This might be better for the Afterschool board, but I am not (yet) an afterschooler.
One of the complaints parents have about pubic schooling is that it comes with so much homework. That's one reason some parents choose to homeschool; if they are going to teach, they'd rather do it at 9:00 AM then while they're rushing to make dinner (or after).
We're having a homeschool "moment" -- a long moment in which it seems as though homeschooling is not going that well. As I turn to the possibility of public schooling, I am wondering if I am turning to a solution or simply to a new set of difficulties. Could I use help? Yes, I could use someone dedicating a good portion of her time educating my child; I'm having a rough time doing it right now. However, when I think of the specific problems I am having: a child who will quietly (or not so quietly) goof around instead of doing her work, a child who pretends not to know things so she doesn't have to move ahead, etc., I wonder if public schools really have good solutions for these things. Do they? If a child quietly sits pretending not to know what a ones column is, does the teacher detect this and provide a solution? If so, is the solution to send a note home to me? (This would be fair enough, but it puts me back exactly where I am, so I'd might as well stay here if that's the case.)
I've often wondered, too, how in the world teachers monitor handwriting in anything other than general terms -- e.g., overall neatness. If a child starts her nines at the bottom, and the handwriting curriculum says to start them elsewhere, would the teacher even notice? I don't think I would, with twenty students. That's probably still coming home to me, right?
I guess my general question is what burden, exactly, public schooling lifts off of the parent.