I went to public school as did my wife. That's why we homeschool. It was a terrible experience overall; all these kids in a totally unnatural environment wasting time. I say unnatural, because generally if someone is tormenting you daily you can get away from that person. Even at a job, you could quit and find another job. In school, you are trapped with your tormentor(s) and constantly forced to take part in social hierarchies you have no interest in being part of. I was a loser through middle school which was not fun, then in high school I was not engaged so I became bored and lazy. When I had an engaging class (like mens choir, german, spanish or woodshop; even though another kid did intentionally burn me with a hot bit off the drill press among other antics) or I was able to be creative, I put a lot of effort in and it felt rewarding. But mostly I look back and say "what a massing f*cking waste of time that was." Not only did I not spend my time doing something better, it destroyed much of my natural curiosity and creativity.

We homeschooled our two older kids, the eldest is now in their second year of an extremely competitive engineering university program. She wanted to go to Uni so she took some online classes to prep then enrolled in school in grade 9. That was completely different from my experience in large part because she chose to go to school, so she had no one to blame for "why do I have to be here?" like I did. She owned her own choices & succeeded.

As for "what about socialization" that is the most laughable part to me. Sure I learned "socialization" in school: kill or be killed. I learned to be a mean, cynical, jaded child who could survive in that institutional environment. My children were free to spend full days socializing with other kids when we got together, and met frequently at libraries & parks with other homeschool kids, as well as engaging in extracurriculars. And if they're having a spat with another kid? That's fine, they can take a break for a bit then reconnect with them later; no need to force them together daily.

The funniest thing to me about "what about socialization" is that when I was in school & chatted with a friend in class, guess what I was always told? "Do that on your own time, you don't come to school to socialize." Ha. But seriously, avoiding the maladaptive "socialization" of what I think can fairly be called "industrial schooling" is one of the biggest perks of homeschooling.

The extracurriculars were easier too because they were not already tired from an early wakeup and full day of school! My younger kids who are now in regular school now are absolutely fried after a day at school + extracurriculars.

The amount of energy I spend now supporting school for my younger kids is crazy. Stressful mornings harrying sleepy kids out of bed and out the door, kids upset over bullying and inequity in the classroom, begging for designer clothes (where did that come from?), getting them to do their homework, oh and then there's "teaching my kids shit they were supposed to learn in school but the teacher didn't teach them" i.e. I'm having to "homeschool" them in addition to school. Sooo many conflicts spring from school. Having my kids in school often feels like more work that homeschooling rather than less.

Academics are easy. Tons of free online resources + Outschool where you can pay a teacher for one-off classes. My older kids took the 8 week essay writing class then breezed through high school english. When younger, if they wanted to play iPad I'd say "do 30m khan academy then you can do 30m iPad." Regular trips to the library & read to them... it's really not hard to cover academics through middle school, then if they want to go to high school, go ahead. Or apprentice, or focus on something else.

If you have any questions about homeschooling from a veteran parent who's also had kids in public school, let me know.