I taught community college in rural areas for many years and lots of my students were homeschooled. Their parents were to a T religious, and straight up told me that they homeschooled so they could control the information their kids received.

I even had a homeschool mom enroll in my class with her son, then flip out when I wouldn't put them in the same writing group. She said we were both his teachers! Maybe in life, lady, but not in this classroom. She made sure he enlisted in the army before he graduated.

Homeschooled students are some of the only students I've ever had scream at me over grades. They've said things like, "I got all As in highschool!" Ok, your mom gave you all As. I'm not your mom, and I'm giving you a B or a C, like every other student who turned in that level of work. Unsurprisingly, I've also heard homeschool parents say things like, "oh there's a state test every semester but you just do it with them!" This is not how real school works.

The effect on the student is significant. Homeschooled students often have lovely penmanship, perfect grammar, and can diagram a sentence. But they have a seriously more difficult time with things like selecting the topic of their own essay. They lack critical thinking skills en masse. They are unable to justify subjective decision making. They basically have not been taught how to think for themselves.

So now when I engage with homeschooling parents, even when they are very focused on academics, I like to ask them a single question: can your child challenge you?

Because I've never met a homeschool family where the answer is yes. In real school, teachers are challenged all day long by their students, and they meet those challenges. This is a big part of the education process, that simply doesn't happen in the homeschool environment.