Sheltering children from the diversity of ideas and ways of life is NOT an education -- the liberal arts aren't the main value of public education, indeed, those who wish to remain illiterate and uneducated will do so no matter what their backgroud...and more power to them; the world needs ditch-diggers.
The main value of public education is socialization. I was reading books by 4 years old, and could give a decent lecture on Jurrasic era flora and fauna by the time I was 8. Do you think that I could do this because of the bottom-of-the-barrel education I recieved in the LA unified school district? Of course not -- I was ON FIRE for knowledge, and spent HOURS in the libraries. When other kids were watching cartoons, I watched the Discovery Channel. While other kids played tag, I played chess. I am an autodidact, and subsiquently was very bored with my compulsory education. Everything moved too slow. Everyone needed 3 or 4 times longer than I for basic material, and none of them really cared how Carthage was destroyed, or what a fulcrum is, or how to properly format an essay.

I cared. Knowledge is what makes my life worth living -- and I will go on learning until the day I die, likely with a book in my hand.

All of my knowledge, however, did very little to teach me how to get along with people that were different than me. My history books didn't tell me how to get a date, or how to win friends, or how to present myself to new people. The books said nothing about dealing with acne, or dissapointment, or peer pressure, or how to get people to laugh at my obscure refferences to Agamemnon or Layerties or Marie Antoinette.

Public school did that, hand in hand with the afterschool program at the YMCA. If I was never REQUIRED to mingle with other kids, I would be an intolerable, introverted social retard. Through the trial and error that is adolecence, I learned that I needed other people to enjoy and be sucessful at life. I needed friends, lovers, enemies, teachers, students, and background characters. I learned that to be friends with someone does NOT mean that we must share the same beliefs, or skin color, or even likes and dislikes -- all we needed was a little mutual respect and an ability to ENJOY our differences. I owe quite a bit to an education system that taught me very little -- I left highschool a year early for college -- and while I got myself into more than my share of trouble, I was ready for the world of adulthood when I left. I had experience with all kinds of people. I knew how to tap a keg, mix a cocktail, and roll a joint. I knew when someone really wanted to fight, and when they were all talk and no walk. I knew drinking and driving will kill you and others. I knew that sex and love were two different things. I knew that either one requires protection.

...and because my mind was on fire for knowledge, I learned to love learning. I didn't (and don't) care what the source of the information was, because I had developed strong muscles of reason and intellect to differentiate between facts and ideas. I read contraviening evidence and opinions all the time -- right now I am reading the book of mormon, not because I am a mormon, or I believe a word of it, but because I know that there are MANY people that believe it to be a testament of Jesus in the new world, and I deal with different PEOPLE all the time.

Homeschooling seems to have very limited motive -- either:

1) a child has special educational needs that cannot be met by the district or private school -- usually remarkable intellect, or an impairment (autism, severe learning disablilty, et cetra) that the parents have uniquely specialized training to meet (a doctor, professor, et cetra)

or

2) the parents wish to shelter their children from popular or diverse ideas and ways of thinking that conflict with their own.

In the case of the first circumstance, my best is with the parents and child. If it is kept in mind that the child's socialization is attended to (sports, music, drama, et cetra) then they are likely getting the best possible education based upon their special conditions. As for the latter, I offer my graves cautions to the parents of this child. A VERY narrow category of options would cause a parent to preclude his/her child from participating in society, and, unfortunately, these conditions commonly fall into the category of fundamentallist religious belief, or social ideologies that are considered objectionable by the majority of society. Racism, creationism, anti-homosexuality, and radical faith are all within this dangerous category. Fortunately for the children, this strategy of building walls around the mind of a child tends to backfire -- children grow up, and start thinking for themselves (one of the few beneficial effects of the rebellious, hormone-driven teenage years). The TRUELY educated person is the natural state of the human mind -- it is how we are put together, and has nothing to do with the ability to score well on tests or to make good grades. True intelligence is the awakened mechinism of reason that rests in all healthy minds. This nature must be truely abused and beaten into intellectual coma for this exclusive brand of education, agenda-driven homeschooling, to work.

Hooray for the human mind -- it is a beautiful thing.

Logos Invictus Lux Luminae,

--Louis Repucci