Which Do you Thing Is Better?

I'm going to send my kids to either public or private schools because I plan to adopt children with disabilities and in order for them to feel more normal I plan to send them to public school so they can learn to interact with able bodied people. As a kid with a disability, school was a very liberating place for me where I learned to make friends and be independent. For eight hours a day, I was just like a normal kid with the same expectations as everyone else. This was vital to my development.

I always believe that it would be best for kids to go to school--public/private and not be confined at home. In public/private schools, they learn to interact with other children and they would be exposed more to social interactions and social challenges. I think it would help children more in their development as a person.

My son is 9 and has attended private school since Pre-K. There are alot of programs and groups that support home schooling since it has become so popular. They now have networks to accomadate for the lack of social shortcomings that used to be a con of home schooling. One of my personal reasons for not home schooling is because I don't want to be a stay at home parent. So for my family private school is the compromise. Also somewhere in my head, I don't want my son's education to be limited to mine, if that makes sense to you. I have seen many parents that have chosen to home school that don't seem to be smarter than a fifth grader (from the tv show) if you know what I mean. LOL As a parent you always want your kids to have better or more than you did, so I guess thats why I feel weird about this particular thing. Have you looked at your child's homework or ciriculum lately? Or the standardized testing that we have in the US? I am a college grad and it seems that the ciriculum is quite different than mine was at his level. I don't think a lot of parents that take this on don't get the necessary training or some of them don't even keep up with the changes in course study. Alot of parents choose home schooling at the elementary level and at an older age they enter public school. They do have some preliminary testing that shows that often these kids don't necessarily test any better and sometimes below those in the public sector. So from an academic standpoint if it doesn't prove better then whats the point? In my son's school the teacher to student ratio is very small so its as close to individual attention that he can get in a public or private school.

My daughter just started kindergarten at the public school on base, although I would have preferred a private school. Homeschooling DOES have its advantages - children often get a better education there than they can in public school, and certainly they get more individualized attention. However, as you said, they miss out on so many other things. They don't get to socialize as much, and they miss out on many sports, dances, etc - all things that are also part of getting an education. Being the smartest person in the world is no good if you lack people skills! Children need to learn how to deal with people and problems without an adult solving them for them. That's just as important as math, maybe more so. I've found that many (but certainly not ALL) parents who homeschool their children are a bit overprotective - they don't want their kids exposed to this or that - whether it be violence or simply other types of people - which also limits a child's ability to get on in the world once they leave their home. Even though I think the quality of education in most public schools in lacking over what a child can get in homeschooling, I'd still choose public school.