were uneducated on how many successful homeschoolers teach their children. It is very common to be part of a group or co-op where one parent with a particular background, be it math, science, English, art, etc., acts as a tutor for all the kids in the group. My homeschooled 12-year-old participated in a science fair a couple of weeks ago and had to present to a panel made up of practicing engineers and scientists. I have never seen anything done to that level in public school for kids of that age. Maybe some schools do that, my experience is that they don't.

The homeschool community in our area has formed a homeschool sports association that fields teams in probably every sport, including football, basketball, soccer, track, golf, bowling, cheerleading, etc., and its teams are very competitive with public school teams. My daughter's homeschool high school soccer team actually had a winning record against 5A (highest division in the state) schools last year.

Of course there are some homeschoolers that that are total failures, just like there are some public-schooled families that are total failures. But being in an active homeschool community, I happen to be surrounded by an overwhelming number of kids that are pretty dang impressive, that in my opinion, on average, are better prepared for life that the public schooled kids that I interact with. If so many people here have no problem bagging on homeschooling, then I don't feel bad about bragging on how homeschooling, when done right, is usually better than public school.