I think it can be great. Like anything, it can be abused (badly). But if done right, I think it has a lot of advantages over most other forms of education.

It certainly can be a good. My sister-in-law did a good job with it (although my nephew nearly drove her crazy over that year). He tested into one grade level higher when returned to the public school system.

I have seen it be disastrous too though.

Sorry, non-US members.

It can be either good or bad. I was homeschooled throughout my grade school and middle school years before entering high school as a sophomore. I never had any trouble with the transition socially or academically. But I have seen other members of my extended family have ongoing issues because the parents weren't attentive enough to make sure their children stayed on track. The bottom line really is that there are good things and bad things about any system of education.

I've seen quite a lot of it, and I agree with the consensus, it can either be good or bad. As one would assume, the parents have more control, and thus more ability to give their child better education, or slack off and make things worse.

We homeschooled our kids after first trying a private Christian school and then for the oldest, one year of public school. The first two graduated from college at age 20 and we didn't even push academics that much, but their literature-based curriculum gave them really good reading, writing, and analytical skills. Our homeschool association is registered as a private Christian school, and provides more or less support as parents need/request it. One important feature was a class day every two weeks, which my wife coordinated. At our site alone there were over 100 families and 400 people total, with the kids taking a wide range of classes to supplement their at-home studies. But the best thing I saw in all the home-schooled kids is a super-high comfort level in dealing with all ages of people, from little kids to adults.

The youngest just graduated last June. :-)

Mujus raises a good point. In public schools you're with a bunch of kids your own age, but if you're in a homeschool group you're exposed to more age diversity.

You just have to make sure that the homeschooled student still socializes and can communicate with people even though they don't necessarily do so every day.

Exactly, which is why getting involved in a homeschool group is vital.

Most homeschooled kids I know happen to be good at sports because they have always participated in a bunch of sports in order to get out of the house. That's one of the best things you can do for a kid in my opinion. Keeps them healthy and active and there are no better friends in the world than teammates.

The greatest advantage to homeschooling in my opinion is that, unlike a regular setting, the parents choose what to teach. In other words, yeah, you have to pass all the tests, but as a parent you already feel responsible for their education, which means you can teach them important things in life along with the typical curriculum.

I have 10 brothers and sisters. My church strongly encourages homeschooling for religious reasons, and everyone I know who has gone through it from my church, are all very smart and successful. My mom attempted to teach us up until she gave birth to child number 7 or 8 when the work became too much for her. I was tested a grade up from the norm but all of my older sibling tested a grade down. It just depends on how much the parent can handle, but all the smartest people I know were homeschooled, despite the jokes we make about them.

Every parent I know that home schools says it was much more work than they'd realized going into it.

It is interesting to see that so many foreign countries allow home schooling. I am very glad that at home home schooling is allowed only as a complement to enrolled schooling. I understand home schooling for outbackers as school attendance is not really possible and boarding schools are either expensive or bad.

As a principle, I think it is best for children of any age to be as much in contact with children of their age as this is the environment where they can experiment most and have an easier contact with other social groups. In many cases home schooling advocates prefer home schooling in order to prevent exactly this (when I read home schooling for religious reasons it is exactly what I think of). Personally I am happy to have at an attendance school and I would miss it had I not been.

I understand perfectly that many foreigners have strange school systems where pupils arrive late and state late so that they have not much leeway to be out of school. We usually start at 7:30 (so our hard (and both) working parents can take us to school) and finish around 14:30 with lunch break of 30 min (and 45min sessions with 5 to 10 min breaks in between). This allows for a huge range of extra school activities like sports, music education, etc. The great benefit I see here is that one is not bound to school activities. Not to mention complementary education like church classes, non-standard language classes, etc. I went to a privy school though I had a lot of choices and above average education (and environment), but we had at least ⅓ of non-paying classmates. Determined through testing scores if the minimal social standards were not met by enough people doing well in the tests. It turned out that we had a rate of underclass classmates of roughly 30% so the system worked as intended.

From a community stance, I think a mother who is bad at teaching shouldn't be teaching her children. A mother who is good at teaching should teach in a school. It'll provide more income for the family and probably more opportunities for her children as well, while benefitting society (or at least her community). Same goes for fathers.

Homeschooling doesn't always mean that one of the parents is teaching. They're often setting up the curriculum for their children.

True, sometimes they're house teachers. I forgot.

On the whole, I think that formal schooling -- having kids spend a majority of each day sitting in a classroom with other students, being lectured to -- is a pathological environment for children, one that only seems normal because it has somehow become the norm in our little timeframe. I understand that it is now, for many, necessary, and I strongly support improving public education since it is vital to the success of many that we have it. But I don't think it's really ideal for anybody.

(Note that the above is in response to the suggestion that classroom schooling is the ideal environment. It is not a critique of educational effectiveness, and I'd want to emphasize, again, that I fully understand the great importance of classroom schooling at this time in society).

I was rarely lectured in school. In foreign countries this might be the norm, but in my home country the emphasis is generally on active engagement of the students. In any subject.

My kids went to an "independent study charter school" for elementary school grades and entered traditional public school for 6th grade and beyond. Their mother taught while I worked, and they turned out just fine taking multiple AP courses and earning credit before college.

I think the key to doing it right is really all about the parents. Do they have the skills to make it happen? If so, it's a great way to go. If not, it can have pretty bad results, especially if the student has a learning difference which requires specific educational support. Three of my kids' peers each ended up getting a high school diploma by age 16, and 2 of them (3rd pending this spring) ended up graduating from Cal-Berkeley with dual degrees, one Math/Linguistics and the other with French/Int'l Business. On the other hand, I've also seen some of them educationally flame out and squeak by with a diploma. They're now grocery store cashiers 6 or 7 years after high school.

I'll also contradict the sentiment that "you must socialize your kids with other kids." That's a myth perpetuated primarily by those who want a talking point that many home-schoolers cannot refute. If the parents are socially well-adjusted, the kids will be socially well-adjusted, and vice versa regardless of contact with the "outside world."

One more point to follow onto something ALEXTREME33 said:
I think that often the older children of home-schoolers do have it harder for a couple of reasons. Mainly, they are the test cases for their parents who have to try to figure out how to home-school properly. Devising a curriculum and executing it are straight-forward, but it can seem overwhelming at times. Younger kids benefit from the experience their parents' have earned, especially if the teacher-parent doesn't have to care for infants any more when they stop having children. As ALEXTREME33 notes, at a certain point, the number of children can become too great for even the most heroic efforts of many parents.

I am an intern at a museum with about 50 or so other students, 10 or so are homeschooled. They definitely seem smarter than most of the public school students but they are super awkward and can't function in social environments as well as the others.

Lol I remember first meeting this one guy. He shouts at me "SALUTATIONS FRIEND" and awkwardly shakes my hand. He didn't even shake my hand properly. He grabs the base of my palm, practically at my wrist and violently shakes it around.

As Bo mentioned above it is vital for homeschoolers to be able to get involved in some activities (such as sports) just so that they have experience that comes from outside the home. Now since I was homeschooled, and my brothers still are, I'll use our example. All three of us played football and baseball from the time we were 7-8 up to the time we were about 15. Then my two younger brothers branches of into the sport of motocross since they couldn't play for our local high school (as homeschoolers). I chose to instead stay with football and I entered high school at that time.

This dual experience of being homeschooled and receiving a public education has given me a pretty good view of both of these forms of education. In my opinion the homeschool option could be used more liberally for young kids (if the parents have the time, skills, and will) but there is also a time that older kids have to branch out on their own. Whether that time will come during elementary school, middle school, high school, or even college will largely depend on the kid.

Also as yoyo points out, there is a stigma of awkwardness often attached to homeschoolers. As with any group we are exposed to, it's often the people who give us the worst impression that stick in our mind. I have certainly had a similar experience to the one that yoyo describes, but in my case I was the homeschooler and the other kid was from public school. In all honesty I have not seen a huge difference in the awkwardness of homeschooled kids compared to the awkwardness of public school kids. (This being across the whole population of kids, if you cherry pick which kids you look at then the results will of course be different) some kids adjust better than others, regardless of environment.

@Yoyo some children just are not overly well at socializing in both public school and home school ways of education. Some I know are way more outgoing than others who prefer to sit in the corner with their book. All depends on the person really because I know for a fact that not all homeschoolers are awkward at socializing. They are also on average more respectful as they spend more time with older people.

I agree with your sentiment but I'd have to say as a rule of thumb that students should be obligated to public education in high school. It's really the only way for students to be social. Joining football is great but it doesn't push students to interact with too many people. They aren't forced to work in groups with people that they may not know or like (maybe at first, but after that is over, you're just hanging out with the same neighborhood kids) Again I don't think it should depend on the kid because depending on their attitude, their shyness may prevent them from ever wanting to go to public school but the atmosphere is definitely something they'll need later on. The same kids I were talking about from before do other activities. The example person that I used is actually on a local fencing team. A lot of the students don't change their unsocial behavior, they just get used to the people that they see on a day to day basis. Homeschool is good for teaching students the foundations but when they enter a high school level, they need the social interactions.

@Shadows
I was just pointing out statistically from my experience that homeschoolers are less social. the rest of the 40 students were fine, the 10 homeschoolers were definitely outliers when it came to social interaction.