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There is no doubt that many children who are home-schooled often do very well when it comes to having information. Many of national spelling champs have been home-schooled. As someone who has had the occasional ax to grind with my children's formal education I'm the first to admit that formal education doesn't always do the job of offering the excellent education every child deserves.

Having said that, and in spite of my own disenchantment with some schools and school policies, I have to say that if my three children were just starting out now I would still enroll them in formal education. My approach to their education was always to supplement the information offered by the schools because the fact was the schools didn't offer them the type of work and challenge they needed.

In a way I can't believe I actually think that all the experiences children get at school are equally or even more important than acquiring facts and information; and there's a part of me that is more than aware of some of the negative things kids encounter in the school environment. Still, the world has negative things in it. One of the purposes of school is for kids to learn how to live in a world where all is not the way things are in their nice, little, home with their two, loving, parents.

Children benefit from having their "own life" outside of home. They deal with teachers and other school officials on a daily basis, form friendships, and experience a sense of belonging. They rise to meet challenges at school too. It has always seemed to me that one important part of learning to become independent is in having that outside-the-home, school experience that essentially belongs only to the child, himself (and, no, I'm not implying that parents should be "hands-off" whatsoever).

I have kids who were well ahead of their peers in most areas, and I wasn't happy that their educational needs were essentially neglected by the schools. They went on and went to college, but there's no doubt about it - their academic achievement was affected by their public school experience. There are times when I've wondered if I should have managed their education beyond just supplementing their formal education because these young people have very high ability and could have been in the top of their class at an Ivy League school rather than graduating from non-Ivy-League colleges. On the one hand, I'm pleased with the people they've become and with their plans for their own future.

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