It sounds like we’re in similar situations then, as my DH has reservations about homeschooling. I couldn’t get him to actually read this book since he doesn’t really have much free time, but I was able to convince him to let me at least give homeschooling a shot by quoting different relevant passages. For example, one of his biggest points of concern was socialization, so I read him her discussion on pages 16-17 and that allayed his fears considerably. Since we’re both engineers, I think it’s really great that she includes studies and statistics. Even if I’m not persuasive on my own, he finds numbers convincing.

I ordered it from Amazon since our library doesn’t have it. I like the idea of homeschooling and was homeschooled until halfway through 2nd grade. DH is very pro public school. Maybe I can get him to read this book.

If you do read it, I hope you find it as useful and informative as I did. I’d be really interested to know what you think. I should warn you that if you don’t homeschool your kids, the author is extremely persuasive. I’d almost recommend not reading it if you’re 100% set on keeping your kids in school, because I think school is a totally reasonable choice and I’d hate to have people that have made that decision second guessing themselves, especially since I’ve never actually homeschooled. I come from a family of educators, and I completely agree with you that great teachers given the freedom (and trust) to develop their own methods of teaching and curriculum is ideal. However, even though I have such overwhelming and great respect for teachers as a profession, it really was this book that made me decide to homeschool. I start with my 5 year old in the fall and we’ll see how it goes.

I agree with you on standardized testing. Teachers should definitely have freedom to develop their own curriculum. I think Common Core allows room for this to some extent, but many teachers are too overwhelmed with the double task of meeting the standards AND creating quality curriculum. They often don’t have time or resources to do both, so curriculum suffers, which is tragic.