Stereotypes and Extremes of Home School Versus Public Education

Stereotypes:

Home-schooled children are socially awkward, overly sheltered, ill-prepared for the real world and poorly educated by paranoid parents who think the world is going to end with a nuclear holocaust.

The public school system is badly broken with lazy teachers going through the motions while all around them, drug deals are going down, bullies are ruling the hallways and impressionable children are being recruited for all kinds of sordid lifestyles.

Now that I’ve got your attention, maybe we can put aside the tired stereotypes and extremes of home school versus public education and drop the this-one-is-much-better argument that raged in comments on amarillo.com after a March 9 story on local home-school programs.

The issue could be distilled simply to this: Parents should do what they think is best for their children. That’s it. If that means public or private school, so be it. If that means setting up the classroom at home, so be it.


-John Mark Beilue

Read More http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2012-03-17/schooling-decision-personal