schooling environment.. and parents who take it seriously and are smart enough to actually teach approrpriately and so on... not everyone has that kind of time, for one thing, not everyone has that kind of ability for another (I sure as fuck can't teach math, for example)... and there are several instances of "home schooling" I have delt with in my professional life which was nothing more than a way for parents to commit their kids to forced labor. I know that's not the "standard" but there's down side to homeschooling as well, and it's not just the socialization issue.
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