Reply #18: Yes.

[LWolf]

I meet home schooled kids all the time; it's popular in my area.

Some of my students are home schooled because locals don't trust "government" education, and can't afford the local church schools. They get pulled out of school somewhere in middle school, when content gets more specific and adolescent desires to create a social sphere outside of family emerge. They usually end up getting GEDs, because they can't finish or pass high school course work being taught at home by parents who aren't educated themselves.

Some are home schooled because they have busy lives outside of school; school interferes with hunting seasons, rodeo season, calving season, etc.

Some I know because parents try home schooling them, it fails, and then they bring them to us to "fix" things. I had an 8th grader this last year who had never attended a public school; she was a product of both home schooling and church schooling. Her mother was shocked at the level of expectation, both in academics and personal responsibility and work habits, and how far behind her daughter was. She insisted that she be tested for special ed, which she did not qualify. She had no learning disabilities, and made astounding growth over the course of the year.

I also have known a very few home-schooled kids who thrived. That's because they had well-educated parents who had the time, the commitment, and the resources necessary to ensure that they were well-rounded both academically and socially.

That's really the key.

Home-schooled kids run the gamut academically and socially, depending on the home and the parents.

So do publicly schooled students; they just have more exposure to ideas, knowledge, methods, etc. outside of their home environment.