"The author resents staying out of school because it also meant staying out of more diverse and more regular social interaction."
How is sitting in a room with other people, all of whom are within 12 months of your own age, with an authority figure at the front constantly telling you what to do, a "diverse" social interaction?
American schools were designed to produce factory workers who would stay on-task based on the direction of a foreman and bells ringing at certain times. That world doesn't exist any more.
The public schools I attended were far more economically, culturally, ideologically, and ethnically diverse than both my private college and post-college work environments (and you can throw in gender diversity too wrt my work environments). I would not have met kids like this otherwise -- certainly not if I had been in a homeschool group socializing with the children of parents who had similar philosophical views about schooling.
Public education is certainly in need of big reforms, but I'm grateful for the diversity I was exposed to attending one. It's a big part of what keeps me grounded in the ridiculous Silicon Valley bubble.
How is sitting in a room with other people, all of whom are within 12 months of your own age, with an authority figure at the front constantly telling you what to do, a "diverse" social interaction?
American schools were designed to produce factory workers who would stay on-task based on the direction of a foreman and bells ringing at certain times. That world doesn't exist any more.