Sol, I have to say you have a lot of opinions that I've never seen. I wasn't homeschooled, but was brought up in a poverty-based, very isolated area, and am realizing of late, how little I've strayed out of that mindset. Anyways, I had previously been in the camp of not wanting to engage at all in the public education realm, feeling like I wasn't part of it, didn't want anything to do with it. I can definitely say that I'm being persuaded otherwise. I still want to home educate my children, but I am seeing everyone's points about funding the public school system as a safety net and need public service for those that need it.
I think your description of the goals of the public school system, being more about babysitting and preparing for life as a worker, and much less about educating, is spot on. And I think that is so sad. Other countries manage to educate their children in a public system, why should we settle for just keeping them (mostly) from being out on the streets during the day? As everyone keeps saying, I think it goes back to a lack of parental involvement and a lack of parents feeling responsible for their children's education. When my older kids were in public school, the general consensus among parents was that it was the school's responsibility to educate them, we just had to feed them a good breakfast, dress them warmly, and get them there on time. SHowing up for concerts and parent-teacher meetings was above and beyond, and marked you as a pillar of the PTA. I probably would still want to homeschool my children regardless of the offerings at the public schools, but I do believe that they are failing our children and our society in the goal of education, and most parents just don't care.
As to the costs of homeschooling, we have gone through a LOT of curriculum changes since we started. We began with a curriculum that was going to run a couple hundred dollars per child, per year, when the initial costs for books was spread out, but have since made multiple changes and now utilize a program that costs almost $1000 per child / per year. Still much less expensive than private school, but with 4 kids, it's an investment, and the bottom line for us is that it gets done, and the academics are solid.
We are getting to the age now (oldest is 9) that are searching for outside activities to involve the kids in. Our issue is more one of geographical isolation, rather than lack of options based on being homeschoolers. In our little town, there's not much going on. The middle school and high school kids have some sports teams, and very minimal choir / music options. (In our state, we can choose to have our children participate piecemeal in these things, for the small costs of participation fees.) Outside of the schools, there are Boys & Girls Club sports teams for basketball, and Little League in the spring. Oh, and there's a few 4H groups. If we go 50 miles away to the nearest big town, there's a YMCA with homeschool PE classes twice a week, lots of choices for martial arts, dance classes, gymnastics, drama clubs, chess clubs, etc. I've just started checking them all out, and it's impressive. We are intending to spend a lot more time in the "big town" specifically so our children can participate in these activities.
I'm also fascinated by the observations that homeschool families are flakey, not staying consistent in their participation with activity groups. In retrospect, I can see we would have fallen into that category, as we have started participating with groups, both in our small town, and the big town 50 miles away, and ended up dropping them, for various reasons. But I can see how that reputation gets earned, and I will be thinking on that a lot.
I really appreciate this thread and the candid opinions being given in a civil manner. As always, I get a lot to chew on when I hang out on the MMM forums. Viewpoints that just don't come around much in my neck of the woods. Thanks, guys.