Spend time, even briefly, chatting with homeschoolers, and they will inevitably indicate that the most frequently asked question they encounter is about socialization, not academics. Neighbors, extended family, critics, and clerics have always been curious about how homeschoolers acquire social skills. These are apparently the same concerns of the National Education Association, which adopted an anti-homeschooling resolution at the association's annual convention in the summer of 1999. Too often missing from the debate on home schooling are the benefits that public schools provide children, advantages that most common measures of education success overlook. Educating children to live and work in a global society where they will have to interact with people from different races, economic status, backgrounds, and ethnic groups is best taught by experience.
Public schools provide such experiences.
Further, public schools offer students the opportunity to sharpen essential skills that are required in the job market today, such as problem solving in cooperative groups. That sentiment is echoed by Lyons' colleague, Bob Chase, National Education Association president. It is learning to work with others and interacting with people from different races, backgrounds, and ethnic groups. Public education represents a slice of reality that goes beyond participation in 4-H activities, ballet classes, and church socials. It is a preparation for the real world that students will have to face whether they are leaving the security of a school or their parents' home.