Re: You going to home-school them?

That can indeed be a useful function of schools.

Presumably you aren't familiar with what has been discussed in the past, and we tend to use some shorthand rather than repeating the same discussions ad nauseum. Suffice it to say that the readership here is not opposed to education, we just don't see much of it happening in government schools. Rather, we see indoctrination and brain-washing.

I have personally seen children in poor countries at their jobs, and they perform pretty well as useful members of society and often to their own benefit. Such jobs do not need to be full time, nor do they need to interfere with one's education. In fact, working is in itself a type of education: one learns business skills, money management, and how to deal with customers - in ways that schools cannot replicate.

Besides this, the government schools are frequently quite bad in the U.S.A. There are exceptions, primarily in rich neighborhoods, but many are quite deplorable, and all the "reforms" just make the situation worse.

There is one reform that would make quite a difference: let the students (or their families) choose which school they attend, and let the money follow the student. This is more or less how the system works in several Scandinavian nations and in Japan.

Traditional education has its place - if done well, it is well-suited to many children. Still, many children would learn better without going to school at all, and by the time that teenagers are wanting to drop out of school they generally have good reason to. Forcing them to attend a failing school is not doing any favor either to them or to their fellow students.