You are all arguing between two extremes.
Parents cannot just dump children into a school system, they need to be taught to be decent human being at home as well.
I think the difficulty that people are having is where political ideas...quite extreme ones are being indoctrinated to children in public schools and that maladaptive ideologies are being advocated while they deny and conceal it from parents.
You have stated something along the lines of not caring about politics but I guarantee you that they very much effect and colour your day to life whether you are aware on a surface level or not.
Many parents strongly object to the ideas being taught as well as the recent authoritarian nature of schools presuming that it is in fact they who are in charge as opposed to the parents. There has been a significant push towards homeschool as parents who did for decades think that they could drop children off and deal with morals at home. That the schools we apolitical and focused purely on academic topics.
Painful awaking has been much in vogue of late.
I know a stay at home mom, who drops her children off at daycare every day. Why?
No offense to that family...not just the stay at home mom as presumably the husband is allowing the behavior but that looks like sheer selfishness and laziness.
I have known in passing a few woman in an exceptionally well to do area who were stay at home wives with apparently the mom thing on the side as well. I have no idea if this next part applies to the woman you know but it was certainly what I have seen. These woman were aware that they were a trophy or accessory of some sort. A no doubt valuable one, especially in their own eyes but one that needed to be maintained. Their lives while the children were with nannies or daycare consisted of yoga classes, personal trainers, tennis pros and "wellness centers" whatever that means as well as therapists. Occasional errands and then being home one assumes to do some sort of meal prep.
The point being that they did not strike me as involved in their children's lives as some men might like in a wife. Different strokes and what have you but regardless of how attractive the upholstery and apparent fitness levels of these woman, personally I found them unattractive as I learned about their lives and parenting or lack thereof.
On the other hand, I have problems with home schooling as well. How qualified are the parents? I was at a fundraiser with a woman who home schools her child, who could not do % calculations. If she cannot even do the most fundamental math, she should not be be teaching anyone /discussion.
I think your own experience, based in a few overt hints as to your background is helping you to lean more heavily into the notion of credentials fallacy.
I imagine that the schools you went to had instructors who were specialists in their given areas as opposed to something as unintentionally laughable as a degree in education as is often the case in public schools. Perhaps a English lit degree or biology degree here or there but then there are coaches as well. They may well know their sport inside and out, but they are not inherently anymore qualify to teach history or mathematics than an average person off the street with brief training in advance of taking on the role.
I have met plenty of professionals that outside of their specific area are vastly less impressive. Certainly thst woman needs to learn some kitchen math but I havevto hope her children had not gotten to the point where she is teaching them that yet.
I have previously mentioned that the homeschooler equation by definition to my mind often means a process of learning material together, both parent and child.
I am also of the opinion that you will find vastly more autodidactic personality types among the homeschool parents. Mileage may vary obviously but I will use myself as an example. I can fabricate a fractional still for petroleum, butcher carcasses, administer networks back when it was hard, qualified as a sommelier, can repair a goodly number of things mechanical, taught multiple specialist subjects and am currently studying nutrition and its history as well as intending to start enriching my own harvested platelets for mad scientist reasons...and none of that is intended as some sort of virtue or fitness signal. Genuinely. More likely a nerd signal really. I am nobody special. Just some guy who enjoys learning topics that interest him. Shiney new nickel says that my particular brand of nerd is over represented in homeschool parent circles. I suspect I will get confirmation in the near term.
Thinking on it a bit, I would wager that until recently when so many parents were forced to notice during the lockdowns just how insane the indoctrination their children were receiving, your average homeschool parents will have had an easy standard of deviation over average teachers in IQ.
Perhaps our experience has been different with respect to the tyoe of people we have encountered and I am projecting my hopes for the other families onto them. We only know some through the martial arts school my son attends and a few here and there in single serving conversations.
Also, just the cost of the chemicals in the chem lab at my school are likely over $10,000 How are you people managing this?
I am going to seem like I am picking on you here and that is not at all the intention. Do keep that in mind please.
I get the impression that the environment you associate with learning will of necessity be a classroom or lab with purpose made/build facilities.
I like to think of how I see it as (Mark) Hopkins law sort of equation with respect to homeschooling children in that he said the ideal college was a professor at one end of a log and a student at another. One should take every opportunity to make activities teaching opportunities.
Just this weekend in fact while at the zoo, unsurprisingly we covered rather a lot about different types of animals, protective colouration, how developing in different ecologies will split species and what was subspeciation as well as learned via help with youtube about winding ropes and cordage as well as aome geography quizing as we got to different paddocks with maps on them.
I think this is likely pretty much what it would be like most homeschool families. The same goes for our visit to a historical and automotive museum recently (we were doing some route 66 family vacation shenanigans) but I will not bore you with a list of the topics discussed at each, you can likely imagine.
I will admit that if my son becomes more fascinated by his trip to the aquarium that I will have to learn rather a lot more than a recipe for a good beer batter for fish if I wish to instruct him but that is part of the fun.
I suppose thst the overarching point I am wending my way towards is that one doesn't need as much in the way of resources as one might imagine to teach a child effectively. Much of what is genuinely useful and practical rather than niech profession focused can be managed on a small scale without undue expense. Especially so in the age of youtube etc instructional, how to and lecture videos.
That reminds me...for homeschool nerds generally, not just addressing Maia currently but all the rest of you dorks as well...the site survivallibrary.org that I have previously mentioned as a good resource for prepper nerds and booku free download able resources, has a bunch of pdfs of children's textbooks and activities books from the 1800s till 1950s and wow...we have really gone down hill on our standards.
One thing to know it and another to be reminded with hard evidence. Could be great for some homeschoolers though
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