One of the criticisms that has been levelled at homeschooling over the last couple of decades is that students are deprived of interaction with others which stunts development of their social skills. If that's true it's hardly obvious in the students I've taught.
On the other hand, the students I've been fortunate to work with have been invariably personable, bright, well-educated (although maybe not up on the latest doings of the Kardashians) and academically disciplined and motivated.
The resort to online "learning" during the pandemic revealed a lot of unsavory stuff going on in some of the classrooms across the country, and the tardiness with which schools reopened in the wake of the Covid subsidence inspired a lot more parents to tackle homeschooling for themselves.
I suppose that many more will turn to this option in the future, or, if they can afford it, to private schooling. The infiltration of progressive ideology into public school classrooms has rendered them to toxic for a lot of parents, especially those who desire an education for their children that's not going to undermine their faith or their values.
When my generation went through high school most educators saw it as their personal and professional obligation to transmit the values and traditions of their communities to their charges. Today, too many educators, at all levels of education, see it as their mission to upend those values and traditions and to set their students at odds with their parents.
It's a good sign that parents are fighting back by recalling school board members and/or removing their children from offending schools. Perhaps as more parents hold their public schools accountable for what goes on in the classroom, private schools and homeschooling will become less necessary, but until then they're an attractive alternative.
