my kids are too young; but it will probably depend entirely on the school system we end up living in. i was fortunate enough to go to a
very good public high school, but we were an engineer town (Huntsville, Alabama), and the parents were heavily involved in making sure that that school was quality. If we were fortunate enough to live in such an area, then we will send our kids to public education.
failing that, however, we will probably send them to private high schools. We read regularly to our three year old (the two month old not so much), and he knows all the letters, numbers, etc; so I'm fairly certain that the home environment is the dominant factor for younger education. we might do private middle schools if the public ones are just horrendous, but until they hit their teens i'm less concerned about the influence of the school. they will certainly have to answer to me for their education, and summers will not be scot-free.
as for homeschooling, my wife was home-schooled when she was younger, but frankly cares less about education than i do. since i am the breadwinner, she would have to home-school the kids and she doesn't want to.
I'm fine with the
idea; but i think that i can 'home school' my kids even while sending them off during the day. parental involvement in homework, reading assignments, etc. is a dominant factor in a childs' education.
a point, perhaps, to bring up is that we are
not sure at all that we will be paying for college. i'm beginning to think that 1) upper education is being inflated, 2) degrees that aren't directly related to your job aren't all that helpful, certainly not as much as several years of experience and 3) if you don't work for something, you won't value it. So i will probably either encourage my boys to do a stint in the military first and go to school on the GI Bill, or offer to match them dollar for dollar for every scholarship or job dollar they put towards their own education. that way when they get into the higher stakes play of college, they have some skin in the game.