I admit to not having read this entire thread, but parts of what I have read hit home.
Iss, actually hits some pretty good points.
I'm coming from the point of being a single working mother with two boys. Public school was fine through 5th grade(I thought) my eldest hit sixth grade and the wheels fell off the cart. Partly his fault, partly not.
I made the decision to homeschool him to remove him from what I strongly felt was a detrimental environment. Did the assesmenet testing to see where we needed to be on books etc and was horrified. While he passed the standard CRCT(annual testing for public school kids) and had earned A,B and some C's in his elementary career, I was in no way prepared for the fact that while he tested at a 6th grade level by Georgia standards, he was actually working at a 4th grade level by national standards.
Unhappy? You betcha I was unhappy! So we've been working hard to get the basics instilled in him, reading well, spelling well, writing well, and basic mathmatics. We've done hands on American history, he got first hand experience in the American political system and lessons planned around that experience, he's nto where I want him to be yet, but we're getting there, it's hard to ctch up 2 academic years in less than 8 months!
Next year, my youngest should go into 6th grade, he will not be attending public school either. I'm waiting on his assesment scores now to see where he scores against a national standard.
Am I unhappy with the local public schools? Oh yeah I am. Did I EVER dream that I'd be working to fit educating my children into an already crammed life? Not in a million years. So, I cut hours at the shop, to accomodate the schooling, my son goes with me and does lessons while I work, he's learning real life skills as well, he can actually make change without a computer telling him what it should be<G>
The home school option is available in Georgia as part of the public school system, but I can say it's not geared toward the average parent, it is geared toward those who have a decent income from one parent, with the other being stay at home. Especially the mandatory testing. I was furious to discover that in order to take the CRCT test this year, my home schooled son would be required to go to the next county, from 12:30-3:30 for 5 straight days, effectively shutting my shop for a week. Guess what? That is simply not acceptable, and frankly, unfair. No willingness to offer a local testing site, no willingness to work with schedules(hey, I'll open late to accomodate the testing, or close early but I cannot afford to close for a full week!!!) so next year we're going a different route, instead of taking advantage of the public distance learning, I'll be paying for the course work, much more flexibility, much less state input, and no bloody No Child Left Behind mandatory testing<G>
