The idea of home-schooling has always felt weird to me. Although I agree with critics of traditional schooling that schools are quite inefficient at teaching kids, schools provide a social life that seems really hard to replicate with home-schooling.

Bryan Caplan recently wrote about home-schooling his two oldest kids and it seems like at least they turned out pretty well. While the kids socialized much less with others their own age, they got more opportunities to socialize with adults, and this worked well for them:

The plain fact is that my sons grew up with very few friends their own age.  Critics will definitely blame homeschooling, but the truth is that the twins had few friends their own age even when they were in regular school.  They’re old souls, who naturally have much more in common with adults.  (That said, they are the most nurturing older brothers I have ever known).  And since the twins were homeschooled, they were able to socialize with hundreds of fascinating, accomplished adults.  We lived abroad for many months, and made friends in Germany, Britain, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Guatemala, Mexico, and all over the U.S.  Especially Texas, where we spent three months of Covid.  And with the exception of those three awful weeks of high school and three agonizing months of filling out college applications, Aidan and Tristan were pleased as punch throughout.