"Of course, MY job is essential!"

Yahoo! News - Home Schooling Is on the Rise:

"WASHINGTON - Almost 1.1 million students were home-schooled last year, their numbers pushed higher by parents frustrated over school conditions and wanting to include morality and religion with the English and math.

The estimated figure of students taught at home has grown 29 percent since 1999, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the Education Department.

In surveys, parents offered two main reasons for choosing home schooling: 31 percent cited concerns about the environment of regular schools, and 30 percent wanted the flexibility to teach religious or moral lessons. Third, at 16 percent, was dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools.

Also, Feinberg said, parents must consider whether their children will emerge from home schooling with limited exposure to other children and various cultures. More federal research is needed to help resolve such questions about home schooling, he said.

"At some point, children are going to have to interact with the rest of the world," he said. "If they haven't had the opportunity to build their emotional muscles so they have that capacity to interact, how effective are they going to be outside their cloistered environment?"

Oh PLEASE! Keep in mind that this last quote is from the head of the National Association of School Psychologists. Do you think he might have a vested interest in casting homeschooling in a negative light?? Of course he has to convince himself that homeschooled kids are all backwards, socially-inept piles of Silly Putty, because certainly no child could become a fully-functioning member of society without the sage involvement of a School Psychologist.