Quote From: momof5hereI home-schooled my son in the 7th grade, while living in Southern California. I did so for a few reasons, safety being one of them. California has this "average daily attendance" thing going on, whereby trouble-making or otherwise dangerous kids are NOT expelled, since the school actually ends up losing money. Demographically speaking, most California Public Schools have a lot of "bad apples" in the public schools, even in affluent Orange County, where I lived.
I now live in Florida, where the quality of education isn't much better than it was in California, and still far inferior to the education I received in Northern New Jersey. I suspect that they are about two or three grade levels behind down here (i.e. my 6th grader step-son is learning what my son learned in the 3rd or 4th grade). I would LOVE to be able to home-school again, since the internet makes it very easy to find the resourses. The only downside I see is the socialization aspect, but extra-curricular sports, dance or arts involvement or church youth group would take care of that.
When it comes to education, the responsibility ultimately falls to the PARENTS. Follow your gut instinct here and you won't go wrong.
I disagree that homeschooled children lack any social skills. I think the social aspects of school are mainly negative. That is only my opinion! We have the Y.M.C.A here and my 4 year old who is very social can go there for fun play 6 days a week. My 11 year old is not up to the social activity of the Y, so I don't force it. She does however like to do volunteer work, so we do that. She also has a paper route and flyers that she delivers and she has interaction with all sorts of people from that and she learns about money as well, as there is collecting involved. You do NOT need school to be social. We homeschoolers are not locking the kids indoors all day. We are out in our community as well. We are actually more active since being out of the school system, just in a more positive, happier way now.
We make up our own curriculum, as I think that no one curriculum suits the needs of every learner. Also, there is everyday learning everywhere you look.
I don't see any down side to homeschooling, but only positive aspects all around the board.
Sherri~ mom of 2
