Now that my kids are in high school, I can really understand home schooling. I always understood wanting a good environment for the kids, but assumed the time would be too great for my wife and myself. Ours is a good high school in a good area, with good families and kids (which is why we moved to the area we live in) but I have seen, even here, in a 7-hour school day, the amount of time wasted is just amazing. Useless time like assembly, gym, or health. The teacher must spend time with all the students, smart or stupid, and spend time on discipline. Silly union work-rules and bureaucracy are another HUGE waste of time. For example, my daughter's AP Euro History teacher has been out 1/2 the year with pregnancy and illness, so the school has given the class a parade of useless substitutes. My daughter's class is far behind where they should be in preparation for the AP exam, and there is nothing administration can/will do about it, so we signed her up for an on-line course with an, energetic young teacher who sits across the country. Our daughter says she has learned more in 5 sessions than she has in 5 months in class.
In sum, I estimate the total, actual "learning" time is about 1.5 hours out of the 7 hours they are in the building.
Not only is top-down, centralized public school a bad environment, its a massive waste of time. I realize, especially with the internet, there are so many more options and communities out there. The entire system should be blown-up and re-created. Our leftist/progressive government of course is going the opposite direction, and will only make it worse as it seeks to centralize political control.
Even the AP classes are BS. We looked at having our daughter have the AP stamp for chemistry. We could not because it was trade marked. If we wanted it she would have had to take a test to get it which we had to pay for. So we looked at what was tested during the AP chemistry test and it turns out 14 of 15 things not on the test she had already learned. Because they were beyond the scope of the class. So we skipped the test and put advanced chemistry on her transcripts. We figured if they asked we could explain it.
Long story short we told the college what classes she took and they said “home schooled right”. It is even apparent to the colleges that public schools are failing.
Our homeschoolers rarely spent more than 2 hours in formal homeschooling. The rest of the day they played. It was a fascinating process to watch because gradually their play became **intense** adult level work in developing their artistic and academic talents.
All of my children play a musical instrument. All sing in our church choir and later 2 were active in the university chorus. All took dancing lessons and as teens were very active in a local ball room dancing club. As elementary school aged children they were very active in the local community theater. They were active volunteers at the local library. One became an internationally and nationally ranked athlete who traveled the world representing the United States.
Academically, all were admitted to college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. All finished their general college course and Calculus 3 by the age of 15. The two younger completed a B.S. degree in mathematics by the age of 18. One earned a masters in math by 20. The oldest still managed to finish a masters in accounting by the usual age even though he was training full time as an athlete.
Not as much of this would have been possible if they had gone to school.