Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

Growing up, I had friends from 3 different families of kids that were homeschooled.

The first was my neighbor. I’m not really sure why his parents homeschooled him. He was an only child, and strikingly similar to the character of Cartman from Southpark. Him mom was also strikingly similar to Cartman’s mom. He didn’t learn anything, as his mom was not very strict about making sure he did his lessons. He had terrible social skills and very few life skills, which all came from hobbies that he pursued. He was an intelligent kid, and is struggling today due to generally poor work ethic and few job skills.

The second family was a typical anti-government family with cult-like religious beliefs. They believed God was in charge of their reproductive systems and had way more children than they could care for. It was a huge family. The first born was able to secure a job as an airline attendant, and led a reasonably normal life. Last I heard, many of the rest had succumb to methamphetamine and/or opioid addictions and have been in and out of jail. All of them were substantially undereducated, several with severe speech impediments and none with GEDs or high school diplomas.

The last family were the kids of my family’s pastor. They were generally successful. Their parents were strict, but very involved in their kids’ education. In many ways, they were successful - ahead in reading and math. They were somewhat poorly adapted socially, but had enough relationships through the church to overcome it.

In my experience, it can be a positive thing for children. The success of the children really depends on how involved parents are in making sure their kids needs are met. Sadly, it also seems like many parents who choose to homeschool do so because they don’t personally value education.

I find it rather unlikely homeschool process had anything to do with, esp. Rust. At that age I did mostly assembly but that was just personal search/no teaching. Overall the kid is just an anecdote.

Pretty much everything I know I picked up in community college about six years after graduating high school with a 2.6 GPA. I like to think I'm a smart and empathetic person. I would love to meet the person who got to use those innate skills at a young age instead of having to dredge up whatever remained after a decade of neglect.

I had someone (childless i might add) try to make me feel guilty for pulling my kids out of a school circling the drain and into a high performing one in the name of diversity. I told them, when the time comes, if they want to sacrifice their child on that altar then it's their decision but don't ask me to sacrifice mine.

Thank you. I came here to say this. We're homeschooling, and I made the mistake of reading the train wreck of comments on the Post article. It was irritating how many people were absolutely certain of what homeschooling is and what its shortcomings (or successes) are, when it's nowhere close to being one thing. Homeschooling is defined by what it is not.

Homeschooling because of COVID policies in public schools? Ok, there are some of those, some because things were too strict, some because things were too lenient. For religious reasons? Yes, some people want more of their religion, some want less of others'. Are the parents teaching? Sometimes, sometimes it's a co-op, sometimes it's online, sometimes it's at a community college. (Usually it's a mixture.) Then there are "non-location based charter schools" where the parents receive some of the state per-student funding, ...

It's really hard to find a common thread between all of these scenarios, because there isn't one. Other than not being in a public school. Er... at least, not being in a public school for most of the day, since some people do use bits and pieces from public schools.

"Not-zebras are awful because they're eating my rose bushes!"