With all of this information, when I have children they will attend the best schools in the area, christian or public. I know that despite having taken education courses in college, and working in curriculum wwriting, I would not be the best teacher for my children. I would not be able to teach my children the social skills critical for successful interaction in the real world. In addition to this, while religion is important it is not the end all be all when it comes to education. Concepts such as science which are traditionally attacked by adament christians are an important aspect of understanding our world. While concepts, such as evolution, may be considered contradictory to the bible, I personally find it presumptuous to believe that we can understand how the universe works. To that end I feel that knowledge is important, whether you agree with it or not, in order for children to be able to formulate educated world visions. I know that I was taught that evolution was the only explanation, and yet I still believe in creation. Knowledge does not hurt children, ignorance does, and ignorance is what is bred when children are taught by incompetant teachers or sheltered from the world.

This does not mean that private school, home school, or public school is necessarily incapable of educating children, I just know that it takes a special kind of person to home school, and certain public schools are better than private schools and vice versa. I have great respect for anyone who can home school their children, I encourage joining a homeschool network if you do so as to expand your child’s horizons. If you think about it, your child can learn no more than their teacher, and I acknowledge that I don’t know everything. I don’t want my children to end as little clones of myself, and I could never teach them concepts such as science or math, or even history outside of my very small sphere of expertise.

If you are worried about certain concepts not being taught in schools, remember that your job as a parent does not defer to the teachers of your child’s school. You can still be their teacher out side of school. Infact morals, religion, etc. are left out of school curriculums specifically for this reason so that you can instill the virtues, morals and beliefs of your own culture in your child outside of school.

Research which the best option is for your area, it is not always the same from place to place. Talk to the administrators and teachers before make your decision, it does not need to be a blind decision. And in the end, make the choice that is best for YOU, not your friends, your pastor, or even us here on our little soap boxes.

Christianity continues to violate human/civil rights. The majority of hate groups in the US consist of Christians.

Federal hate crime bills had to be established to control the religious people using their interpretation of the bible to comment heinous crimes.

Geoffry Dahlmer was home schooled and a good christian boy….look how he turned out. Killing and eating homosexual boys.

Religion can be harmful and detrimental humans.

Look at the headlines on Yahoo today….as is the usual….
Christians murdering doctors. Christians shooting people at holocaust museum. Christians buying kidnapped babies from Guatemala and won’t return them to their real families. Christians hating homosexuals.

Religion should definitely be kept out of Politics and public schools system. It just adds to problems. Home school if you want religion to be a priority but don’t equate Christianity or any other religion to goodness when it/they are not.

I was home schooled from grades one to ten. Yea, I lacked social skills, but I was a heck of a lot smarter than the other kids in public school. Actually, I’m not really sure if it was that I was smart or that they were just REALLY dumb. I think it was a mixture of both….. sorry, I don’t mean to sound cocky:P

I graduated when I was seventeen. I’m nineteen now and going to college majoring in English:)

Edit: Hold on, are we talking about getting a good education in math, history, science, english, and all those other subjects, or are we talking about getting a good education in Christ? Because I’m kinda getting the feeling that I missed the point…..

I home schooled for a few years because they didn’t have the right books, left out the math, learning to budget, sew, cook, fix things, handwriting, real history (especially the truth of Thanksgiving and the traitor, Jackson and the Trail of Tears, for starters), or the real history of Alexander Hamilton or Mark Twain or even Ghandi or the real reasons for our revolutionary war or the mistaken Spanish-American war, etc. And English, we had to read books weekly, now they think it is great a kid reads 1 book a month. Yes, many have turned to home-schooling until I could find a private one that addressed global history, survival skills for this generation, and how to plan for a real job. In NYC, the Japanese have their own schools, so do some of the Chinese, most Muslims and there are many others that find our system so poor, some send their kids back to their homeland for their education.

My daughter just graduated from the 4th grade at a local elementary school.

She went to Kindergarten and 1st grade at a catholic school, and then 2-4 in public school.

We are considering homeschooling her next year, rather than sending her to the public middle school.

She is intelligent, bright, artistic, and creative, so I don’t think she will have any problem. My wife is a college english teacher too, so she has the credentials to teach.

I will be involved too, since my field is science, engineering, computers, and mathematics. She will most likely get a lot out of the individual attention, and we are still planning on having her in some home-schooling co-ops or other social activities to keep her from being isolated.

It will be interesting to see how it works out. In the long run, I believe she will benefit greatly.

Most of the home-schooled children I know do pretty well, although some of the ones that do it for purely religious reasons don’t tend to be making decisions in their childs best interest.