I choose to treat this as a serious question and not the facetious retort which my gut is trying to tell me it was because there is a full inventory of serious answers.
The quickest way to answer is to remind the inquirer that public schools were originally and intentionally designed to utilize the principles of the industrial age to modernize education. Since natural intellect was/is/has been a genetic given, the modernization efforts focused on changing the educational environment. Schools began to look more like factory assembly lines as they became more centralized in administration and more stratified in age levels. In short, they became optimized for round pegs.
Home education often makes sense for children at both ends of the intelligence spectrum. Both very gifted and learning disabled children are, in essence, square pegs. Both have difficulty fitting into the round holes of mainstream education and both benefit from the one-on-one tutoring of a home school environment.
In many ways, the "antique" one room school house of our ancestors was better able to deal with the square-peg kids; the bright ones could move ahead, and older student were often able to tutor the younger ones who had difficulty. It should not be at all surprising that a highly motivated parent who is willing to learn what it will take to help their child succeed can frequently out-perform a public school that must conform to mountains of red tape, standard protocol, documentation, and time limitations.
As I said, this was a quick answer. Once you throw the distractions of pop culture and peer pressure into a classroom, the benefits of home education for square-peg kids begin to increase.
I doubt home education will ever become the main method for educating these kids. Home schooling rates vary widely around the country. (In our community it is just under 7%.) Within that group, only a handful of parents are home educating because they felt the school was not meeting their needs, however, in the small number of local cases where parents do choose home schooling because the school was not meeting the academic needs, they are getting better results than the "entire school system" you questioned.
'
(FYI - negative socialization issues on the playground, busses and during non-class time-- which are often beyond a teacher's control, are also common reasons for pulling out of schools around here, so it's not all about the education.)
Parents want the best for their children, but what’s the best way to educate them? Dr. Phil’s guests face off in a debate about whether to school, homeschool or unschool. Dana and her husband, Joe, call themselves radical unschoolers. They say education happens as a side effect of life, and they don’t believe in tests, curriculums or grades. Are their three kids learning what they need to know? Then, RaeAnn says public schools are death traps and wants to homeschool her children. Her husband, Steve, says their kids are safer at school than they are at home. Can this couple reach a compromise? Plus, Nicole feels like an outcast at 26. She says she hated being homeschooled, and couldn’t relate to other kids. Share your thoughts here.
